Introduction
Among discourse, news discourse is a particular genre. With globalization, news reportsare playing an increasing role in communication around the world. As a kind of mass mediainstitutions, a news agency selectively chooses the content and language of the news to cater tothe curiosity and emotional needs of the readers. Researchers have been done lots of works onnews reports from different perspectives.Traditionally, News is traditionally listed as the unbiased and partial recording of realisticevents, but more linguists doubt it now. As for critical linguists, News is not the accurate andcomplete reflection of the event itself but products of selection and transformation of a realisticevent. News does not happen naturally but exists in a certain social, cultural, political,economic contexts. News is highly selective. Any news is infiltrated with typical nationalvalues and ideologies of a country. Language can well reveals people’s ideologies consciouslyand unconsciously. People tend to think that language in news should be objective and impartial.However, news carries certain subjective tendentiousness of the author due to his educationalbackground, living environment, and life experience. The news has been affected by thesefactors, so the objectivity and impartiality of the news is impossible.With the arising of the Diaoyu Islands dispute, a great number of news on this issue hasbeen published by news agencies from China and America, especially CNN and CD. Thesenews reports provide valuable materials for critical discourse analysis which focuses on therelationship among discourse, power and ideologies. Critical discourse analysis is concernedwith how the research discourses are produced in the social, political and cultural environment,and how recycling rights, domination and inequality are presented through language. It is arelatively new theory of discourse analysis in that political and social issues are its priorities.The analysis of news from CDA perspective can proudly reveal implicit attitude and ideology.In the recent years, the CDA has been regarded as an effective tool to analyze news. Variousanalytical frameworks in the CDA are explored to make the analysis scientific.The significance of this thesis lies in that this thesis is the first one analyzing the DiaoyuIslands dispute with the combination of Fairclough’s three-dimensional model from CDA perspective and Halliday’s systemic-functional grammar. By analyzing the persities in usingtransitivity, lexical choice, modes of representation, modality and context, the hidden attitudesand opinions hold by journalists from CNN and CD can well be revealed. It is also important toshow which country each news agency is supporting.
...........
Chapter One Literature Review
1.1Research on Critical Discourse Analysis
Ji Weining (2006: 113-122) believed that critical discourse analysis was a trend oflinguistic thoughts initiated by western linguists. The most influential branches in CDA field arelisted as following: critical linguistics by Roger Fowler, social-cultural analysis by NormanFairclough, social-cognitive analysis by van Dijik and discourse-historical method by RuthWodak. Several anti-mainstream linguists and social linguists, such as Fowler, Kress, van Dijk,Wodak and Fairclough, become famous figures and leaders in this field.Fowler firstly labeled critical linguistics as a method to study language in his book titled"Language and Control" in 1979, which marked a tremendous contribution to the developmentof CDA. Fowler thinks that language use is always reflected in a certain context, which refers tosome macro elements based on social, cultural and political differences rather than those microelements related to the immediate context, the background knowledge of speakers, anddiscourse types. Fowler advocates the integration of linguistic theory with sociological theory,and he proposes to apply Halliday's SFG method to reveal relations among language, ideologyand power. However, Fowler unilaterally emphasizes text as the product and he tends to ignorethe process of producing and explaining text, and he turns a deaf ear to the functions ofdiscourse in society and culture. To sum up, Fowler's research still lies in the preliminary periodof CDA. He also focuses on the intersection of literary criticism and linguistic research, whichdistracts him from the research on CDA. Although he shows and makes some speeches in someacademic conferences, but his influence is overall limited. Since the late of 1980s, Fowler haspublished several books in succession: Linguistic Criticism (1986), Notes on CriticalLinguistics (1987), Reading Images (1990), Language in the News: Discourse and Ideology in the Press (1991), Structures of Visual Representation (1992), and On Critical Linguistics (1996).Ji Weining (2006: 113-122) assumes that Fowler resumes his research direction to CDA, but hepersonally stresses the improvement and perfection of theory and method in CDA as well as theconsolidation of the existing results.Kress is also a representative figure of early critical linguistics. Ji Weining (2008: 76-79)assumes that Kress turns his attention to language research from a social semiotic perspectiveand the interaction between language and semiotics. "Social Semiotics" lists ideology as adescriptive concept. Kress thinks that ideologies are a system of attitudes from a particularorganization or social class, distorted political attitudes and theories covered as well as scienceand metaphysics included. Kress (1979) finds that critical linguistics is buried in analyzingexisting texts and the relation between language systems. Tian Hailong (2006: 40-47) thinksthat Kress believes social infrastructure shows a fixed pattern in text. Kress proposes hisprogram of developing critical linguistics in his paper titled Discourse, Texts, Readers and thePro-nuclear Arguments. He believes that the main direction of developing critical linguistics isto utilize current research achievements, shift focus on readers and realize the function ofcriticizing social ideology. The main idea of Kress is embodied in his Language as Ideology,which was a book coauthored with Hodge in 1979.As a familiar researcher in the field of CDA, van Dijk has served as the chief director ofText for al long time. His research achievements leave a great impact on international discourseanalysis. van Dijk advocates to apply social-cognitive analysis to CDA, and he is arepresentative of social-cognitive perspective in this field. The research process of van Dijk canbe roughly pided into three periods: the study of literary language, the study of discoursegrammar and the study of cognitive model in discourse. It is in the third period that Van Dijktruly turns to research on CDA. He starts to study the structure and understanding of media,concerns himself with racial discrimination in discourse, stresses social attitudes as well asideologies manifested in discourse, and pays attention to knowledge and context. van Dijk doesnot support the idea that a large-scale corpus analysis should be done. Liu Lihua (2008:102-109) thinks that van Dijk agrees some specific features of language, such as stress andintonation, word order, vocabulary, coherence, rhetoric, syntactic structure and propositionalstructure are deserved to be studied in critical discourse analysis. van Dijk always attaches great attention to study the connection between discourse and society, insisting structure, meaning,interaction and cognition are focused while studying discourse, ignoring context. Xu Jiujiu(2005: 356-361) believes that van Dijk stresses the importance of using the methodology ofsocial discourse analysis and CDA to reveal the social nature hidden in discourse. The relationbetween discourse and ideologies has been a comparatively concerning issue to van Dijk inrecent years. He demonstrated his attitudes to discourse and ideologies in his essay calledIdeology: a Multidisciplinary Approach in 1998. He thinks that ideologies in discourse not onlyshow people's belief, but also are embodied with the function of persuasion. In other words,discourse has the function of alternating people's thinking, besides the function of expressingbelief. The idea of van Dijk can be found in his monographs as following: Prejudice inDiscourse(1984), Principle of Critical Discourse Analysis(1993), Ideology: A MultidisciplinaryApproach (1998), and News as Discourse (1998).
1.2Research on News Reports Studied by Critical Discourse Analysis
The mass media developed rapidly in the late 1970s and the early 1980s thanks to thetechnological improvement. The amount of news reports expanded abundantly due to thedevelopment of the mass media and the scopes of the news reports became larger. Newspaper,radio, television and the Internet are used as the means for news reports which transmit variousinformation covers social, economic, cultural and political aspects. News reports generate greatinfluence on people living in the world. The trend of news reports certainly attracts the attentionfrom linguists who specialize in CDA and research on the news reports from CDA become oneof the most influential in the linguistic field. As a professor of Linguistics at the University of East Anglia, Roger Fowler punished thebook entitled Language and Control in 1979 where he concentrated on the repressive andsuppressing aspect of linguistic practice. Lin Yajun (2012) thinks that Fowler considerslanguage exists in all media, such as television and newspapers served for ideologies, so it cantake a critical analysis of these ideological tools from critical perspective. This book shows thecapability of applying the analysis to news and exposing distortion of language in news reports.Flower also introduces the possibilities of linguistic tools form Haliday’s SFG, such transitivity,lexical structure, and modality. Fowler accomplished another important book titled Language inthe News: Discourse and Ideology in the Press in 1991, which studied how language was usedto form ideas and beliefs in newspapers. From perspective of critical linguistics, Flower insiststhat news is actually a practice and also a product of the social and political world on which itreports rather than some unbiased recording of facts as it claimed. Flower (1991: 26) believesthat representation, in the press as in all other kinds of media and discourse, is a constructivepractice. Fowler studies how newspapers form its beliefs and attitudes by using language.Flower also believes that language serves as a constructive mediator.van Dijk is one of most representative linguists in exploring the usage of CDA in newsreports. He focuses on the subject of power, ideology and racism, taking a cognitive approach todevelop a model to explain the processing mechanisms of cognitive discourse. He firstly beganto apply his theory and methodology of discourse analysis to news reports in 1980s. Most of hisattention is drawn to some topics like racism, international news and other genres like editorials.He has written several books to show his understanding of how language is used in media. InRacism and the Press which was published in 1991, van Dijk focused on racism and ideology,and implied that ideology was embedded with cognitive and social implication. He made aprimary contribution to the study of news reports in his News as Discourse published in 1998,which was a relatively mature analysis model by selecting a vast sample of international newsreports. He also enriched the study of news reports by conducting several cases studies in hisNews Analysis: Case Studies of International and National News in the Press in 1988, whichshowed a study of racism based on news reports from European press. van Dijk tries to adapt anexplicit and systemic approach in studying news reports taken from media and he contends toexplain how the media reproduce power and ideology in a subtle way.
Chapter Three Methodology ........................................... 23
3.1 Research Questions........................................... 23
3.2 Data Collection........................................... 23
3.3 Research Procedure........................................... 23
Chapter Four Analysis and Discussion................................... 25
4.1 persities in Description........................................... 25
Conclusion ..................................... 60
Findings........................................... 60
Implications........................................... 61
Chapter Four Analysis and Discussion
4.1 persities in Description
Transitivity is the first crucial tool for exploring the grammatical resources through whichhuman experience of the world can be showed. In functional grammar, Halliday distinguishessix process types, which provides an effect way to explore the unknown reasons why writers orjournalists may use different processes to describe the same thing. Actually, the choice ofprocesses can reflect people’s hidden ideology and attitudes to a certain matter.Fairclough(1992) thinks that which process type is chosen to present an event may be cultural,political or ideological significance. For Diaoyu Islands dispute between China and Japan,journalists from two news agencies are likely to choose different types of processes because oftheir opposite ideologies. The two following forms are the classification of transitivity foundout in news in CNN and China Daily respectively Table4.1: persities in Classification of Transitivity in News Reports between CNN and CD The two forms above are about the number of the six types of processes found in eachnews report with careful analysis. It is apparent that there is a significant difference in that allsix processes appear in news reports from CNN, while five processes can be traced in newsreports from CD with the absence of the behavioural processes. Overall, the material processes serve the greatest number both in CNN and CD, while other types of processes are in arelatively limited position. In the mental processes, the relational processes, verbal processesand the existential processes, the number of each process varies a lot. A detailed analysis of acomparative study of each process is to be showed in the next form with total numbers andpercentage. The form above makes a comparative distinction between each process and its percentagein CNN and CD respectively. It is high time we talked about their differences in comparison tomake it clear that what role each process carries in news report. Obviously, the materialprocesses are the most important both in CNN and CD, and there are 341 material processeswith 50.2% in total number in CNN. The number of the material processes in CD is 330 withthe percentage of 55.5. Yet, the number and the percentage of the material processes in CDoverweigh its counterparts in CNN. As for the mental processes, the number of mentalprocesses in CNN is less than the number in CD. The percentage of the mental processes inCNN is only 8, which is far less than the percentage in CD. The relational processes can bemore recognized in that the number in CNN is 90, while CD only has 72. The verbal processesin CNN take up 24.4%, while its counterpart in CD only takes up 18.8%. The number of verbalprocesses in CNN is 166, which overweighs the verbal processes in CD. There is only onebehavioural process found in CNN and the behavoural processes cannot be traced in CD. Theexistential processes in CNN are 27, but there are only 10 existential processes discovered inCD.It is also necessary to find out some similarities in the form above. Firstly, the distributionof the six types of processes in the two media is near the same. The material processes serve thegreatest number, the verbal processes the second, the relational processes the third, the mentalprocesses the fourth, the existential processes the fifth, the behavioural processes the last. Secondly, the percentage of the material processes in CNN and CD both excel 50 percent intotal, so it can be inferred that this process is regarded as the most crucial way in narrating theDiaoyu Islands dispute.Halliday (1994: 110) points out that material processes are processes of “doing”, and theyexpress the notion that some entity does something---which may be done to some other entity.Material processes not only include concrete, physical events, but also take abstract doing andhappening. A Material process is constituted by an Actor, a Process, and a Goal in structure. TheProcesses may come in either of two forms, active or passive. The choice of active or passive isnot random but intentional, which is determined by whether the writers or journalists want toemphasize the Actors or the Goals. Therefore, material processes which account for 50.2% inCNN and 55.5% in CD, are deserved to study in the following. Table above presents examples of nouns related to the Diaoyu Islands dispute in CNN andCD, and there exist great differences in choosing lexicons between them. It’s time to make acomparison to reveal what the two agencies’ real intention or meaning. The first pair gives twonames about the islands, and CNN calls them Senkaku which is a Japanese name, while CD refers to them as the Diaoyu Islands. This persity arises from the hidden attitudes hold by thetwo agencies that CNN thinks the islands are Japanese territory while CD holds the oppositeone. The second pair is talking about a war game initiated by Japan. CNN chooses to use asimple expression, “joint war games”, because CNN wants to calm down the tensions after thiswar game. But CD is more direct to reveal Japan’s intention that it is threatening its neighboringcountries and showing its navy strength to China especially. Therefore, it can be showed thatCNN is minimizing the consequences of Japan’s military action and that CD is exaggeratingJapan’s irrational performances. The third pair is about a conflict between Chinese navy andJapanese navy around the Diaoyu Islands. However, the narrations about this conflict in the twoagencies bear a great difference. CNN uses “verbal confrontation” to this conflict, because it istrying to cover the conflict up for its ally Japan. The phrase does not involve in any concreteactions taken by either side, so the conflict is a peaceful demonstration in other words. When itcomes to CD, a total opposite phrase, “military confrontation”, can be seen. This phrase used byCD shows that Japanese vessels are pursuing and expelling Chinese vessels that are carrying onits routine patrols around the Diaoyu Islands. In comparison the latter can reflect that it is Japanthat is breaking the balance around the islands. The fourth pair is about how to define thesituation on the islands. Obviously, CNN uses “territorial dispute”, while CD uses the phrase,“sovereignty infringement”. Although the two phrases are similar to each other to some content,their meanings are just opposite. The former only accepts that there is a dispute on the DiaoyuIslands and it does not specify which country has the authority to administer the islands. It isacknowledged that China has a historical record of owing the Diaoyu Islands. Therefore, CNNignores the fact to infer that the islands are owned by which country is ruling them. CD uses“sovereignty infringement” to show that what Japan has done has infringed on Chinese legalterritory and damaged the security of China. The last pair is about how the patrols by Chinesenavy around the Diaoyu Islands in CNN and CD. CNN regards the patrols as “games of cat andmouse”, and it uses two metaphors here, with Japan Coast Guard being the cat and Chinesevessels being the mouse. This phrase used by CNN is satiric to Chinese patrols. CD takes“routine patrols” to show that the navigation by Chinese ships around the area is routine andlegal. This phrase justifies for the patrols of Chinese ships around the Diaoyu Islands. Inconclusion, CNN is speaking for Japan and CD represents Chinese interests in nouns related to the Diaoyu islands dispute.
4.2 persities in Interpretation
The second stage of Fairclough’s three dimensional model is called interpretation, whichfocuses on discourse practice analysis. The relation between text and interaction is studied ininterpretation. The tools for analysis in interpretation are the modes and the modality. This partmakes a comparative analysis of modes and modality in CNN and CD. As an effective tool, modes should be adapted in interpretation stage. There are directspeech and indirect speech in modes of speech. Direct speech refers to that reporters quote withno changes in forms and contents when compared with the original remarks. However, indirectspeech is the quotation that is paraphrased or interpreted by the reporters, carrying ideologiesand attitudes of reporters. The easiest way to tell them apart is to examine whether there arequotation marks. The following table demonstrates a detailed analysis of direct speech andindirect speech in CNN and CD respectively. The table above gives a detailed analysis of direct speech and indirect speech in CNN andCD, and it can be noticed that both are used and applied to make the news complete andcredible. The statistics are found after a careful study on the news reports from the two agencies.There are totally 103 modes of speech in CNN with direct speech being 52 and indirect speechbeing 51. Their percentages are 50.49% and 49.51% respectively. As for the modes of speech inCD, the total number is 115. There are 59 direct speeches and 56 indirect speeches. Thepercentage of direct speech in CNN is 51.3% and the percentage of indirect speech is 48.7%. Asfor the first persity between the modes of speech in CNN and CD, the number of modes inCD is more than those modes in CNN, 115 to 103, in comparison. This phenomenon shows thatmodes are more likely to be used by CD. However, both excel 100 and it shows that reportersfrom the two agencies are using this tool to persuade readers to believe what they has written isthe truth. The second persity lies in that there are 59 direct speeches in CD and there are 52direct speeches in CNN. Their percentages are far from the same, 51.3% to 50.49%. Thisphenomenon reflects direct speeches are easily be used by reporters in CD to show that thesentences are recognized by people and this strategy reveals that CD shows nothing but thetruth. The last persity lies in that the percentage of indirect speech in CNN is a bit higher thanits counterpart in CD. It shows that reporters form CNN intend to quote others phrases orsentences when they present the facts or events to readers. Modes of speech as a effective toolto reveal reporters’ hidden ideologies and attitudes provide an approach to distinguish thepersities on the Diaoyu Islands in the two agencies. The following research is conduced at theangles of direct speech and indirect speech in comparison.
............
Conclusion
Findings
Integrating Fairclough’s three-dimensional model with Halliday’s Systemic-FunctionalGrammar together, the thesis aims to analyze news reports on the Diaoyu Islands from twonews agencies in America and China, CNN and CD, from a critical perspective. In chapter five,description concentrates on linguistic analysis, such as transitivity and lexical choice,interpretation covering intertextual analysis including modes and modality, and explanationfocusing on social-cultural analysis involving analysis of contexts. After a carful research on thedata, next are major findings of this thesis.Firstly, language serves as the carrier of ideological orientations and political views. Thelanguage in news reports in any country reflects its ideological attitudes and political stances oncertain issues in that language is the medium that innerves in the society.Secondly, the combination of theory of CDA and its analytical tool, SFG, proves that it isapplicable to analyze news reports from CDA perspective in a comparative method to find outthe ideological and political differences hidden in the news reports. Also, it also proves that thepossibility and flexibility of applying CDA to analysis of news reports. It is also discovered thatonly by doing a research of linguistic analysis, intertextual analysis and social-cultural analysiscan a comprehensive and detailed understanding be concluded.Thirdly, language in news reports is far from objective as claims. News agencies in eachcountry inevitably are influenced by ideological orientations and political stances dominating,and news reports produced by different news agencies are definitely embedded with certainsubjective attitudes and opinions on the same issue. CNN highlights American politicalstances and attitudes on the Diaoyu Islands dispute through its news reports, while CD as thevoice of Chinese government supports Chinese claims and attitudes.Last, it is found that there is a distinct difference on the Diaoyu Islands dispute in thestances of the two news agencies. Conducted from transitivity and lexical choice in linguisticanalysis, modes and modality in intertextual analysis and contexts in social-cultural analysis,the thesis shows that both news agencies are in accordance with its currently mainstream ideologies and political policies. CNN is speaking for Japanese claims on the issue andjustifying its illegal control and purchase of the Diaoyu Islands for Japan being American allyand sharing capitalism, while CD firmly safeguards its territorial sovereignty on the Diaoyuislands for being a state medium in socialism.
Implications
The successful completion of the thesis, its scientific data and conclusion both prove thatCDA is definitely an effective approach to reveal ideologies and political stances hidden innews reports. The integration of CDA with its analytical tool, SFG shows that both theories areindispensible to the comprehensive analysis of data from the critical perspective. It also showsthat Fairclough’s three-dimensional model is a scientific and applicable framework for CDA.Next, it also implies that the ideologies and political stances hidden in news reports orother kind of discourse cannot be ignored. It is important to review news reports in a criticalway to know what information is useful and right or what contents are nonsense and should beabandoned.What’s more, the importance of contexts should also be highlighted. Questions don’t ariseindependently or inpidually, but they appear in certain contexts whether social or cultural. Indaily life, it is more reliable to base various questions or matters on contexts in that it broadenspeople’s horizons and understandings.Last, the education of thinking critically in school should be enhanced, especially inteaching English. Teachers usually focus on teaching vocabulary, grammar, reading ability andlistening ability, but the teaching of thinking critically is vitally important to teenagers who arein a period of fast mental development. It is critical to teach them how to think by themselvesrather than put them in routine pattern of thinking. Teachers also have to teach teenagers theimportance of thinking about a matter in its contexts.
.............
参考文献（略）