Identity Construction Of Females In The New York Times From The Perspective Of Critical Discourse Analysis

As a dynamic form of social practice,language can construct social identity,social relations and people's understanding towards the world.Shifting and multifaceted,the social identity is constructed in various specific reconciliation processes such as discursive practice.Through the discourse analysis,it can be figured out how the textual author manipulates discourse to convince people of a specific value and then constructs different identities.Since the founding of The New York Times,females have been a significant topic all the time.In the reporting process,female identity is constructed through different manipulations of language.From the perspective of critical discourse analysis,this thesis aims to analyze the identity construction behind the news discourse on females by The New York Times,with Fairclough's three-dimensional model being the framework.Based on the news discourse,the research is mainly conducted from three levels: text,discursive practice and social practice.Specifically,the classification and text structure are chosen as tools at the level of text;the analysis of discursive practice takes intertextuality as tool,in particular thematic intertextuality and quotation intertextuality;the social practice aims at essentially explaining the different identity construction strategies in news discourse at the levels of text and discursive practice from the perspective of economic and socio-cultural factors.The results show that The New York Times constructs the image of females through classification and text structure at the stage of text.It tends to depict females as strong and aggressive,separate women in the West from women in other countries,and emphasize they are still the oppressed in current society.Thematic intertextuality and quotation intertextuality are adopted at the stage of discursive practice to construct females from different aspects,and then to reinforce the dual identity of females as not only the oppressed but also a fighter.At the last stage of social practice,it can be obtained that the identity construction of females is closely related to the economic and socio-cultural context on the basis of text and discursive practice,meanwhile influences people cognition towards female identity as well as the self and the other.This thesis enriches the application of critical discourse analysis to news discourse by studying the changes of identity construction throughout 10 years in news discourse under Fairclough's three-dimensional framework.In addition,the critical analysis of news reports can facilitate readers to figure out the ideologies hidden behind news discourse,thus developing their critical awareness and critical-reading ability,as well as providing pedagogical implications for teachers and students in higher education.