A critical discourse analysis of the news articles and reports about Diaoyu/Senkadu issues

Abstract

The critical discourse analysis (CDA) is now a major tool for analyzing the news articles and reports. This paper uses CDA to analyze the news articles and reports concerning the Diaoyu/Senkaku issues. It aims to help English language teachers using CDA to create and improve the critical language awareness of students, and how discourse results from the social structure and power relations that serves discourse results from the social structure and power relations that serves different power groups. Through the analysis of articles of Diaoyu/Senkaku issues from Chinese newspaper the People's Daily and Japanese newspaper the Japan Times, it is clear that these two newspapers, which have two different political backgrounds, share some obvious similarities in terms of formatting. However, the differences are of much more significant as reflected in the construction of the texts and the lexical choices, modality and process types used in expressing the different views. In English language teaching, using authentic materials, such as newspaper articles and reports, makes the skill of CDA important as a teaching tool as it may help the English language learners to create and improve their language awareness and the ideology embedded in the texts.