A Contrastive and Comparative Study of American News Reports on 2016 American Presidential Debates: A CDA Approach

Abstract The goal of Critical Discourse Analysis is to explore the relationship between discourse and ideology and to uncover the underlying ideologies hidden behind the language。 Therefore, CDA provides readers and researchers methods to see through the news reporters’ real intensions and thus could be alert and immune to manipulation。88540

In this paper, the author would analyze the news reports on the third presidential debate in American mainstream media, attempting to reveal the hidden messages and underlying ideologies in the language。 The news reports are selected from four prestigious American media, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Fox News and CNN。 

Fairclough regards news as the combination of text, discursive practice and social practice。 And Halliday believes that the nature of language is closely related to the functions it has to serve。  Therefore, the author employs Fairclough's three dimensional model and incorporates the idea of Halliday's system functional grammar in the analysis。 Through the textual analysis, the thesis studies how linguistic features express social ideology by analyzing classification and passivization, because lexical choice is embedded in the ideologies which determined how the reporter will report the news, and the use of passivization can reveal the reporter's motivation。 Then, the author analyzes the reporting modes and the verbs in reports to realize that the attitude of the reporter decides the choice of modal auxiliary verbs, and indirect speech is employed by reporter to incorporate his own view。 By analyzing the social context, the author searches for explanation for what have been found。 

In addition, since all American media are impacted by the same American cultural values, such as worship of liberty, equality, independence, which are deeply rooted in people’s minds, there must be some common beliefs behind their differences。 Considering this factor, this paper also would try to explore whether there is any common ground which are formed by the nation’s entrenched beliefs, what are they and even how does they come into being。

Through the critical analysis of news discourse, the author confirms that there are political tendency and ideologies hidden in news reports。 At the same time, the author hopes to help promote the readers' capacity of critical reading and critical awareness so that they would not be easily affected by the journalists。 It is expected to give some enlightenment on foreign language teaching and learning so that English learners may have a better understanding of English texts, news reports in particular。

Keywords: Critical Discourse Analysis; three dimensional framework; systemic-functional grammar; news reports; ideology; 2016 American presidential debate

从批判性话语分析角度看美国2016年总统辩论新闻报道

摘  要批判性话语分析的目标是探索话语与意识形态之间的关系和揭露语言背后潜藏着的意识形态。因此，批判性话语分析为读者和研究者提供了看透新闻报道者的真实意图的方法以及由此能够对其操纵保持警惕并免于被利用。

本篇文章分析了美国主流媒体对第三次总统辩论的报道，并尝试揭示语言中隐藏的信息和意识形态。这些新闻报道都来自权威的美国媒体，分别是《纽约时报》、《华盛顿邮报》、福克斯新闻频道以及美国有线电视新闻网。

费尔克劳把新闻看作是文本，是话语实践和社会实践的统一。韩礼德认为语言的本质和人们对它的需要和它应该完成的功能有着密切的联系。因此，作者以费尔克劳的三维话语分析模式为指导，运用韩礼德的系统功能语法为工具对语料进行对比分析。在文本层面，通过对语言的分类，被动语式的分析研究新闻报道的语言特点，包括词汇的选择体现报道者的意识形态，决定报道者如何报道新闻;被动语式的使用体现着报道者的动机;在话语实践层面，从新闻报道的转述进行了分析，其特点是新闻报道的转述融合了报道者对新闻的看法;在社会实践层面，对新闻报道的社会文化因素和背景进行分析，从社会环境角度为此前的发现寻找合理的解释。