A Critical Discourse Analysis Of News Reports On Homosexual Community

Critical discourse analysis employs different linguistic approaches to analyze discourse which is viewed as a form of social practice with an aim of disclosing the ideology behind discourse.This thesis tries to make a critical discourse analysis of fifty news reports on homosexual community chosen from China Daily,aiming to unveil the underlying ideologies in the news reports and explore its social,historical and political roots.This thesis adopts Fairclough's Three-dimension Model and Halliday's Systemic-functional Grammar as its theoretical framework and analytical tool to make an analysis of the news reports on homosexual community from China Daily.The analysis is conducted at three levels:text level,discursive practice level and social practice level.At the text level,transitivity processes in news headlines,lexical classification of key words and four modal systems are analyzed to investigate the linguistic features of the news reports selected.At discursive practice level,reported speech including news sources,reporting modes and reporting verbs are explored to interpret the interaction between news reporters and readers in the process of production and comprehension of the news reports selected.At social practice level,social,historical and political contexts are taken into account to explain the underlying ideologies in the news reports selected.After the analysis,this thesis finds that today,the public has become more and more tolerant towards homosexual community.In the news reports on homosexual community from China Daily,material process,relational process,verbal process and mental process in news headlines,key words,four modal systems in the news reports,and a large number of direct speeches from the public,government and homosexual people are employed in the hope of strengthening the objectivity and fairness of news reports and constituting the equal gender identity of homosexual people,and demystifying homosexual community in China and homosexual community in other countries.From these news reports,we can also find that in China,homosexual people have experienced a change,a change from keeping silence to appealing for their equal rights.While in some other countries,though thereare some achievements in recognition of gay marriage,discrimination against homosexual people still exists,especially in the countries where religion is dominant in people's lives.