A Comparative Analysis Of Intertextuality In Chinese And American Media News Reports On China’s Smog From CDA Perspective

Since 2013,with the rapid development of industry in China,China’s smog has attracted wide attention from domestic media and foreign media.Reporters are advised to report the events on the principle of objectivity and authenticity,but news reports can be influenced by reporter’s own attitudes and interests.Therefore,it is necessary to explore news reports on China’s smog.Intertextuality is an important feature of news discourse.It refers to the discourse strategy consciously adopted by media producers and text producers in order to guide the audience or readers to produce specific associations between different discourses.The analysis of intertextuality in news discourse can not only reveal the hidden ideologies and the intervention of language,but also help readers to better understand China’s smog news reports.Based on Fairclough’s three-dimensional model and Xin Bin’s classification of intertextuality,this research attempts to make a comparative analysis of specific intertextuality in Chinese and American news reports on China’s smog from reporting verbs,news sources and reporting modes,aiming to reveal the ideology hidden behind news reports.This research selects forty news reports on China’s smog,including twenty pieces from China Daily and twenty pieces from The New York Times,The Washington Post,and Los Angeles Times.This research uses quantitative and qualitative analysis as the research method and uses corpus analysis software Antconc3.2.4 to classify and annotate reporting verbs,news sources and reporting modes,and then concludes the data results.Finally,by comparing the similarities and differences of distribution of specific intertextuality,this research attempts to reveal the ideologies of China and America towards China’s smog.So,this thesis aims to study and address the following two questions:(1)What are the similarities and differences in the distribution of specific intertextual patterns in Chinese and American media on China’s smog?(2)What kinds of ideologies of China and America towards China’s smog are implied by the distribution differences of specific intertextual patterns?The research results show that:(1)firstly,neutral reporting verbs take up the largest proportion in Chinese and American media,indicating the objectivity and authenticity of news reports.The percentage of positive reporting verbs in China Daily is higher than that in American newspapers and negative reporting verbs in American newspapers account for a higher proportion than that in China Daily.Secondly,the proportion of specified news sources is respectively 76.50% and 61.80% in Chinese and American media.It indicates that both media in China and America use more specified news sources to enhance the authority and credibility of reported speech.There are many news sources from officials in China Daily,in contrast to China Daily,American media quote many common people’s words and the contents of reported speech are full of people’s dissatisfaction with the government’s emergency measures and people’s worry about the current situation of smog.Finally,in terms of reporting modes,indirect speeches account for the highest proportion in Chinese and American media,which is 81.39%,63.74% respectively.Nevertheless,scare indirect speeches in American media take up the maximum proportion as 11.09% more than Chinese media.Though scare indirect speeches,China Daily highlights that the government has made progress to settle smog problem and has taken a series of measures to combat smog,while American media emphasize the seriousness and urgency of smog in China.(2)Intertextuality of news discourse implies attitudes of the media and the country it represents.It can be shown that China holds a positive attitude towards smog governance,while the attitude of America towards China’s smog is negative and irresponsible.This research also discusses the influence of different social contexts on ideology in China and America,in order to enhance the critical reading awareness of readers.This research can not only expand the application of CDA and enrich the research of intertextuality,but also help readers to treat China’s smog rationally.It can also play a positive role in taking appropriate measures to respond to foreign media’s reports on China and actively deal with environmental problems.