Change Of The Editorial Department's Identity Constructed From Editorials: A Discourse Study Of Three New Year Editorials Of People's Daily

As discourse is playing a more and more important role in the post-modern life,the research of discursive construction of identity has drawn attention from more andmore researchers. The study has selected three New Year editorials in People's Daily—1954,1968and2005editorials respectively, as the analyzing texts. By examiningthese discourses from a diachronic view, the paper aims to show the change of theeditorial department's identity constructed from the three editorials and tries to findthe relationship between discourse, identity construction and social change.The major theories this paper has employed are those of identity and theconstitutive power of discourse and discourse and social change. As for themethodology in this paper, three methods has been applied, which are the analysis ofthe pronominal form "we", the analysis of the modality as well as the analysis of themacro-structure. Through the systematic analysis of the three New Year editorials, thepaper finds that:1) In pronoun, the category of pronominal "we" has changed from"exclusive we" to "inclusive we";2) In modality, on the one hand, the proportions ofrelational modality per thousand words have reduced. On the other hand, all the usesof the four relational modals, including "must","should","ought to" and "can" are onthe sharp decline. And modals of high and median values are used less and less,whereas those of low values are chosen.3) In macro-structure, the length, opening,ending, theme and style of the editorial have been changed. The discourse functionhas changed from political discourse to that of festivals, which indicates that the NewYear editorial does not aim to popularize the policies and principles any longer, but tocelebrate the festival and look forward the future.Based on these findings, it can be seen that the authority of the editorialdepartment has lowered, and that power relations between it and the public has beenreduced and solidarity has been established. And with the changes in the powerrelations and macro-structure being clearly represented, the paper thereby has drawn aconclusion that the identity of the editorial department has changed from themouthpiece of the central government to a pure editorial office. The paper also has taken the social and historical contexts of the present data into account to explore thereasons that lead to the change in identity. And it is discovered that with the socialdevelopment, the editorial department has been reconstructing its identity accordingto the targets of communication and ways of propagation.