A Contrastive Critical Discourse Analysis Of News Reports On THAAD In Washington Post And China Daily

News reports are effective in shaping readers' attitudes,values and standpoints.They are supposed to be value-free in representing the events,although it is hard to do.However,the reports concerning Terminal High Altitude Area Defense(henceforth THAAD)issue in Washington Post and China Daily are embedded with their own attitudes,values and ideologies.This thesis makes a contrastive study of the ideologies embedded in the reports on THAAD issue in Washington Post and China Daily through conducting a corpus-based critical discourse analysis(henceforth CDA)and examining news sources.Specifically,concordancing software AntConc 3.2.1w and text analysis software T-LAB Plus 2018 are used to sort out keywords,thematic clusters and concordance lines of the related parties in THAAD issue in the two self-built corpora: Washington Post Corpus composed of 60215 words and China Daily Corpus of 60460 words.The computed results extracted by AntConc and T-LAB,the distribution of news sources and the presented voices are described and interpreted with the theoretical guidance of van Dijk's socio-cognitive approach to CDA.The thesis begins with a corpus-based contrastive analysis of the hidden ideologies in the news reports on THAAD issue.The ideologies embedded in semantic macrostructures and microstructures are explored with the support of the authentic and statistically significant data computed by AntConc and T-LAB.Specifically,keywords extracted by AntConc and thematic clusters sorted out by T-LAB reveal the general meanings of the Corpora.Concordance lines of the related parties in THAAD issue are illustrated to present the local meanings.Through the analyses of semantic macrostructures and microstructures,it is found that Washington Post intends to spread that deploying THAAD is meant to protect America and its allies from the enormous nuclear threat posed by North Korea,from which America and its allies will benefit.In comparison,China Daily holds that it is better to realize denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula through dialogues and negotiations in a bid to maintain regional tactical balance,stability and peace rather than deploying THAAD which guarantees the absolute security of America but undermines the national security of neighboring countries and even triggers an arms race because of the destroyed balance and the oncoming security dilemma.The thesis continues with an examination on news sources and voices that are selected to be heard in order to explore the ideologies embedded in the reports.It is found that both Washington Post and China Daily have a polarized distribution of news sources.They select voices of the authorities from their own country to be heard,which indicates their intentions to spread their own country's attitudes and ideologies.Furthermore,Washington Post intentionally selects voices that are helpful in constructing positive image of America and negative China and North Korea,while China Daily shows no evidence of using such Positive Us and Negative Them strategy.It only focuses on a peaceful settlement to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula for the sake of maintaining regional stability and peace.The similarities and differences of the ideologies found above are discussed from the perspective of international relations.It is discussed that both of them embed the ideologies for the purpose of protecting national security interests.The differences of them lie on Washington Post's purpose of guaranteeing its country's leading role in the system of global governance and China Daily's pursuit of maintaining the balance of power,so as to protect the regional stability,peace and enduring tranquility.Generally,Washington Post guides readers to believe the legitimacy of deploying THAAD system,while China Daily holds that denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula through the peaceful settlement is a better way to maintain regional stability and peace rather than deploying the system which puts neighboring country's security at grave risk.These intended ideologies can be detected from keywords,thematic clusters,concordance lines,the polarized distribution of news sources,disguised balance in voicing and Washington Post's thorough use of Positive Us and Negative Them strategy.The thesis further proves the effectiveness of conducting CDA with the support of the corpus-based method.It is hoped that the thesis could shed some light on further studies of CDA.It is also expected to cultivate readers' awareness of critical reading.Moreover,the thesis works as a reminder for Washington Post which has considerable influence throughout the world to shoulder its global responsibility in shaping “Them” which means depicting others with global vision rather than intentionally shaping negative others.China Daily as a responsible official media of a great country expresses China's voice and Chinese solutions to the world as it always does,so as to facilitate the communication between China and other countries.