| Discourse analysis is a wide-ranging and heterogeneous area of study. Many theories have been applied to the analysis of different types of discourses. Halliday's Systemic-Functional Grammar is one of these theories and the discourse analysis based on it is regarded as a functional approach. Three metafunctions of language—ideational, interpersonal and textual—are the core of Halliday's theory.Since news is one of the most popular types of discourse and has great influence on the society, it has been chosen as the analyzing data in this paper. All the English news samples are analyzed from different aspects of the three metafunctions, including transitivity, voice, mood and modality systems as well as thematic and information structures. Through quantitative analysis, it is proved that the basic function of news is to inform the public of what happened in the world truthfully and objectively.This paper makes a systematic analysis of English news from the perspective of metafunctions. It not only reveals the special characteristics of English news discourse, but also proves that the theories of SFG, especially the three metafunctions of language are feasible and actually effective in analyzing English news. |
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