A CDA Approach To Biased News Reports Of Western Media Regarding Transitivity, Presupposition And Modality

News texts are widely read by the general public and have always been the focus of critical discourse analysis. Looking back to the critical studies of news texts at home, we find that there are researches on the news reporting of one particular news agency and there are also researches comparing the news reporting of foreign media and Chinese media, but there is barely any research on the news reporting supplied by the same news agency and published in different countries. This thesis is an embodiment of such research. Reuters'reports posted on Reuters.com and Chinadaily.com from January to March, 2007 are selected as research materials. The analysis is carried out from the perspectives of transitivity, presupposition and modality.Media has complex interest relationships with all walks of life in the society. A particular media has its specially targeted social group and such a group has its shared belief. In order to cater to the'consensus'of its targeted group, the media will produce different news reporting. The same fact could be expressed in different ways, when it is presented by different people, under different political context. While transforming the inner ideologies into outer language, different people will make different choices. The choice is meaning. Different semantic effect is achieved by adopting different vocabulary, grammar units, mode, tense and order of presentation.It is found that Reuters has different report in the U.K. and in China. In reporting posted on Reuters'international website, China is depicted as avoiding its duty and getting panic in front of global warming. However, in the reports supplied by Reuters and posted on Chinadaily website is friendly.The research findings are illuminating to English learners who are learning English from foreign newspapers and magazines, since a critical analysis ability is necessary while reading these materials. Meanwhile, as the 2008 Beijng Olympic Games drawing near, we should be careful and make efforts to construct the China image through publications, since the present China image in foreign countries is mostly false, partly due to the biased reports in western media.This research once again testifies that critical discourse analysis is powerful in uncovering the relationship between language and ideology.