A Critical Discourse Study Of News Reports About "MH-17 Downed In Eastern Ukraine"

Critical discourse analysis(CDA) is a paradigm for discourse analysis originated from Western linguistics circle. It aims, by analyzing text, discursive practice and social practice, to disclose ideologies and unfair power relations that are hidden behind mass discourse. And among them, news discourse is one of the most important study objects. The present study conducts a critical analysis of different media’s news reports about the same incident. By analyzing news reports about “MH-17 downed in eastern Ukraine” from China Daily and The Washington Post, linguistic differences are discussed and the hidden ideologies behind texts are also revealed.This study, within the framework of Fairclough’s three-dimensional model, employs Halliday’s Systemic Functional Grammar to analyze 10 samples in China Daily and Washington Post from three perspectives: text, discursive practice and social practice. On the level of text, it uses classification and transitivity to analyze the linguistic features. And on the level of discursive practice, it utilizes discourse representation modes and news sources to show the news production process. And finally on the level of social practice, it places news discourse in the social and cultural context in seeks to explain the text and discourse representation. Whereby, it uncovers the different ideological meaning in the two media and also explains reasons.Research findings mainly involve in two points as follows. Firstly, there are great differences in linguistic level and discursive practice level for Chinese media and American media. The reason for these differences is due to different ideologies and political stances. Secondly, news reports are not definitely as objective and authentic as we think. It is more or less influenced by some attitudes and standpoints. This is because news agencies are limited to their countries’ social and cultural contexts and serve for different classes.