A Genre Analysis Of English News For Sports Event From The Perspective Of Martin’s Genre Theory

Based on Martin’s Genre Theory, the study adheres to a certain basic principle that genre is"a staged goal-oriented social process realized through register" and selects 30 pieces of English news for sports event during the Rio Olympic Games from China Daily as the researching texts arranged in chronological order and the selected English news for sports event are analyzed deeply from the macro- and micro- perspectives and combed from the perspective of ffunctional element—"context of culture" (macro-perspective) in order to summarize the schematic structure of English news for sports event. Subsequently, the study will focus the vision on another functional element—"context of situation"(micro-perspective), exploring how the three register variables (field, tenor, mode) of the selected news systematically reflect the genre features of English news for sports event through the concrete language resources (transitivity, mood and modality, ideational metaphor, etc.).From the macro-perspective, the study suggests that the schematic structure of English news for sports event can be classified into the following six types in total: 1) English news for sports event as one single news story genre; 2) English news for sports event as one single recount genre;3) English news for sports event as a news story genre, but with embedded recount genre in its Issue stage; 4) English news for sports event as a recount genre,but with embedded news story genre in its Orientation stage and Recount stage; 5) news story genre and recount genre in paratactic relationship; 6) mixed pattern, namely the formation of English news for sports event includes several types of the aforementioned.From the micro-perspective, the study demonstrates that the realization of the three register variables is facilitated by certain language resources: 1) field presents the activity sequences and participant taxonomy of English news for sports event through semantic system—transitivity,especially demonstrating various causes and effects through "material process"; 2) tenor embodies the power and solidarity in English news for sports event through the semantic system—mood and modality, more accurately, the participants in English news for sports event develop a solid relationship, among which power relationship doesn’t exist; 3) mode exemplifies the abstraction and interactivity of English news for sports event through the language resources—ideational metaphor and dialogism, to be more specific, expressions of English news for sports event tend to be more concrete and ideational metaphor is rarely found. Furthermore,the interactivity among the participants is relatively deficient in that English news for sports event belongs to one-way, non-face-to-face written communication.The study, through adopting Martin’s genre theory, systematically analyzes the genre of English news for sports event and expands the applications of Martin’s genre theory to the field of English sports news, thus providing a new perspective for the study of English news for sports event, and thereby providing certain reference value for Martin’s genre theory widely employed in the practice of genre analysis. Furthermore, it will also serve as a valuable reference in the study of English news for sports event.