| Projection is considered as a language phenomenon of reporting others' or our own words and thoughts. As a complicated phenomenon, projection has been probed into by the linguists in different fields from different perspectives which are generalized into two categories: one focuses on the analysis of syntactic structure, the other is concerned with the study of functional-semantics. Based on the Systemic Functional Linguistics, the functional linguists discuss and analyze projection systematically and logically. According to Halliday, projection is a logical-semantic relationship shown in the clause complexes and embedding, which represents the indirect experience of the speaker objectively and subjectively. The accuracy and objectivity of discourse, to some extent, can be realized by projection language. Projection is frequently used in news discourse since news discourse tends to report the words of the reported and the authorities directly or indirectly. However, projection in news has not received enough attention. Hence, it is of vital importance to explore projection in news discourse.This paper attempts to analyze how the three metafunctions are realized through projection in news discourse from the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistics. The samples are collected from the Chinese and American media respectively, which are concerned with the same topic on the commemoration of the 70 th anniversary of the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War. 11 pieces of Chinese news are collected from the official website China Daily, and 10 pieces of American news are chosen from Washington Post. First, all the modes of projection and different projection types have been marked manually and the frequencies of each type are counted based on Halliday's projection theory; Second, an elaborate analysis has been made to explore how ideational meaning, interpersonal meaning and textual meaning are realized through projection in news discourse; Third, some similarities and differences in projection are summarized and explained.This study testifies that Systemic Functional Linguistics are effectively analytic tools to analyze projection phenomenon in news discourse. By analyzing metafunctional meanings of projection, the author find that there are some similarities and differences in projection of these two kinds of news discourse. The similarities are mainly generalized into these aspects: 1) In terms of modes of projection, paratactic projections are favored over hypotactic ones and embedding projetions are rarely used. 2) As for level of projection, verbal projections outnumber mental projections overwhelmingly. 3) As far as speech function is concerned, propositional projections occupy the largest proportion, and the number of proposal projections is rather less than that of propositional projections. Meanwhile, some differences are shown as follows: 1) In terms of projecting sources, the number of overt projecting sources used in Chinese news discourse occupies a larger proportion than that used in American news discourse. 2) As for projecting verbs, Chinese reporters tend to use positive projecting verbs, whereas American media choose some negative projecting verbs to report this event. 3) The unmarked themes in Chinese news are favored over marked ones, but there are a larger number of marked themes in American news. And this paper holds that the similarities are attributed to the nature of news and can be explained by mutual predictability of projection and genre and the differences, to a large extent, are due to the cultural, social, institutional and political factors.Based on the theory of Systemic Functional Linguistics, this paper analyzes how metafunctional meanings are realized through projection in Chinese and American English news discourse, summarizes similarities and differences in projection of these two kinds of news and explains the causes of similarities and differences tentatively. This paper attempts to explore projection in news discourse under different cultural backgrounds, which is not involved in the previous studies. This study is to help readers have a good understanding of the realizations of projection in news discourse and grasp the writer's views and attitudes more easily. Meanwhile, it enlightens English learners to use projection language accurately and to express their attitudes and viewpoints scientifically. |
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