A Critical Discourse Analysis Of The Belt And Road Initiative Related News Reports In The United States Mainstream Media

As a national top-level cooperation initiative of great significance,the Belt and Road Initiative has attracted the attention of the world.The initiative uses the historical symbols of the ancient Silk Road to actively carry out political,economic and cultural cooperation with countries along the line.As a leading country of the world of politics,economy and culture,attitude of the United States towards the initiative is particularly important.Especially after five years of development,attitude changes of the United States to the initiative possess great research value.Critical discourse analysis(CDA)focuses on the relationship between discourse and ideology,power,and society.In recent years,it has been continuously improved and become one of the important theories of discourse research.Based on Fairclough's three-dimensional model,this thesis conducts a critical discourse analysis of 40 news reports about the Belt and Road Initiative in the United States mainstream media in the past five years to discover the ideology hidden behind the news discourses.This research is mainly carried out from the following three stages: First,analyzing linguistic features such as classification,transitivity and modality of the discourses.Then,analyzing intertextual features of the discourses,mainly through the perspectives of news sources and reporting modes.Finally,explaining the reasons for the phenomena in the first two stages from political,economic and cultural aspects,then exploring the relationship between discourse and social practice.Through the analysis of the above three stages,the author found: First,mainstream media in the United States is not objective and fair in reporting the Belt and Road Initiative,and has deep misunderstanding and prejudice of the initiative.The attitude has deep political,economic and cultural roots.Second,mainstream media in the United States is good at using certain linguistic strategies to promote their ideology.Classification,transitivity,modality,news sources,and reporting modes have been used as powerful tools to promote its ideology.Moreover,attitude of the mainstream media in the United States to the Belt and Road Initiative has changed with the change of the world situation.This thesis provides a reference for the study of similar discourses,and is conducive to inspiring readers to look at news reports dialectically and form critical thinking.In addition,this thesis helps to inspire the journalists to properly fulfill their obligations and objectively report news.