The Cross-culture Analysis Of Disasters News Between China And America From The Perspectives Of Discourse Prejudice And Face-Negotiation Theory

With their greater involvement in international politics, economy, society and culture, media organizations are exerting growing influence over people’ s views,work and lives. As one of the useful method to connect with others, our world is bombarded with news reports at home and abroad with which we could grasp the latest events and communicate with the outside world. In recent years, disasters happened in some areas or countries which caused huge loss and has remained indelible in people’s mind. Accordingly, it is becoming a common topic for countries or the whole world that how to pay attention and deal with the disasters; for journalists or reporters, the task is how to report them properly and in time.However, a fraction of “prejudice” sticks out all over in news reports between the Eastern and Western world. In particular, there are distinctions between China and America’s disaster news even if they report the same content. This thesis mainly based on discourse prejudice and Face-Negotiation Theory. Discourse Prejudice theory put forward by Xiong Wei according to Allport’s prejudice theory and the three-dimensional CDA theory by Norman Fairclough. On the basis of face theory that brought up by Goffman and face-saving theory raised by Brown and Envison,combined with Edward. T. Hall’s context of culture theory, Ting-Toomy came up with Face-Negotiation Theory which proposed four ways to negotiate in situations:face-assertion, face-giving, face-restoration and face-saving.The thesis demonstrates the definition, features and influences of disaster news.Through comparative analysis of the contents between China and America’s news reports in disasters, the similarities and differences can be noticed. It also tries to find out that thinking patterns, mass media and functions of press, cultural backgrounds,ideology, the fundamental interests of the country and power and status that result in discourse prejudice as well as the impact that caused by it. Then it attempts to figure out why news reports in disasters from the two countries make use of Face-Negotiation Theory to report the same incidents and how the theory works in disaster news. Through this thesis, The whole study will compare the ways of reporting disasters between China and USA, as well as to find possible improvements for our television disaster reports by not only giving hints on the development of Chinese news media which help to consolidate and promote mutual understanding and trust between Chinese people and American people that come from different culture backgrounds, but also promote a better understanding of the realities ofworld’s multi-polarity, economic globalization and cultural diversity, which fully demonstrate the trends of development of the world.