| News stories and the way to narrate them on China’s news websites in the language of English have a profound effect on foreigners’impression and understanding of China, thus affecting the result of the country’s international communication effort.This thesis tries to find out exactly how such news websites tell Chinese stories to the rest of the world. Sampling100feature stories released on the English-versionof thePeople’s Daily Online between2012and2014, the research is designed to discover the narrative pattern of the news features on the website, based on which meaningful suggestions on feature writing would be provided to boost the readability, and maximize the targeted communication effect. The research concerns two questions:1. What narrative patterns have been employed in terms of narrator, narrative layer, time arrangement, focalization, event and actor in those feature stories?2.How do these feature stories differ form those Pulitzer prize-winning stories?To expand the discussion,an interdisciplinary approach is taken by adopting Professor MiekeBal’s theory on narratology, according to which samples are analyzed in three layers-narrative text, story, fabula.The result indicates that People’s Daily Online, representing China’s English-version news websites and targeted at foreign readership, shows variety in its topic choosing (the fabula layer), but rigidity in its actant types. Although those news features strictly follow requirements of journalistic professionalism in the re-processing of news events, the research reveals monotony in its narrative techniques (including simple narrative layers, too much one-person focalization, rigidity in the use of anachronies), failing to make the most of the news genre of feature. Therefore, the research suggests reporters learn with discretion from the variety of narrative methods widely adoptedby the Pulitzer Prize winners for feature writing so as to enrich their feature writing skills and provide better reading experience for foreign readers.Originality of this thesis lies both in the topic and the theory. First, existing research findings on the topic of international communication in China mostly focus on such big topics as communication competence and communication system; little academic research has been devoted to the readability enhancement of certain news genre written in the language of English, which is why this research is designed to fill in this blank by discussing narrative patterns of English news features written by Chinese reporters. Second, an interdisciplinary approach is taken by adopting analysis framework and key concepts from narratology theories in the communication research, which systemized and structured the narrative analysis of the texts, and in turn help readers to understand the whole landscape of the narrative patterns.There are, however, limitations to this research. The thesis failed to cover all the aspects of narrative analysis; instead, it only managed to discuss on the most distinguished ones such as narrator, focalization, etc. Besides, no set standards for perfect news feature writing are given in the research; questions regarding the very existence of such standards and how to find them are still open to further discussions. |
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