A Diachronic Critical Discourse Analysis Of News Reports On UN Climate Change Conference In The New York Times

Human activity produces excessive greenhouse gases, which deteriorates globalclimate and threatens the human sustainable development. Climate change is evolvinginto a highly controversial international political and economic issue. News reports onUN Climate Change Conference in The New York Times (NYT), influence readersimperceptibly, reflecting the relationship among language, power and ideology, whichis very suitable for Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA).The present dissertation conducts a qualitative and quantitative analysis onnews reports on UN Climate Change Conference in NYT by classification, transitivity,intertextuality, to explore the regularities and reasons of the use of news languageevolving with power and ideology, from a diachronic perspective.At first, this dissertation introduces the research background, purpose,significance, the framework of the study, and makes literature review. And then, basedon the relevant theories, analytical tools adopted in this study are proposed. Indiachronic analysis section, the news background of climate conferences and themethod of sample selecting are introduced, and then the specific data analysis is madeaccording to the three stages of description, interpretation and explanation.The results of the diachronic study are summarized below:(1) By classification analysis, it shows that NYT often uses the commendatorywords to describe the U.S. Democratic Party and the European Union, who activelypromote the emissions reduction, and the descriptive contents are mostly positive. Onthe contrary, it often uses the derogatory words to describe the U.S. Republican Partywho firmly resists the emissions reduction and the developing countries whosafeguard their legitimate rights, and the descriptive contents are usually negative.Therefore, it can be concluded that NYT takes a positive position on emissionsreduction.(2) By transitivity analysis, we can see that the eight years’average percentage ofverbal process exceeds50%in the six kinds of processes, and fluctuates in a smallrange, because UN Climate Change Conferences is mainly composed of a lot ofnegotiations. Material process is the second most frequently used，which makes the reports appear more objective.(3) For ideological manipulation, NYT cites specific sources most frequently inthe news sources, and gradually increases its proportion, so as to make the reportsappear objective and impartial. The proportion of quotation from U.S. is the highest inorder to cater on American readers. The American government has the highestproportion among the divided sources of the United States, because the government isalways dominant in foreign policy. NYT gradually increases the proportion of othersources that are in agreement with its own opinion, in order to manipulate the readers’thoughts.(4) As for mode of discourse representation, indirect discourse accounts for thevast majority, for the purpose of convincing readers. However, the overall percentageof indirect discourse is in a downward trend, for the purpose of avoiding beingquestioned about its objectivity. The sum of the percentage of direct discourse anddirect discourse slipping rises in general, so as to enhance readers’trust.(5) The Democratic Party actively promotes emissions reduction, which reflectsthe requirement of the interest groups it represents. NYT, which is in the camp of theDemocratic Party, certainly takes a positive position on emissions reduction.Therefore, NYT criticizes the Republican Party and developing countries, but agreeswith the EU. To facilitate manipulation of thoughts, and for self-interests of thenewspaper itself, NYT makes news language show the aforementioned characteristics.