A Critical Discourse Analysis Of News Reports On The US Withdrawal From The Paris Agreement

Critical Discourse Analysis(CDA),as an important branch of discourse analysis,aims at revealing the relationship between language,ideology and power.On June 1,2017,Trump officially announced that America will withdraw from The Paris Agreement,which has sparked a hot debate all over the world.The event has been reported by domestic and foreign media.Collecting six news reports from the mainstream media in China and America,this thesis makes a Critical Discourse Analysis to the related news reports on the US withdrawal in China Daily and The New York Times,in order to explore the language features in the news reports of the two media,to reveal the different ideologies concealed in the news reports,and to explain the relationship between the language and the ideology in the news reports from the perspective of social context.This study adopts Fairclough’s Three-dimensional Model as the analytical framework on the basis of Halliday’s Systemic Functional Grammar.At the dimension of text,the different language forms in the two news media are analyzed by transitivity and modality.At the dimension of discourse practice,the different production processes of the news discourses are investigated by news sources and reporting modes.At the dimension of social practice,the different linguistic features and ideologies in China Daily and The New York Times are explained in terms of institutional context,political and economic context.The major findings of present study are as follows: Both China Daily and The New York Times use different process types,modal verbs,news source and reporting mode to indicate the different standpoints and attitudes of the two countries towards the US withdrawal from The Paris Agreement.China Daily highlights the negative consequences of the US withdrawal from The Paris Agreement and shows that the US withdrawal from The Paris Agreement is an irresponsible action.At the same time,it demonstrates the determination and confidence of the international community in climate change governance.The New York Times denotes that The Paris Agreement will seriously damage American economy and interests,and expresses that even if it withdraws from the agreement,the United States will retain its leadership in climate governance,which means that the United States is reluctant to give up its voice in climate governance.The different language features and ideologies aredetermined by media system and the different political and economic system of the Chinese and American governments.China Daily and The New York Times are hired to speak for Chinese government and the US government respectively.Trump’s “American First” policy reflects American hegemonism,which is the immediate cause of the US withdrawal,while China advocates low-carbon economy and takes positive attitude towards The Paris Agreement.The research significance of this thesis lies in the following three aspects.First,the validity of Critical Discourse Analysis is confirmed by analyzing the linguistic features and implicit ideologies of the news reports on the US withdrawal from The Paris Agreement.Second,the research can help readers to read news reports objectively and cultivate critical thinking as well as language awareness.Finally,exploring the relations between language,ideology and power in the news reports gives some enlightenment to mass media.