A Critical Discourse Analysis of English Economic News Reports.docVIP

A Critical Discourse Analysis of English Economic News Reports 　　Abstract： By means of Critical Discourse Analysis （CDA）， this paper conducts an empirical and comparative study of the hidden ideologies of the English economic news reports of Google’s Pullout of China covered by five prestigious newspapers： China Daily， Washington Post， New York Times， Guardian， and Telegraph. The results indicate that economic news reports are not utterly objective but are woven with a certain ideology. What’s more， ideological stance is a determinant in reporters’ choices of words and expressions. 　　Key words： Critical Discourse Analysis（CDA）； English economic news reports； Google’s Pullout of China 　　基金项目：西南林业大学《语言学概论》重点课程建设（2009～2011）基金之阶段性成果 　　1 Introduction 　　Discourse is “a general tem for examples of language use， i.e. language which has been produced as the result of an act of communication” . Discourse analysis deals with how the choice of articles， pronouns and tenses affects the structure of the discourse and the relationship between utterances. In recent years， news discourse has caught much attention from the advocates of Critical Discourse Analysis. According to Fowler， a forerunner in Critical Linguistics， “anything that is said or written about the world is articulated from a particular ideological position.” Critical linguists’ main task is to analyze how underlying ideologies and values are embedded in linguistic usage. The focus of CDA on news reports is to critically examine the diction of news reports. Foucault argues that 揂s a pre-eminent manifestation of the socially constructive ideologya， language becomes the primary instrument through which ideology is transmitted， enacted and reproduced.” Therefore， it can be said that only when the language is analyzed in a critical way can the hidden ideological assumptions be unmasked and uncovered. No wonder Critical Linguists claim that since language is a byproduct of social practice done by human beings， it is