Critical Discourse Analysis Of New York Time's Reports On China's Food Safety

China,as one of the big countries,has encountered some serious food safety scandals in recent years,which has been put in the spotlight by international media.What the western newspapers have reported on China's food scandals and how they have depicted would exert huge impact on China's image.This thesis bases on “food safety and China” as key words searching the relevant reports on The New York Times.By adopting the theory of the Critical discourse analysis,the thesis aims to analyze the special ideologies and social relations behind the language structure and to reveal it's affect to audiences.This study consists of two core parts.First,by adopting the theory of the Critical discourse analysis,the thesis analyses the strategies and characteristics of The New York Times reporting towards food safety issues in China,and to reveal if The New York Times have some tendency in reporting China's food-related topics;Second,based on the influence of The New York Times' reporting,the thesis has given out some suggestions on China's global communication.According to the research results,the following conclusions can be drawn.(1)At the level of text,the New York Times exerts a “grim situation” of China's food system by using “over-wording” strategy.Besides,from the Perspective of Transitivity analysis,the thesis found out that reports have directed the attention on participants rather than actors' move,so as to somehow hidden the responsibility.(2)At the level of discursive practice,the thesis noticed that the reports get “preferred reading” on China's official quotations in which the focus has been shifted to China's uneven system and domestic food safety scandals.Majority of the indirect speeches are from the vague sources which help to cover up subjective tendencies.(3)At the level of social practice,the thesis have reviewed a case from the New York Times' reports and found out that reports spotlighted on the China's overall poor food safety environment instead of the responsibility of the guilty.(4)China's foreign communication is regarded as inferior to the America's,which explains that the untrue picture of China's food safety system has been easily portrayed by the western media.Based on what the thesis has concluded some suggestions have been listed out to help China's media to improve its discourse right and function as a global one.