A Critical Discourse Analysis Of News On Sichuan Earthquake Anniversary In American Newspapers

Critical Discourse Analysis (hereafter CDA) is a type of discourse analytical research which is used to analyze all the genres of discourses such as novels, lyrics, academic writings and mass media discourses. Nowadays, more and more scholars and researchers pay attention to this field to reveal the relationship between language and ideologies which are hidden behind language by analyzing the public discourses.Within the framework of CDA, the present research attempts to use transitivity system and passivisation as the analytical tools to study the news discourses on Sichuan earthquake anniversary in American newspapers. It aims to investigate how the language is used to manifest the world and the reality, and explore the ideas, values and ideologies which are embedded in the news reports.The present thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter 1 introduces the purposes, significance and methodology of the present research briefly. Chapter 2 presents a brief review of the former researches of the critical discourse analysis, and the previous critical studies on news discourses both abroad and at home. Chapter 3 proposes a model for undertaking CDA on American newspapers about Sichuan earthquake anniversary based on Halliday's Systemic Functional Grammar. In this chapter, transitivity system and passivisation are as the analytical tools to be discussed. The headlines and bodies of the news discourses are analyzed by the two analytical tools in Chapter 4. And the relationships between news discourse and the hidden ideology is revealed. Chapter 5 concludes the present thesis. The questions which are raised in the first chapter are answered in this chapter. The present researcher summarized the major findings and implications of the study. Besides, the limitations and suggestions for the further research are pointed out in this chapter.It is obtained after research that although news discourses are considered as being neutral and object, they still have values and ideologies hidden in the language. From the news on Sichuan earthquake anniversary in American newspapers, it is found that though there is no language bearing the negative evaluation directly, the American reporters use all different linguistic forms and means such as transitivity and passivization to construe a relatively negative image of China, insinuate the negative effects that brought by Chinese government in the earthquake rescue, and imply the criticism on Chinese Human Rights.