| Sports are the sign of social civilization. With the globalization of economy and the development of communicative technology, sports become an indispensable part of our social and cultural life and have been attracting more and more attention. Every day people can get sports news from different media around them, such as newspaper, TV and internet. The sporls section often makes up one quarter of some daily newspapers. Many newspapers bear spoils edition, and millions upon millions of online news are about sports each year. Thus, sports news occupies a very important place in our daily life and has its unique features due to its field, mode and tenor of discourse. Sports news is a genre mostly studied by researchers from various angles because it has lively language and special syntax and other distinct features. But a systemic and comprehensive analysis of its linguistic features has not been well attempted.Guided by M.A.K.Halliday's Systemic-Functional Grammar, especially based on his three Metafunctions—Ideational Function, Interpersonal Function and Textual Function, the thesis has attempted to analyze sports news reporting in fifteen actual examples to find out their specific lexico-grammatical features and how the lexico-grammatical features realize its context of situation.A general review on Systemic-Functional Grammar is firstly presented which is the major theoretical framework for the whole thesis. Relevant theories including Metafunctions and Register are also presented as they are important in the explanation of the relationship betv/een language and the context of situation. Then, based on the analytical framework of Systemic-Functional Grammar, the thesis analyzes the fifteen authentic sports news reportings in the Transitivity system, the Mood system, the Theme-Rheme system and Cohesion. Finally, a discussion on how the lexico-grammatical features realize the three variables of the register, i.e. field, tenor and mode is carried out.The analysis of Transitivity system reveals the realization of the field of sports news is through the different processes selected in the texts. In sports news, material processes appear most frequently; relational and mental processes are sometimes used; verbal processes are infrequently used; existential and behavioral processes rarely appear, which shows the central function of sports news is mainly to report sports events and supply relevant information and background. The analysis of Mood system unveils the realization of tenor of sports news is mainly through the choice of full declarative mood and the choice of modality expressions. Full declarative are the major mood type, while interrogative, imperative and exclamative are rarely used. There are also plenty of modality expressions such as modal verbs, modal adjuncts and appraisable words in sports news which makes the interpersonal distance between the participants become less and an intimate atmosphere between friends has been created. Past tense is mainly used to report the events happening in the past, and present tense is sometimes used to increase timeliness, freshness and immediacy of the report. Future tense rarely appears. The analysis of Theme-Rheme system manifests the realization of mode of sports news is mainly through the use of theme and the use of constant theme pattern and linear pattern. Most sports news adopts simple themes, and multiple themes are mainly the textual & topical type. Unmarked themes are used much more than marked themes. Constant theme pattern and linear pattern are mainly used. The analysis of Cohesion presents in sports news, reference and conjunction are frequently used, and reiteration and collocation appear frequently, which also realizes the mode of sports news as a written text. Theme-rheme patterns and cohesive devices are adopted together to organize the text of sports news.The findings of this thesis indicate the Systemic-Functional approach to the study of sports news is powerful in that the relationship between situational context and linguistic realizations can be exploited thoroughly and expressed clearly. The analysis on this news sub-style helps to understand the choice of news language and the function it realizes, which leads to a better comprehension and a thorough grasp of the news characters. It is hoped that the present study will contribute to the better understanding and writing of sports news reporting. |
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