| Critical linguistics attaches much importance to the critical analysis of non-literary discourses. Many scholars (Fairclough,1989; Van Dijk,1991,1993; Chen Zhongzu,1995b; Dai Guiyu,2012; Xin Bin,1996; Yang Xueyan,2004,2012) have taken public discourses as the data in their practical application of the Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). It is notable that research on CDA in China continues to be a focus of interest among scholars. They are particularly concerned that the news media uses linguistic techniques which disguise their true motives in influencing the public. Therefore, a research on news reports and revealing ideologies hidden behind them is necessary."This thesis proposes to analyze how different news agencies report on the same event in order to compare how subtle differences in their ideologies and points of view influence their interpretation of the event."(Xin Bin,2000:47) This thesis demonstrates how the application of transitivity, lexical classification and transformation will unveil the ideology and power relations in political news discourse in reporting the event of "China’s New Leadership Transition" by news media and agencies. The data were selected from China Daily, The Guardian, The Washington Post, The Age, and India Today, which represent divergent geo-political perspectives.The research found that five newspapers have major differences in reporting China’s new leadership transition. Of all the transitivity processes, the "material process" was mostly used by the reporters, taking up a total of65%of the clauses. The "verbal process" was frequently used in the articles through the introduction of new information to clarify the authors’intent, accounting for a total of9%of the clauses. The "relational processes" not only revealed the event as it happened, but also uncovered the participants’interrelationships and how the event influenced them, which consisting of15%in total. Further analysis concluded that the different news media utilized different words, phrases, and formats in reporting the same event to convey the writers’respective perspectives and positions on the issues involved in this event. The research also found that both "nominalization" and "passivization" examples of linguistic transformation were employed by the writers to reveal their ideology. Therefore, these five newspapers influence their readers’ judgments and standpoints on this event according to the different ideologies hidden behind the news reports. Also, there is a strong connection between what the news reports said and what the official view of their government was on the event. In addition, this research is important in showing critical language awareness through methods of uncovering and interpreting ideologies read into news discourse. |
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