A Comparative Analysis Of English Political News Reports From American And Chinese Newspapers

This dissertation conducts a comparative analysis between English political news reports from The Washington Post and The New York Times and those from China Daily from the perspective of functional grammar. It is found out that similarities outweigh differences between the two sets of political news reports. The similarities are illustrated by the facts as follows: 1) Material processes account for the largest proportion; 2) Most finites are in past tense and present tense; 3) Modality elements are rare; 4) Simple and unmarked themes take up an overwhelming percentage; 5) The most frequently applied TP patterns are constant theme and constant rheme pattern. These similarities can be ascribed to the same context, nature of news reporting and the reporters'high English proficiency. There are also differences, such as Chinese reporters tend to employ more verbal processes than their American counterparts, which might be attributed to the cultural differences and the influence of the native language.This dissertation comprises five chapters. Chapter One presents a brief introduction of news report, background, objectives, and the framework of this dissertation. Chapter Two is the literature review, introducing functional grammar, focusing on the three metafunctions of language, and some historical studies on news reports, especially those applying functional grammar so as to ensure the necessity and feasibility of the present study. In Chapter Three, samples are quantitatively investigated and a comparison is carried out. In Chapter Four, reasons are explored as to why similarities and differences exist between news reports written by native speakers of different languages. Chapter Five draws conclusions, pointing out the implications, limitations and offering suggestions for future researches.