| Critical Discourse Analysis(CDA),which developed from critical linguistic studies in the 1970 s,aims to analyze the relationship among language,power and ideology.Critical linguists tend to focus on analyzing public discourse,especially news discourse,with an aim of revealing journalists? writing intentions and their views and positions on reporting events.Against this background,the thesis examines the news coverage of China-related earthquake disasters in China Daily and Cable News Network(CNN),by exploring the different linguistic features which are represented in these two media respectively,aiming to reveal the corresponding relationship among the language,power and ideology.In order to address the research questions mentioned above,the study adopts Norman Fairclough?s three-dimensional model and M.A.K Halliday?s systemic functional grammar as the theoretical framework.Thirty news reports on the China-related earthquake disasters in China Daily and CNN from 2005 to 2017 are selected for CDA analysis.The analysis is carried out from the following aspects: lexical choice,modality(tense,direct and indirect speech reporting,and vague language),transitivity(material process,verbal process,relational process),and transformation(nominalization and passivization)It is found that in terms of lexical choice,CNN,through adopting words with negative connotations,tends to emphasize the catastrophic impact of China-related earthquake,while by a high frequency of positive words,China Daily focuses on describing the disaster relief work of Chinese soldiers and civilians.As to modality,present perfect tense is used in CNN so as to stress the sustainability of the impact of the disaster,meanwhile a variety of reporting verbs are adopted to highlight the concern and support of American officials or administrations for China with a small number of vague words to express their views and attitudes towards the earthquake disaster in China;China Daily,however,prefer to employ the simple past tense to indicate the time of earthquake?s occurrence with many reporting verbs and more vague words emphasizing the active action of Chinese government in dealing with the disaster.In the aspect of transitivity system,CNN and China Daily emphasize different agents and behaviors in the material process,different Sayers in the verbal process and different attributes in the relational process for the purpose of serving their ruling ideology.As for the transformation system,CNN adopts nominalize words with negative emotions to stress the dissatisfaction of the Chinese people towards the Chinese government and passivized words to describe the terrible scene in China.Whereas,China Daily,through positive nominalized words and passivized words,emphasizes the positive efforts of Chinese government and Chinese people in coping with the disaster.Through the comparative analysis of the thirty news reports on China-related earthquake disasters in China Daily and CNN,the study argues that a variety of language strategies are employed by news media in order to convey the ideological tendencies of their reports,thereby successfully expressing the views of the benefit groups they represent and strengthening the domination of the ruling ideology. |
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