A Study Of Journalistic Discourse Reporting From The Theoretical Perspective Of Linguistic Adaptation

Discourse reporting, as a universal speech act occurring in a variety of text-types, displays the reflexivity of human language and metarepresentative ability of human beings. This dissertation provides an empirical study of the adaptability of journalistic discourse reporting within a proposed new version of the adaptationist framework. Based on the analysis of1550reporting acts from155news articles, the study arrives at the following major findings:Firstly, journalistic discourse reporting manifests a variety of choices in the aspect of reporting mode, which has an effect on resemblance linguistic or pragmatic meaning between reported discourse and the original discourse. In the choice of reporting mode, direct discourse reports comes first in frequency, followed by mixed discourse reports and indirect discourse reports. While faithful reports are mainly realized by direct discourse reports, followed by mixed discourse reports and indirect discourse reports, most unfaithful reports are mainly realized by mixed discourse reports and indirect discourse reports, followed by direct discourse reports. The finding suggests that deviations in information faithfulness mainly result from the adoption of the reporter’s own perspective in discourse reporting. However, exceptional cases also exist in which the use of the original speaker’s perspective may also be misleading.Secondly, journalistic discourse reporting manifests a variety of choices in wording, which has an effect on the resemblance between reported discourse and the original discourse. In terms of wording choice, verbatim reports account for the biggest proportion, followed by partially verbatim reports and rephrasing reports. While most faithful reports are mainly realized by verbatim reports, followed by partially verbatim reports and rephrasing reports, most unfaithful reports are realized by partially verbatim reports and rephrasing reports, followed by verbatim reports. The finding suggests that deviations in information faithfulness mainly result from deviations in wording. However, exceptional cases also exist in which precise wording may not ensure the reporting faithfulness.Finally, a variety of reporting strategies are employed to show the reporter’s high degree of metapragmatic awareness in reporting others’discourse. Strategies in journalistic discourse reporting involve the implicit manipulation of reporting content and contextual correlates. Besides, journalistic discourse reporting also displays reporters’explicit manipulation of reporting deixis and reporting mode, reporting speech markers and metapragmatic comment. Various strategies in journalistic discourse reporting show reporters’high degree of metapragmatic awareness in monitoring their language use.The research has important theoretical, methodological and pedagogical implications. Theoretically, this study deepens the understanding of discourse reporting in the journalistic context by examining the reporting mode, wording, their respective effects on reporting resemblance and reporting strategies within the revised Theory of Linguistic Adaptation. Moreover, the study incorporates the communicative content in Cooperative Principle into the Theory of Linguistic Adaptation, thus contributing to the operationaliability and explanatory power of the adaptation framework. Methodologically, the comparative analysis of authentic discourse reports and the corresponding original discourse help describe a real picture of journalistic discourse reporting. Pedagogically, the study suggests that instructors improve language teaching of discourse reporting by resorting to the authentic language input while avoiding the mechanical transformation from direct discourse to indirect discourse. This will enable learners to properly report other people’s discourse and have a better understanding of implicit meaning in journalistic texts as a type of public discourse.