A Comparative Study Of China And America's News Reports On The Iraqi War

Critical Linguistics, also called Critical Discourse Analysis, is a new branch in linguistic analysis which combines the achievements of scientific researches in the field of linguistics, sociology, psychology, and mass media etc and receives more and more attention by scholars of different disciplines. Halliday's Systemic-Functional Grammar, as the linguistic basis and a useful tool for study, has received more and more concerns .Much progress has been made in the applied analysis of Halliday's theory, such as in autobiographies, novels, poems, advertising discourses etc. As for its application in the field of journalistic discourses,辛斌,陈 中竺, Van Dijk, Fowler, and Fairclough have done a lot of researches, mainly on individual news articles or a comparative study of Chinese and American journalistic discourses. This thesis is a tentative endeavor to combine James Martin's appraisal system with Halliday's Functional Grammar, and carries out a comparative study of China and America's journalistic discourses (in the English version) on the Iraqi War.To construct the theoretical basis for the whole thesis, the writer first introduces the basic notion and theoretical basis for Critical Linguistics, Halliday's Functional Grammar and James Martin's appraisal system. Critical Linguistics aims to integrate language, language use with its ideological meaning .The writer points out that Halliday's theory of modality shows the language user's estimate and uncertainty about things. It includes modalisation and modulation. On the basis of this, the writer proposes a working solution for the analysis of ideology: Halliday's theory is mainly conducted from the angle of grammar while Martin's from vocabulary. Martin's appraisal system consists of three sub-systems — system of engagement, attitude and graduation. System of attitude includes system of affect, judgment and appreciation, and system of judgment is central to system of attitude; System of engagement is to evaluate the relationship between the speaker or writer and all kinds of propositions and viewpoints in the discourse; System of graduation concerns strengthening or lessening in level. It is not confined to any sub-field but runs through the whole system of appraisal. So the writer intends to find a better...