| Critical linguistics is also defined as critical discourse analysis (CDA), critical language awareness (CLA) and critical language study (CLS), which was first put forward by a group of scholars including Fowler, Hodge, Kress, Trew and so on in 1979 in the book Language and Control. As a new branch of modern linguistic research, CDA assimilating the results of scientific research in linguistics, sociology, psychology and mass media, aims to explore and articulate the dialectical relationship between language, power and ideology by analyzing the public discourses.CDA has its distinctive view of language:discourse is a sort of social practice; discourse is determined by social elements and has effects on them; the production and interpretation of the text are the results of the interaction within the social contexts. Fairclough (2001:6) criticized the trend of the pure positivism in linguistics, which overemphasizes the objective descriptions of the facts, paying too much attention to'what'questions but neglecting'why'and'how'questions. Hence the objective for the critical linguists is to answer'why'and'how'questions in the social and historical contexts.Though CDA is a relatively young discipline, its philosophical roots can be traced as far back as Marx, mainly via Althusser and Gramsci, whose ideas stressed the significance of ideology for modern society to sustain and reinforce their social structure and relations, which have made a tremendous impact on social thinkers.What critical discourse analysis focuses on are the public discourse and other non-literature discourses, such as TV, advertisement, newspapers, interviews, regulations of law and so on. The fields include gender, racial prejudice, employment, education and unfairness in court, war, nuclear arms, political strategies and business practice. The terminal objective is to help people realize and reveal the unfairness and resist it eventually. Particularly, news discourse is of great interest to CD A, which has been chosen as the research data in this paper.Since China has taken exchange rate reform in 2005, there are a million, times disputes over this issue on a large scale in the world. At present, China's exchange rate policy and trade friction have caused Sino-American relationship on the horns of a dilemma. At the ceremony of China-US Strategic and Economic Dialogue, President Hu Jintao made the following remarks:"China will continue to steadily advance the reform of the formation of the RMB exchange rate mechanism under the primary principle of independent decision-making, controllability and gradual progress." It declares that the Chinese government will not succumb to foreign pressure to adjust the RMB exchange rate.President Hu's remarks aroused an intense interest from the media of the two sides, which can be represented by the two newspapers:China Daily and The New York Times. The two newspapers reported continuously on the event throughout the first half of 2010. It is obvious that the conflicts between China and the United States may involve different interests. Thus, this thesis attempts to provide a rare opportunity for a comparative study on the ideological differences in news reports between China Daily and The New York Times. And the research paper will answer the ionowing two questions:(1) What linguistic devices do American newspapers employ to present news relevant to China's exchange rate reform?(2) What ideologies are concealed in American news discourses concerning the attitude toward China?The research adopts Fairclough's Three-dimensional Model as theoretical framework and Halliday's Systemic Functional Grammar as analytical tools to conduct a quantitative and qualitative analysis of news reports on China's exchange rate in 2010. On the level of textual analysis, the author analyzes transitivity and lexical choice in terms of ideational function, modality in terms of interpersonal function. The level of discursive practice is devoted to the examination of discourse representation which comprises analysis of news sources, modes of representation and reporting verbs to explain the discourse production. On the social practice level, it will investigate the socio-historical factors, including a retrospect of the history of China's exchange rate reform, Sino-American relations and American hegemony, for a proper explanation of the ideology-driven choices on the level of textual analysis and discursive practice.The research findings are:American media tend to misguide readers'understanding by wrongly reporting China's exchange rate reform and spreading their discrimination and prejudice against China. Such biased and opposed reports are due to their specific ideologies. But in virtue of China Daily, we can find that China not only positively advances the flexibility of the exchange rate reform but also objectively tells us the reason why they keep such gradual appreciation. Comparatively speaking, the reports of China Daily are more faithful to the objective facts.In detail, what cause the two different ideological minds are definitely the history of China's exchange rate reform, Sino-American relations and cultural conflicts. Historically, the U.S.-China relations have gone through twist and turns and experienced ups and downs. The American attitude toward China has been better or worse due to the relations of the two countries, the international situation, and its strategic considerations. Culturally, the U.S. is basically a Christian culture. The American sense of'manifest destiny'is one of the most important characteristics of American culture. The American way should be the best way that the whole world should follow. What's more, China's adherence to Communism is a great source that nurtured the American hostility. Economically, with the important part that China has played in economic globalization, China is taking on its new visage and the whole world is witnessing China's amazing development. In fact, U.S. neglects the benefits but focuses on the disadvantage that China has brought about. America aims to force China to quicken the reform of RMB exchange rate, widen the foreign imports and exports and so on. Since China rising created some uncertainty for the world superpower—US, China is deemed as a threat to the benefits of the U.S.The present study is of theoretical and practical significance. Theoretically speaking, with the help of the comparative approach, the framework of CDA is effective and applicable in disclosing the ideologies embedded in news reports. Practically speaking, the research findings have their pedagogical implications. Presently, there is a growing fever in English learning among the Chinese people. English media discourses, especially radio broadcasts and news articles are widely used as teaching and learning materials, for their authenticity and accessibility. However, English teaching and learning are almost exclusively aimed at language skills and competence. Thanks to CDA, it is helpful to raise readers'awareness, to lead them to conduct critical reading and acquire their anti-control consciousness. Besides, it's a useful device to shape and improve our overseas publicity. In order to have a positive mental modeling of our country, it's necessary to provide the western public the alternative channels full of the latest and diverse news sources.To sum up, by probing into the text, CDA reveals the relationship between discourse, power and ideology. No wonder we should not only learn the methods of CDA, but also combine its theory with practice. We should commit ourselves to the social practice. We should give up backward, biased and unequal conventions. Instead we should build a more just, reasonable and well-being society with the instrument of critical linguistics. |
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