A Contrastive Analysis Of Transitivity Of The News Reports Themed China's Smog In Chinese And American Media

Keywords such as “Smog”,“Orange” smog alert,“Nanjing smog” and “Northern haze”have been ranked as the most-discussed topics on Sina Microblog(a most desirable information exchange platform,which is expected to have more than 340 million users in China at the end of 2018)more than once in the last two years.As a developing country with rapid economic growth,the environmental issues of smog in China has attracted attention from foreign media increasingly because of their impacts on the whole world since 2013 and different media try to reported.Then close attention has been paid to the environmental issue among netizens and relevant departments.Simultaneously,“smog” in China has become the primary reporting focus once more of domestic and international media.News reports should report and convey information about events in accordance with the underlying principle of objectivity and fairness.However in reality,it is affected by the reporter's cultural backgrounds,views or positions,mainstream ideologies and other aspects.Applying Halliday's transitivity system as the theoretical framework combined with the perspective of critical discourse analysis,the author of the study conducts a comparative analysis of 60 news reports concerning smog in China from China Daily and The New York Times.This article uses both quantitative and qualitative methods in order to work out their similarities and differences in the use of transitivity system and explore the potential reasons and the hidden information reports attempt to convey,with the purpose of helping readers understand the news better and abandoning subjective reading modes.This study has found that all news reports related to Chinese smog from China Daily and The New York Times adopted those six transitivity processes,among which material processes accounted for the largest proportion,verbal processes held the second stage,followed by relational processes,then mental processes,existential processes and behavioral processes.As for the significant differences,there exist in the frequencies of the mental and verbal process;nevertheless and it is not found in the other four processes.With the in-depth analysis of these six transitivity processes,it is discovered that the two media have embedded their respective attitudes,viewpoints and ideologies to varying degrees.China Daily was more objective,showing the unity of citizens and optimism in respect of management measures.Nevertheless,The New York Times focused on reporting the severity of China's smog,people's fear and the indifference and inaction of relevant authorities.After this analysis,a modest contribution is expected to the transitivity analysis of news discourse.And the study is helpful for readers to understand the hidden meanings behind news reports and improve their anti-controlling awareness.