A Contrastive Analysis Of Modality Orientations In English And Chinese Political News Reports

M.A.K. Halliday proposed the theory of systemic-functional grammar in the 1960s, which contributes a lot to various fields of linguistic study. In Functional Grammar, three metafunctions are employed to explore how meanings are created and understood (Hu Zhuanglin, 1989). The three meanings are ideational, interpersonal and textual metafunctions. This thesis focuses on the modality of interpersonal metafunction that is closely related to interaction between people and plays an important role in communication.Modality has been always a focus for lots of scholars and linguists. Previous studies have paid little attention on contrastive modality analyses, especially on different newspapers of different countries. The thesis aims at exploring differences and similarities on the same political event and different news events in three newspapers of different countries. The research questions are (1) what are the features of modality orientations in English political news reports and Chinese political news reports? (2) How modality orientations are realized in the English political news reports and Chinese political news reports? The author selected three authoritative newspapers from China, America and Britain in order to answers these two questions. Modality orientations are realized by modal expressions, therefore, according to Hallidays'theory, modality orientation is counted in terms of certain modal expressions. In the thesis, nine news reports on China launching ShenzhouⅦspacecraft whose total number is 4,104 (three pieces news reports are selected from New York Times, The Times and China Daily respectively) have been selected. And another 30 pieces political news reports are randomly selected from the three newspapers, which amount to 21,765 altogether. Those 39 pieces are served as samples to explore differences and similarities from the perspective of modality.Comparative statistical analyses are applied in the exploration of modality orientations. Quantitative study is adopted to guarantee the validity of the analyses and results. The proportions of modal expressions taken in the New York Times, The Times, and China Daily are calculated and compared respectively. The author conducted a qualitative study to analyze the frequency of modal expressions of China launching ShenzhouⅦspacecraft news event from the three newspapers. The occurrence frequencies of each modal expression are calculated in New York Times, The Times and China Daily. 39 pieces of political news reports are also analyzed according to modal expressions and modality orientations.The author gets conclusion that in both researches of the same news event and different political news reports, New York Times and The Times share similarities in distribution of modal expressions and modality orientations. Mood adjuncts appear the most frequently in both newspapers, and objective implicit orientations rank the first place through analyzing the attached modal expressions in the news reports. While China Daily are totally different from New York Times and The Times, although it is Chinese authoritative newspaper published in English. Modal auxiliary verbs come about the most frequently in China Daily and news reports seem to be more implicit in subjective orientation.