Critical Discourse Analysis Of News Reports On Traditional Chinese Medicine By Media From Major Western Countries

Media have acquired a very important role in modern life.Our life immerses with the Internet and mobile phone every day.Therefore,it's an urgent task in the social development to improve our comprehension and cognition of the media language,in order to have a clearer idea about the hidden ideologies behind language.In the author's opinion,the critical discourse analysis which focuses on media language analysis can play its significant part in this background of information age.The focus of news reports on traditional Chinese medicine is on human being's health and inherence,on the evolution of mankind which differs from the news report of political and economic aspect.It surpasses the time and space,traverses the territories,the idea of Backing to nature,backing to health” is essential requirements for modern people.In this thesis,the author retrieved the related materials from Lexis Nexis Academic,and made critical discourse analysis of news coverage of traditional Chinese medicine by media from four western countries media(UK,Australia,US and Canada).This thesis is based on empirical analysis,assisted by the software WORDSMITH6.0 with its functions of keywords,concordance,probing into the focal points as well as the developmental status of traditional Chinese medicine in the four western countries,trying to discover the hidden ideologies behind its overt discourses as well as offering some data support for exploring the globalization of traditional Chinese medicine.The study shows that the coverage of the news by media from the four countries tends to be unbiased.However,owing to their less familiarity with Chinese medical theories and culture,the toxicity and animal parts which Chinese medicine ingredients involved,the western countries are very concerned with these aspects.The governments,on the one hand take more measures to enhance the regulation and training of practitioners;on the other hand,carry out more research and inspection on Chinese medicine.Chinese medicine as an integral part of “alternative medicine” is still on the fringe in the west.