Discursive Construction Of Smog

Since the end of 2011, more than 30 cities in China have been shrouded in the smog. Then the media including TV, newspapers and magazines both at home and abroad spend large amount of space and time in reporting the hot issue. Researches of the smog problem in the fields like environment, politics, economy and journalism and communications also appear in large numbers.Just as Fowler (1991) states, news is not a "value-free reflection of’facts’", this study sets out to investigate the discourses of the smog problem from 2010 to 2015 in the mainstream media of China and America, i.e., China Daily and the New York Times, in order to get a full understanding of how the two newspapers construct the language patterns of the smog problem and the image of China. The study employs a synergistic methodology of Corpus Linguistic and Critical Discourse Analysis.In this study, the analytical techniques include frequent words, keywords, concordance and collocations in WordSmith 5.0 as well as the Log-likelihood Ratio Calculator are used to make a micro-analysis of the corpora. While in the macro-analysis section, the results of the micro-analysis are explained within the social context. In conclusion, the analysis manifests that (1) China was portrayed as a country in which the cities are shrouded in the smog while the departments including the government and other environmental organizations and so on are taking active actions in improving the air quality in the corpora of China Daily. In general, the discourses of the smog problem in it show how People in China are working together to improve the air quality in China; (2) However, in the New York Times, the reports generally are negative. They quote a lot from the officials, the departments and the residents both at home and abroad, it seemingly shows the objectivity and reliability of the news, but on the contrary, it criticizes Chinese government for concentrating only on developing the economy but ignoring the people and the environment. Furthermore, the discourses put China, India and America together, on one hand, it reports the severity of the smog problem in China and India as well as their influenceto the global environment. And China was also judged for not releasing the data of PM 2.5 in time and even revising the data; but on the other hand, it highlights what they have done to improve the environment in the United States and the world.