A Critical Discourse Analysis Of Wu Ying Case Reports

Since Zhejiang Higher People's Court sustained the death penalty of Wu Ying who was accused of the crime of fraud in fund-raising in the second instance in 2012,Wu Ying case has attracted great publicity especially the hyped media coverage,causing widespread debate among the public,exerting great pressure on the court and even affecting judicial justice and harmony of the whole society.This thesis attempts to investigate how news media report legal case to convey their attitudes and ideologies on the case and how the news reports affect the case trial by analyzing legal case news reports from the perspective of critical discourse analysis(hereafter referred to as CDA).To be more specific,this thesis aims to scrutinize the discursive strategies adopted by the news media to report Wu Ying case and the ideologies hidden behind these strategies.Methodologically speaking,this research is a corpus-based qualitative discourse analysis.Van Dijk's sociocognitive approach will be adopted,in which discourse,cognition and society components are involved.The data of this thesis consist of 48 pieces of Chinese news reports on Wu Ying case ranging from January 18,2012 to May 21,2012 during which the case was rampantly reported by the news media.Through the critical analysis of the news reports on Wu Ying case within the social and economic context,this research makes the following findings.Firstly,three prominent linguistic strategies are detected in these news reports,i.e.,deliberately choosing news topics,adopting Relational process to inappropriately define the case and heavily quoting speeches and viewpoints from individuals,groups or materials that have no direct relation to the case with the purpose of making their reports objective and convincing.These strategies damage the seriousness and impartiality of legal news report and the balance between judicial independence and media supervision.Secondly,the core ideologies behind these news reports are the news media's criticism on the death penalty in economic crimes and financial monopoly,and wishes to reform the tough death penalty system and legalize private finance.The findings of this study shed light on how to balance judicial independence and media supervision and arouse the state legislatures' and policymakers' attention to correctly interprete legal case news report.In view of the special historical background of the case and principles of reporting legal case,we should take a critical view of media coverage on legal case.We have to admit that some current institutions to some extent are unable to keep up with the pace of the social development at the stage of China's transformation.Therefore,it is important for the news media to release accurate and balanced news and avoid extreme remarks.