A Critical Discourse Analysis Of Xinjiang-related News Reports In China Daily And The Guardian

Critical discourse analysis(CDA) aims to uncover the hidden relationship among discourse, ideology and power by analyzing linguistic features. In this research, 68 pieces of news reports on Xinjiang’s serial violence from 2008 to 2013 are chosen from China Daily and The Guardian. The implicit ideology in each newspaper and the way by which news producers force their political opinions on their readers are disclosed by this contrastive analysis.A combination of Fairclough’s Three-dimensional model and Halliday’s Systemic Function Grammar(SFL) is used as theoretical framework. The research is conducted at three levels: text, discursive practice and social practice. By the first level, lexical choice, transitivity and transformation are discussed and analyzed. At the second level,intertextuality is explored via investigating speech sources and reporting modes. At the final level, the wide social, historical and cultural background are taken into consideration to explain the relationship among language, ideology and power group.The three levels altogether construct a complete and comprehensible discursive event to the readers, in order for them to better understand the hidden political views in the newspapers.The research shows that: 1. Linguistic features are different in China Daily and The Guardian, including classification, transitivity, and transformation. The two of them tend to take advantage of different language devices while reporting the same event. 2.China Daily cites words mainly from Chinese official news releasing channel, while The Guardian quotes a lot from individuals and “human rights organizations” who are antagonistic to the Chinese government. 3. The different ideologies of the two newspapers are indicators of the different power groups they represent.The researching value of this paper is fivefold: 1. It extends the field of contrastive CDA research to Xinjiang-related news reports. 2. It tests the universal applicability of the proposed theoretical framework, i.e. a combination of Three-dimensionalframework and Systemic Functional Grammar. 3. It helps enhance readers’ critical awareness in their news reading and establish their sensibility towards the hidden ideologies in news reports. 4. The result of this research also benefits news translators and English teachers in their work. 5. Analyzing how the western media describe Chinese affairs offers a valuable reference to China’s external propaganda.