A Critical Discourse Analysis Of Sino-US News Reports On Ma Ying-jeou's Resignation Issue

Critical Discourse Analysis(CDA)studies the relationship among discourse,power and ideology.News discourses,because of their on-sidedness feature,are favorably used by CDA scholars to analyze the views of the producers who are usually driven by certain ideologies.Therefore,a critical discourse analysis on news discourses is of realistic significance in that it can reveal the explicit intentions of the producers and help readers understand the fact better.Based on Fairclogh's three-dimensional model,the thesis conducts a critical analysis of the news reports on Ma's resignation issue.The eleven news reports are selected from Chinese and American news media.The data are analyzed at three levels,namely the textual description level,the cognitive interpretation level and the social explanation level.At the textual description level,the news reports are analyzed from three perspectives: content,speech reporting and lexical choice.It turns out that the content and the form of speech reporting are similar between Chinese and American news reports.However,larger differences exist in the aspects of specific news sources and lexical choice,which are worth further analysis.At the cognitive interpretation level,based on the differences mentioned at the textual description level,different standpoints and views of Chinese and American media on four main topics in the news reports(election losses,Ma's resignation,Taiwan's political status and cross-Straits relations)are interpreted from cognitive perspective with Fillmore's Frame Theory as the analytical method.At the social explanation level,the thesis explains how social mainstream ideologies and national interests exert influence on the formation of the different views revealed at the cognitive interpretation level.American sense of mission and pursuit of democracy make them tend to intervene in internal affairs of other countries or regions in the name of “exporting democracy”,which is reflected in the news reports as misinterpretation of the fact.Ardent expectations manifested in the Chinese news reports embody strong aspiration of reunification.Both Chinese and American news reports,which represent the views of the authorities,try to instill certain ideologies into readers unconsciously so as to protect national interests and maintain ruling power.In short,through the critical analysis of the news reports on Ma's resignation issue,the thesis provides readers with a new perspective of understanding Taiwan issue and Sino-US relations.