| Critical Discourse Analysis has em erged as an ef ficient method to analyze linguistic features of and the ideology behind discourse which m ainly includes political discourse and news discourse. In CDA, Fairclough’ s three-dimensional model is generally regarded as the theoretical fram ework. In this case, the present study aims to make a contrastive study on th e news discourse from the approach of CDA based on Fairclough’s three-dimensional framework.The present study is based on the self- built corpora with Halliday ’s Systemic Functional Grammar as the analyzing param eter. It involves altogether 31 ne ws reports on the acquisition case of Sm ithfield, the biggest meat processor in America, by Shuanghui, the lar gest counterpart in China, with 16 from China Daily while 15 from New York Times respectively. This case of Shuanghui buying Smithfield actually lasted almost four months, from May 29 th, 2013 to September 26 th, 2013. Those news articles are collected on line from the of ficial websites of the two newspapers. T o collect the data ef fectively, key words “Shuanghui” and “Smithfield” are entered in the searching bar. Based on the relevance of the searching results, the resea rch data from China Daily and New York Times are gathered.Concerning the research procedures, there are three stages to im plement the study. Initially, the description stage in cludes the analysis through the linguistic parameters like trans itivity, lexical classification and m odality. At the inte rpreting stage, reporting verbs are discussed. At the final stage of explanation, social conditions involving economic, cultural and political background of the two countries are analyzed. After the data discussion th rough the three stages, m ajor findings are concluded as follows: T o begin with, in terms of the trans itivity system, both newspapers use m ore of the m aterial, verbal and relational processes. The verbal process is more frequently used and the material process is less frequently in China Daily that in the counterpart. Second, as to lexical classification, both newspapers emphasize on the acquisition. However, China Daily tends to complete the acquisition deal, while New York Times focuses more on the doubts and counterviews toward the case. Third, with respect to modality, the modal verbs with medium and low value are the majority. Based on the different distribution of modal verbs in the newspapers, the attitude in China Daily is milder than the other one. Fourth, for reporting verbs, the more frequencies of neutral and negative reporting verbs in China Daily shows it is more objective and moderate.According to the m ajor findings, the present research m ay provide the implications to news m edia and read ers. On the one hand, news m edia like newspapers can m ake full use of linguist ic strategy to m ake the reports more persuasive and effective. In this case, news m edia may strive for benefits as well as justice. On the other hand, readers should k eep much more aware of the ideologies presented by the linguistic strategy by news m edia so that they are able to keep m ore objective and think more critically. |
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