Critical-Discourse-Analysis-of-a-News-Report-on-th

CriticalDiscourseAnalysisofaNewsReportontheBeltandRoadfromTheGuardian【】ThearticlechosethenewsreportaboutBeltandRoadInitiativefromTheGuardianasthebasicmaterialofstudy.Itmadecriticaldiscourseanalysisforthosenewswiththehelpofthetheoryofdiscourseanalysis.1.IntroductionCriticaldiscourseanalysis（CDA）hasbeendrawingmoreandmorelinguists’attentionsinceitsbirthinthelate1970s.Asamethodoftextanalysis，itaimstoexplorethehiddenideologythroughanalyzingthelinguisticfeaturesandsocialbackgroundofthediscourse，andfurtherrevealtherelationshipbetweenlanguage，powerandideology.WhenvisitingcountriesinCentralAsiaandSoutheastAsiainSeptemberandOctoberof2013，PresidentXiJinpingproposedtheinitiativetojointlybuildtheSilkRoadEconomicBeltandthe21stCenturyMaritimeSilkRoad，knownastheBeltandRoadInitiative，whichhasobtainedthehighattentionofmassmediaathomeandabroad.TheGuardianisaBritishnationaldailynewspaperassociatedwithacomplexorganizationalstructureandinternationalmultimediapresenceanditisoneofthehighestcirculationnewspapersintheworld，exertinginfluenceontheEuropeoreventheworld.Theobjectivesoftheresearchareasfollows：first，theresearchisconductedtobeaninitialattempttoanalyzethetopicoftheBeltandRoadInitiativefromacriticalperspective，anditwillprovewhethertheapplicationofCDAintheanalysisoftherelatedtopiciseffectiveornot.Second，theresearchwillbeusedtoprovethevalidityoftheclaimthatlanguageuseinnewsdiscourseisvalue-ladenandideology-encoded.2.TheoreticalFramework2.1Fairclough’sThree-DimensionalModelFaircloughproposesthreestagesinconductingcriticaldiscourseanalysis：description，interpretationandexplanation.Hearguesthatallthreestagesareinterconnected，eachservingaparticularpurpose，allcombinedaimsatuncoveringtheideologieshiddeninthediscourse（1989）.Descriptionisthestagewhichisconcernedwiththeformalpropertiesofthetext，suchaspropertiesofvocabulary，textualstructure.Itisthefirstlevelofanalysis，withtexttheobject.Interpretationisconcernedwiththerelationshipbetweentextandinteraction，withseeingthetextasaproductofaprocessofproduction，andasaresourceintheprocessofinterpretation.Explanationisconcernedwiththerelationshipbetweeninteractionandsocialcontext，withthesocialdeterminationoftheprocessofproductionandinterpretationandtheirsocialeffects.TheconceptionofdiscourseandthethreestagesofcriticaldiscourseanalysisareillustratedinthefollowingfigureinhisbookDiscourseandSocialChangein1992todescribeformalpropertiesofthetext，tointerprettherelationshipbetweentextandinteraction，andtoexplaintherelationshipbetweeninteractionandsocialcontext.2.2Halliday’sSystemic-FunctionalGrammarHalliday（1978，1994）claimsthatalllanguagesperformsimultaneouslythreemetafuncftions，whicharetermedas“ideationalfunction”，“interpersonalfunction”andfunction”.Toputitingeneral，theideationalfunctionisaboutthespeaker’sexperienceofboththerealworldandtheinnerworld；theinterpersonalfunctionisamediationofpersonalrolesandsocialrelationships.Itfocusesonthecommunicativefunctionoflanguageandreferstopeople’scommunicationwitheachotherbythemeansoflanguage，throughwhichpeopletoestablishandkeepakindofsocialrelationshipwithothers；thetextualfunctionfocusesonthedemonstrationsoftherelationshipbetweenthetransfersofinformationwiththespeaker’scommunicativesituation，anditreferstothefactthatlanguagehasmechanismstomakeanystretchofspokenorwrittendiscourseintoacoherentandunifiedtext，whichdistinguishesfromrandomlistofsentence.3.ACriticalDiscourseAnalysisoftheNewsReport3.1DescriptiveStageAccordingtoFairclough’sthree-dimensionalmodel，descriptionisthefirststage.ThisthesiswillapplyHalliday’sSFGtodescribingtheseemingly-naturallinguisticfeatures，whichimpliesunderpinnedideologyandpowerrelationsimplicitly.3.1.1TransitivityTransitivity，thefoundationofrepresentation，isoneofthemostvitalanalyticaltoolsofideationalfunction.Hallidayholdsthattheworldofexperiencecanbeconstruedintoamanageablesetofprocesstypesbytransitivitysystem；furthermore，healsoidentifiessixprocesstypesinEnglishlanguageandtheirrespectiveforemostparticipantsaswellastheircategoricalmeanings.Thus，itmeansthattherearesixdifferentprocesstypescanbechosentoexpressthesamereality.Andsincetransitivitysystemmakesoptionsavailable，thechoiceofprocesstypeindicatesthewriter’sorspeaker’spointofview，whichmaybeideologicallysignificant.Bycountingcarefully，thefrequencyofeachprocesstypeemployedinthenewsreportisillustratedasfollows：Table1obviouslyshowsthatthedistributionofprocesstypesisuneven.Thematerialprocess，whichhasthetopproportion，occupies，52%，themostprominentposition.Theverbalprocess，accountingfor32%，hasbeenthesecondoneusedinthesentences.Followingwithverbalprocess，metalprocessandrelationalprocessrankthesameasthethird，8%.Andthereisnoneforbehavioralprocessandexistentialprocesstobeused.Sincematerialprocessandverbalprocessrankinthetopone，wearegoingtoexplainitonlyandbriefly.First，materialprocessisaprocessofdoing.Sincethepurposeofutilizingmaterialprocessistodescribeauthenticactionsandevents，andtheBeltandRoadInitiativeisabigissuethatwellworthdescribing.Generallyspeaking，amaterialprocessisusuallyassociatedwithtwoinhere