A Critical Discourse Analysis Of News Reports On The 20th Anniversary Of Hong Kong's Return In Chinese And British Media

Critical Discourse Analysis is a discipline in the field of discourse analysis,originated in the 1970 s,which is different from the traditional discourse analysis method.It not only focuses on the surface characteristics and meaning of language,but also focuses on the value orientation and ideology behind the discourse.With the development of modern society and the popularization of mass media,news plays the important role as the intermediary of information dissemination.News is the representation of what has happened after the process of language selecting and filtering.News as the public discourse,the idea and focus in it are determined by the social background and news reporter's value orientation,implying views and stances of the news media toward related reports.This thesis selects 38 pieces of news from China Daily and The Guardian on the 20 th anniversary of Hong Kong's return and adopts the three-dimensional model of Fairclough as the theoretical framework to make a critical analysis in the level of text,discourse practice and social practice.Based on the quantitative and qualitative research method,the purpose is to explore how the Chinese and British media use language to transmit ideology and further explain the deep reasons influence the language choice.At the level of text analysis,transitivity and classification will be explored to describe the linguistic feature;At the discourse practice level,the news source and the reporting mode which influence the producing and understanding of news will be studied;At the social practice level,the reasons behind the linguistic choice in the text level and discourse practice level will be explained through the discussion of institutional context and social context.Based on above analysis,the relation among discourse,ideology and power will be disclosed.The thesis finds that Chinese and British media illustrate the stance by utilizing different linguistic forms.China Daily uses more commendatory words while The Guardian uses more negative and bias words to demonstrate views.Six types of transitivity processes all appear in the two media,but the distribution and specific realization of the transitivity process in the two media are not the same.China Daily uses more material process to stress the help from the central government in developing Hong Kong while The Guardian uses more mental process to show negative attitude toward the event.At the level of discourse practice,the percentage of specific source in China Daily is used more than in The Guardian.China Daily uses more direct discourse while The Guardian uses more indirect discourse.These prove that China Daily is more reliable than The Guardian.Through the analysis of the linguistic feature in the former two levels,it can be found that the ideology transmitted by the two media is different.China Daily aims to shape the stability and prosperity situation of Hong Kong and the responsible image of China,holding the positive stance toward the event.The Guardian is the mainstream media in Britain which serves for British interests.It underlines the threat posed by China's development to other countries deliberately and expresses discontent with the development of Hong Kong in the past 20 years.At the level of social practice,institutional context and social context are the key factors which influence the language form.In the research of news institutional context,it mainly focuses on three aspects: the nature of news,the connection between news agency and state and the relation between news organization and the reader.The research on social context will be mainly discussed from historical factor,political factor,economic factor and cultural factor to explain the social factor which influences the ideological difference.This thesis illustrates the feasibility of Fairclough's three-dimensional model in news analysis,which is a useful supplement in the field of news research.News is the result of journalists' independent choice of language in a certain social context.The news not only undertakes the role of information transmission,but also acts as a battlefield where intricate social organizations seek for the power of interpretation.Therefore,people should identify the content of news report objectively and improve their ability of critical thinking.In addition,this research has positive significance in the second language teaching and translation practice.