A critical discourse analysis of news reports on "occupy central" campaign from China daily and the New York times

Abstract

News language is not value-free reflection of the facts and news discourse is always endowed with ideological power. This study involves a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of the news reports on "Occupy Central" Campaign from China Daily and The New York Times, employing Fairclough's Three-dimensional model as framework and Haliidya's Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG), the Theory of Appraisal of Martin and Rose as analytical tools in the analysis. The analysis found various attitudes through language use. In addition, language use in news discourse is not value-free, but it is an ideological investment with reporter's own view and attitude towards the reported issues and people involved with. Those ideological differences determine how the news media produce different news reports while narrating the same event.