| As the carrier of information, news has become an indispensable part of modern life. The significance of news makes people aware of the necessity of news research. In the past years, much research has been conducted by the scholars at home and abroad to explore the using tendencies of the thematic progression patterns employed in news reports. Nevertheless, studies probing into the comparative research among news reports with different contents are relatively fewer and the consistent conclusions have not been attained on the classifications of TP patterns.Based on Halliday (2000)'s Theme-Rheme theory and Danes (1970)'s Thematic Progression theory, this study aims to further explore the thematic progression patterns employed in political news reports, disaster news reports, sports news reports and sci-tech news reports with the assistance of the coordinate graph. Tentative analyses on the using tendencies of the thematic progression patterns in each type of news report and the underlying reasons causing the differences or similarities among these four types of news report are conducted.Three research questions were chiefly discussed in the current paper. They were: 1. Logically, how many possible thematic progression patterns can be employed in news report? 2. Are the thematic progression patterns'using tendencies in political news reports, disaster news reports, sports news reports and sci-tech news reports are similar? If yes, which patterns occupy the first two places in each type of news report according to the proportion from high to low? 3. Are the TP patterns employed in the four types of news report belonging to the same genre influenced by the news'content?Sixty news reports covering political news, disaster news, sports news and sci-tech news were collected from CCTV-NEWS channel. Four small-scaled corpora were built with each consisting of fifteen news samples and the thematic progression patterns employed in each type of news report were identified and analyzed. The results showed that logically, nine broad types of thematic progression patterns composed of several sub-types could be employed in news report, they are parallel pattern, linear pattern, centralized pattern, zig-zag pattern, bilateral pattern, derived pattern, unified pattern, overlapped pattern and spring pattern. The thematic progression patterns'using tendencies in these four types of news report are similar, parallel pattern and linear pattern occupy the first two places in each type of news report according to the proportion from high to low. The thematic progression patterns of four types of news report belonging to the same genre are influenced by the news'content, and overlapped pattern is the embodiment of political and disaster news reports, bilateral pattern and derived pattern reflect sports news reports and sci-tech news reports respectively.The present study is a new attempt of research on the thematic progression patterns of news reports, the research results of which might enrich the theories and be helpful for the understanding of news texts. |
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