A Meta-functional Study Of The Report On The Human Rights Violations In The United States

For decades,the U.S.government has published Country Report on Human Rights to attack the Chinese social system and human rights situation.The content in the report related to China confuses truth and falsehood,and is full of political lies and ideological prejudice.To refute the misleading report,China has publicized The Human Rights Violations in United States since 1998.In 2022,the State Council Information Office of the People’s Republic of China published The Report on Human Rights Violations in the United States in 2021.The report describes the human rights situation in the United States completely from six aspects: the epidemic which is out of control,violent crimes,fake democracy,racial discrimination,migrant crisis,and human rights violations in other countries.This research selects the report as a discourse and analyzes it under the framework of meta-function theory.It analyzes the realization of the three meta-functions of the report,aiming to explain how the ideational function,interpersonal function and textual function fully are realized in the report and the effects and motivations of the report’s language choices.It dissects the language features and the effects of the language,and investigates the motivations behind the language choices in order to help the readers understand the report better.This thesis first presents the research background,objectives,significance,literature review and the theoretical framework of the research,then in light of the meta-function theory,the transitivity system,the voice system,mood system,modality system,the attitude in appraisal system,the thematic system and the cohesion system of the report are calculated in this thesis by quantitative analysis.With respect to ideational function,through the massive use of material processes and the non-middle voice,the report shows objective facts of human rights violations in the United States clearly and directly.In interpersonal function,the report mainly chooses the indicative mood to provide extensive,concise and objective information.The present tense and past tense occur the most.Modal operators are rarely used to avoid any personal bias in the narration.The attitude of the report is predominantly negative,indicating that the Chinese government’s criticism and condemnation of human rights violations in the U.S..In light of textual function,the report uses massive independent patterns to put forward new topics about human rights violations in the U.S.constantly.Meanwhile,massive simple themes are used to provide more succinct information.In terms of cohesion,the report uses various cohesion devices to make all parts of the report more closely connected.Overall,this thesis explores the motivation behind the language of The Report on Human Rights Violations in the United States in 2021 by meta-functional analysis in order to make readers understand intentions and meanings of the report better.