| News report,as an important kind of social communication media,is supposed to convey information or report events objectively and fairly.However,affected by different national ideologies and reporters' viewpoints,news reports are not always objective but sometimes show some bias.Since China-US trade war started in February 2018,news medias in China and the US have paid continuous attention to this event and issued relevant reports with different attitudes and positions.Based on Halliday's Systemic-Functional Grammar,this study aims to make a comparative analysis of the attitudes towards China-US trade war between two medias in China and the US.This thesis collected one hundred news reports from China Daily and National Broadcasting Company(NBC).Three meta-functions of the news reports,namely,interpersonal meta-function,ideational meta-function and textual meta-function were quantitatively and qualitatively analyzed.According to the findings of the analysis and comparison,this study tries to explore the national images of China and the US constructed by these two medias.Main findings of the study are as follows:In analyzing and comparing interpersonal meta-function,mood and modality systems are analyzed in this thesis.In mood system,declarative mood takes the priority both in China Daily and NBC.However,the frequency of declarative mood in China Daily is higher than that in NBC,while NBC adopts more imperative mood.In modality system,the frequencies of modal operators and comment adjuncts in China Daily are higher than those in NBC.In addition,there is no significant difference in the frequency of mood adjuncts between China Daily and NBC.In analyzing and comparing ideational meta-function,transitivity system of the news reports from China Daily and NBC is analyzed.Findings are that: both China Daily and NBC adopt five types of process,namely,material process,verbal process,relational process,mental process and existential process.Among them,material process takes up the largest proportion,followed by verbal process and relational process,and then,mental process and existential process.Besides,there does not exist significant difference in the frequency of material process,relational process and existential process between China Daily and NBC.However,verbal process and mental process are more frequently employed in NBC than China Daily.In analyzing and comparing textual meta-function,this thesis explores the thematic pattern of news reports.Unmarked theme occupies the majority both in the news reports from China Daily and NBC.However,there exists significant difference in the frequency of unmarked theme and marked theme between China Daily and NBC: the former uses unmarked theme more frequently than the latter,while the latter employs more marked theme than the former.After analyzing and comparing these one hundred news reports from three meta-functions,this thesis tries to explore the national images of China and the US constructed by the two medias.News reports in China Daily construct a powerful Chinese image of honesty,integrity,responsibility,confidence,power,maintaining Chinese interests resolutely,advocating peaceful and negotiable settlements of disputes,and safeguarding Chinese and world's stability and development,but construct an irresponsible,dishonest,forceful and reckless image of the US.News reports in NBC construct a wise,legitimate,brave,responsible,reasonable and justifiable image of the US,but construct the image of China of the destroyer of American and world's economy and the cause of trade war.This study proves that Halliday's Systemic-Functional Grammar is an effective tool for analyzing news reports.At the same time,this thesis can help readers read news reports critically and better understand the hidden meanings behind them. |
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