Analysis Of Political News From The Perspective Of Presupposition

Since Frege firstly put forward to the notion of presupposition, which later was brought into the linguistics, linguists gradually specify and deepen their study on presupposition. From semantic presupposition to pragmatic presupposition, they study presupposition in all kinds of fields and texts, summarizing main characteristics of presuppositions, pragmatic presupposition in particular. For instance, pragmatic presupposition is the speaker's supposition about the utterance's context, the felicity condition to perform a speech act; Shared background and knowledge is the starting point of presuppositions.In other words, context is a key factor when presuppositions occur.In addition, they also noticed that presuppositions are connected with a certain words, structures and expressions, by which presuppositions are triggered. These words and structures that can presuppose propositions are considered as presupposition triggers. Yule, Verschueren, He Ziran and Levinson all have their own views on presupposition triggers, but thirteen kinds of presupposition triggers provided by Levinson are most acceptable. The author, mainly considering levinson's theory and analyzing the political news, classifies presupposition triggers from two perspectives, lexical and syntactic. Presupposition triggers from the perspective of lexical obviously refer to those words that can introduce presuppositions. Presupposed messages can be induced from these words. Presupposition triggers at syntactic level are some sentences structures which can introduce presuppositions.This thesis analyzes presupposition triggers in special genre---political news from two levels:lexical and syntactic. Use and function of triggers in political news are two main aspects to be analyzed. Political news, a subcategory of news, boasts a strong feeling of political purpose. It is a main media for political parties to widespread their ideas. Reporters usually adopt various strategies to convey large amount of and useful information in concise words.In addition, some reporters, in order to avoid overt conflictions, make use of such strategies as presupposition to transmit deep and purposeful information with seemingly non-aggressive words. Therefore, the study on presupposition triggers in political news facilitates our comprehension of political news thoroughly. This thesis, in particular, is useful for second language learners to understand deep information embedded in political news.The thesis falls into five chapters. The first chapter is an introduction to background and objective of the study, data collection and methodology, structure of the thesis. This thesis mainly adopts the qualitative method to analyze the use and functions of presupposition triggers introduced by such scholars as Levinson in political news which are extracted from ABC, Washington Post etc. The second chapter presents the literature review including two parts:The first part covers the definition, and development of presupposition and presupposition triggers. The second part deals with political news:its definition, features and functions. The third chapter analyzes presupposition triggers in political news from perspective of lexical, namely words that can introduce presuppositions such as verbs (implicative verbs, change of state verbs, factive verbs, iterative verbs and adverbs), definite description, possessives, adjectives and other particles. The fourth chapter analyzes presupposition triggers from the perspective of syntactic. Sentences and structures including temporal clauses, comparison and contrast, cleft sentences, non-restrictive relative clause, counterfactual conditionals and questions can be used to presuppose propositions. The fifth chapter is summary of the whole paper. It covers the frequency of all kinds of presupposition triggers in political news cited as well as their functions. Among 78 sentences in the thesis, change of state verbs and particles, temporal clauses are most frequently used. Change-of-state verbs indicate the alteration of states and actions, from an old policy to a new policy in political news. The beginning of a new policy implies the ending of the past policy. News reporters often adopt change-of-state verbs to attract readers'attention on the change of parties's policies so as to change the number of voters for a party. Particles are mainly used to demonstrate and emphasize facts. As though nouns, phrases and nominal clauses after particles are not information focus, these particles are employed to bear important implied information. Temporal clauses are usually used to supplement information. Among other presupposition triggers, for instance, iterative verbs and adverbs can be used to strengthen a party's stand; Implicative verbs have dual meanings, therefore, frequently appear in political news. Definite descriptions are used to create the common ground of readers. Cleft sentences are adopted to control information flow focus so as to direct readers'mind.