分类号 __________
密级 ____公开_____
UDC
编号
20170310030
硕士学位论文
费尔克劳夫三维模型下对《纽约时报》关于
中美贸易战新闻话语的批评性分析
申 请 人 姓 名
秦思莹
导师姓名及职称
周瑞琪 副教授
申请学位类别
文
学科专业名称
商务英语研究
培
位
国际商务英语学院
学位授予单位
广东外语外贸大学
养
单
学
2020 年 6 月
分类号 _________
UDC
密级 ___公开____
__
编号 20170310030
广东外语外贸大学硕士学位论文
A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF NEWS DISCOURSE
OF SINO-US TRADE WAR IN THE NEW YORK TIMES
BASED ON FAIRCLOUGH’S
THREE-DIMENSIONAL MODEL
费尔克劳夫三维模型下对《纽约时报》关于中美贸易战
新闻话语的批评性分析
申 请 人 姓 名
秦思莹
导师姓名及职称
周瑞琪 副教授
申请学位类别
文
学科专业名称
商务英语研究
论文提交日期
2020 年 6 月 16 日
论文答辩日期
2020 年 5 月 23 日
答 辩 委 员 会
郭桂杭
教授（主席）
王伟强
副教授
学位授予单位
学
广东外语外贸大学
严小庆
博士
独创性声明
本人郑重声明：
所呈交的学位论文是本人在导师指导下进行的研究工作及取得的研究成果。
据我所知，除了文中特别加以标注和致谢的地方外，论文中不包含其他人已经
发表或撰写过的研究成果，也不包含为获得
广东外语外贸大学 或其他教育机
构的学位或证书而使用过的材料。与我一同工作的人对本研究所做的任何贡献
均已在论文中作了明确的说明并表示谢意。
作者签名：
签字日期：
年 月 日
学位论文版权使用授权书
本学位论文作者完全了解 广东外语外贸大学 有关保留、使用学位论文的
规定，有权保留并向国家有关部门或机构送交论文的复印件和磁盘，允许论文
被查阅和借阅。本人授权 广东外语外贸大学 可以将学位论文的全部或部分内
容编入有关数据库进行检索，可以采用影印、缩印或扫描等复制手段保存、汇
编学位论文。
作者签名：
签字日期：
导师签名：
年
月
日
签字日期：
年 月 日
A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF NEWS DISCOURSE
OF SINO-US TRADE WAR IN THE NEW YORK TIMES
BASED ON FAIRCLOUGH’S
THREE-DIMENSIONAL MODEL
Qin Siying
Supervised by Associate Professor Zhou Ruiqi
Submitted
in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for
THE
DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS
in Business English Studies
Guangdong University of Foreign Studies
June 2020
i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The life of graduate is drawing to a close. During this period, I went through
setbacks and troubles in life, work and study. However, a group of people have been
encouraging me and supporting me, making me realize that living in the moment is
the most important thing of our lives. And I’d like to thank those who have helped in
my difficult times.
First of all, I would like to show my gratitude to my supervisor, Professor Zhou,
who has devoted a lot of time and efforts to help me improve my thesis and has
encouraged me to attend lectures. When I was confused, Professor Zhou listened to
my troubles, comforted me and educated me. She guides me to focus on studying,
which is the most important thing for me at this stage. Thank you for your patience
and encouragement.
At the same time, I would like to appreciate my classmates for discussing with
me and giving me suggestions when I have difficulty in writing thesis. They are open
to help when I need them.
Finally, I want to thank my mother. Without her understanding and support, I
might not have the opportunity to become a graduate student, to be taught by my
supervisor, and to meet my classmates. Her selflessness makes me feel that I am
loved.
ii
ABSTRACT
The Trump Administration in 2017 launched a 301 survey of China’s
intellectual property, technology and innovation. Consequently, the U.S. government
has implemented three rounds of tariffs on Chinese products, initiating the trade war
between the two countries. Responding to the Trump Administration, China planned
new tariffs on U.S. goods. The two countries are reluctant to give in to each other,
which intensifies the trade war. As a result, reports on the trade war are endless.
News report usually plays a guiding role for readers. However, under the special
political and economic system and sociocultural background, the news report cannot
be absolutely objective. The New York Times is one of the mainstream media in U.S.
The analysis of its news discourses on the trade war can help to reveal the attitude of
the mainstream media in the U.S. towards the trade war.
Based upon Fairclough’s three-dimensional model and Halliday’s SFG, this
study conducts a critical analysis of twenty pieces of news reports on China’s tariff
actions on the United States, collected from The New York Times from 2018 to 2019.
The present study attempts to answer the following research questions: What are the
linguistic features in terms of lexical classification, transitivity and modality in the
news reports on Sino-US trade war from The New York Times? How are the news
discourses on Sino-US trade war interpreted in terms of intertextuality? What are the
social factors that affect the production and interpretation of the news discourses on
Sino-US trade war from The New York Times? The thesis employs Fairclough’s
three-dimensional model as the approach and framework, which involves three
stages: description, interpretation and explanation. Description stage is concerned
with formal properties of news texts, carried out by the analysis of classification,
transitivity and modality in SFG. At the interpretation stage, news discourse is
treated as a type of discursive practice. Discourse representation, as a form of
intertextuality, contributes to the interpretation of the news discourses. Explanation
iii
stage deals with social factors that affect the relations between discursive process
and social practice at three levels: situational, institutional and social context. Based
on the analysis of the three stages, this paper comes to some conclusions.
At the description stage, it shows that the use of language in the news texts is
not arbitrary, and it is dominated by the medium. In virtue of lexical classification,
the medium uses tendentious naming of the Chinese media and negative words to
represent China as a centralized and undesirable country. The descriptive analysis of
transitivity of clauses shows that material process is mostly used in clauses in news
reports, followed by the verbal process; and the proportion of behavioral process is
the smallest. The options of types of clause and the positioning of participants in the
clauses enable the medium to construct a negative image of China. In terms of
modality, the medium uses high or low modal verbs to express its attitude towards
the events related to the trade war. The interpretation stage examines two aspects of
discourse representation: source and mode. As for source, the medium relies more on
specific sources than semi-specific. However, semi-specific sources still make up
over thirty percent. The medium uses this type of source to present a negative image
of China. At the same time, however, it negatively affects the authenticity of the
news. The analysis of mode of discourse representation reveals that indirect
discourse and direct discourse are mostly used in the samples. Indirect discourse and
preset direct discourse both provide the reporters with opportunities to incorporate
their own ideas into others’ voices. The explanation stage uncovers that the options
made in the process of news reports production can be affected by the tension and
balance of the power relation between U.S. and China in the trade war. What’s more,
the institution’s favor of the American interest, the American hegemony and the
advocacy of force also affect the linguistic stance in the news reports.
To sum up, this study enriches the research scope of critical discourse analysis
by critically analyzing the news reports on Sino-US trade war. It also helps readers
better understand the underlying ideologies in the news reports and take more
iv
objective and rational attitude when reading the news reports on the trade war
between the two countries.
Keywords: Critical Discourse Analysis, Three-Dimensional Model, Systemic
Functional Grammar, Sino-US trade war, The New York Times
v
摘
要
出于对中国知识产权技术和创新政策的担忧，特朗普政府于 2017 年对这些
政策发起了 301 调查。随后，美国对中国产品实施了三轮关税上调，中美贸易战
的大幕由此揭开。而后，中国对美国产品提高了关税。双方决不让步的态度使得
贸易战愈演愈烈，新闻媒体对贸易战的报道也层出不穷。新闻报道中的信息通常
对读者具有引导作用，但是在政治经济制度和社会文化背景的影响下，新闻报道
往往不能达到绝对的客观和公正。《纽约时报》是美国主流媒体之一，因此，将
该媒体对贸易战的新闻语篇用于研究美国主流媒体对贸易战的态度具有极高代
表性。
本文以费尔克劳夫的三维分析模型作为理论框架，结合韩礼德的系统功能语
法作为分析工具，从美国纽约时报网站中选取 2018 年至 2019 年有关中国在贸
易战中采取关税反制措施的报道进行批评性分析。本研究试图回答以下研究问题：
《纽约时报》对中美贸易战的新闻报道在词汇分类,及物性和情态方面有哪些形
式上的语言特点？如何从互文性的角度解读《纽约时报》对中美贸易战的新闻报
道？影响《纽约时报》中中美贸易战新闻的生成和解读的社会因素有哪些？本文
以费尔克劳的三维模型为研究方法和框架，分为描述、解释和阐释三个阶段。在
语篇描述阶段，运用词汇分类和系统功能语法中的及物性系统和情态系统描述语
篇在形式上的语言特点。在解释阶段，新闻语篇被视为话语实践。语篇表述作为
互文性的一种形式，用于解读新闻报道的生成。阐释阶段从情境、制度和社会语
境三个层面探索影响话语实践和社会实践之间关系的社会因素。通过三个阶段的
分析，研究发现：
对新闻语篇的描述分析表明文本中语言的使用不是任意的，而是由媒体主导
的。在词汇分类方面，《纽约时报》带有倾向性地对中方媒体进行命名，并过度
使用具有消极意义的形容词将中国描述成一个集权和不受欢迎的国家。对小句及
物性的描述性分析表明，新闻报道的从句中使用最多的是物质过程，其次是语言
过程，行为过程所占比例最小。该媒体通过选择不同类型的小句以及利用小句中
vi
的成分来构建中方的负面形象。通过对情态动词的分析发现，纽约时报的记者会
选择高情态动词或低情态动词向读者传达其对贸易战有关事件的态度。解释阶段
探究语篇表述的两个方面，来源和模式。对新闻来源的分析表明，具体来源的数
量多于半具体来源。然而，半具体来源仍然占所有新闻来源的 30%以上。该媒体
利用这类新闻来源呈现中国的负面形象。但是，与此同时，它也对新闻的真实性
产生了负面影响。至于模式方面，样本中使用最多的是间接引语和直接引语。间
接引语和预设的直接引语有利于记者将自己的观点融入他人话语中。阐释阶段揭
示了贸易战中两国权力关系的较量会影响新闻报道中语言的选择。此外，《纽约
时报》作为社会机构对美方利益的拥护，美国的霸权主义以及美国主流社会对武
力的崇尚也影响着报道中的语言立场。
本研究通过对贸易战新闻报道进行批评性研究，丰富了批评性话语分析的研
究范围。并且有助于读者在阅读贸易战的新闻时能够更好地理解报道中潜在的意
识形态，更加客观、理性地看待报道内容。
关键词：批评话语分析,三维分析模型,系统功能语法，中美贸易战，
《纽约时报》
vii
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ....................................................................................................ii
ABSTRACT .....................................................................................................................iii
摘 要............................................................................................................................. vi
Contents ......................................................................................................................viii
LIST OF TABLES .............................................................................................................. x
LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................................. x
Chapter One Introduction ........................................................................................... 1
1.1 Research background ..................................................................................... 1
1.2 Rationale ........................................................................................................ 2
1.3 Research questions ......................................................................................... 3
1.4 Organization of the thesis .............................................................................. 4
Chapter Two Literature Review .................................................................................. 6
2.1 Review of Critical Discourse Analysis .......................................................... 6
2.1.1 Development of Critical Discourse Analysis ....................................... 6
2.1.2 Key concepts in the field of CDA ...................................................... 12
2.2 Previous studies on news discourse ............................................................. 14
2.2.1 Definition of news discourse ............................................................. 15
2.2.2 Previous studies on news discourse using CDA ................................ 16
2.3 Summary ......................................................................................................... 20
Chapter Three Theoretical Framework ..................................................................... 21
3.1 An introduction to Fairclough’s Three-Dimensional Model........................ 21
3.2 Three stages of Critical Discourse Analysis ................................................ 24
3.2.1 Text analysis ....................................................................................... 24
3.2.2 Processing analysis-intertextuality..................................................... 34
3.2.3 Social analysis .................................................................................... 39
3.3 Analytical framework for the present research ............................................ 39
Chapter Four Research Procedures ........................................................................... 41
4.1 Methodology and data collection ................................................................. 41
4.2 Specific procedures ...................................................................................... 44
Chapter Five Analysis and Discussion ..................................................................... 47
5.1 Description stage .......................................................................................... 47
viii
5.1.1 Classification...................................................................................... 47
5.1.2 Transitivity ......................................................................................... 51
5.1.3 Modality ............................................................................................. 60
5.2 Interpretation stage – intertextuality ............................................................ 63
5.2.1 News source ....................................................................................... 64
5.2.2 Modes of discourse representation ..................................................... 68
5.3 Explanation stage ......................................................................................... 71
5.3.1 Situational context ............................................................................. 71
5.3.2 Institutional context ........................................................................... 72
5.3.3 Societal context .................................................................................. 74
5.4 Summary ...................................................................................................... 74
Chapter Six Conclusion ............................................................................................ 77
6.1 Major findings .............................................................................................. 77
6.2 Implications.................................................................................................. 79
6.3 Limitations and suggestions for further research ......................................... 79
References .................................................................................................................... 81
Appendix ...................................................................................................................... 85
ix
LIST OF TABLES
Table 3-1 Material processes in active clauses ................................................... 27
Table 3-2 Material processes in passive clauses ................................................. 27
Table 3-3 The categorization of mental process ................................................. 28
Table 3-4 The types and modes of relational processes...................................... 30
Table 3-5 Examples of verbal processes ............................................................. 31
Table 3-6 Examples of behavioral processes ...................................................... 32
Table 3-7 Examples of existential processes ...................................................... 32
Table 3-8 Modal operators .................................................................................. 34
Table 3-9 Types and examples of news sources ................................................. 37
Table 3-10 Modes and instances of discourse representation ............................. 38
Table 4-1 Samples of news reports from The New York Times........................... 42
Table 5-1 Naming of China’s state news media in the news samples ................ 48
Table 5-2 Adjectives describing the Chinese in news trade war ........................ 49
Table 5-3 Processes Distribution in news samples ............................................. 51
Table 5-4 The proportion of China-related and US-related Actors .................... 53
Table 5-5 Frequency of modal verbs in news samples ....................................... 61
Table 5-6 The distributions of news sources in the news samples ..................... 65
Table 5-7 The distribution of modes of discourse representations ..................... 69
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 2-1 Discourse as text, interaction and context ........................................... 8
Figure 2-2 Three-dimensional conception of discourse ....................................... 9
Figure 3-1 The Three-Dimensional view of discourse ....................................... 22
Figure 3-2 The analytical framework for the present research .......................... 40
x
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Research background
The Sino-US trade war started from March, 2018, when the U.S. President Donald
Trump, in order to reverse the trade deficit with China, imposed tariffs on about $60
billion worth of goods imported from China according to an investigation under
Section 301. Section 301 authorizes the U.S. President to take any appropriate action,
including non-tariff-based and tariff-based retaliation to obtain the removal of any
foreign act, policy, and practice that violates a trade agreement or is unjustified, and
restricts or burdens U.S. commerce (Congressional Research Service, 2019). China
quickly responded with increasing tariffs on U.S. products.
For more than one year, both countries have set extremely strict tariffs and other
trade barriers on the other side, intensifying the trade disputes. Involving the two
largest economies in the world, a trade war between China and the United States is
likely to undermine global trade and affect the development of the global economy.
The “trade dispute” or “trade war” between these two economies is now a hot topic in
the world, drawing attention from all walks of life, including various media from
different countries, especially those from the United States and China. The media of
the two countries give great attention to the trend of Sino-US trade friction and report
frequently.
As a kind of mass media, news has the function of constructing and conveying
meaning, and is the reflection and mapping of some ideologies of a particular society
or group. Although journalism claims to be adhered to objectivity and neutrality when
reporting news, it is inevitable to convey ideologies of a particular social group and
then affects readers’ cognition and value of the event reported. From this perspective,
the author collects news discourses about Sino-US trade friction from the American
1
mainstream newspaper – The New York Times and conducts a critical analysis
according to the three-dimensional model proposed by Fairclough. This thesis
examines linguistic features in news and how language is employed to produce the
media discourses from The New York Times, so as to obtain the medium’s orientation
and attitude towards the Sino-US trade war, as well as ideologies behind the
discourses.
1.2 Rationale
It seems that news, especially political news, is generally regarded as an unbiased
report of facts. As a kind of social practice, however, news is utilized by newsmakers
to implicitly convey various ideological meanings and unconsciously affect readers.
As van Dijk argues, structures of news discourses can “be explicitly linked to social
practices and ideologies of news making and, indirectly, to the institutional and macro
sociological contexts of the news media” (1988:vii). In order to explore the hidden
ideologies in news reports, a specific approach is required to conduct a critical
analysis of news discourse. Critical discourse analysis is “more precisely about
connections between language use and unequal relations of power” (Fairclough,
1989:1). Therefore, the approach of the research employed to analyze news discourse
is Fairclough’s three-dimensional model in CDA. The three-dimensional model
provides a beneficial framework in investigating power relations, or interactions
between language and society under discursive practice. In such a framework, the
critical analysis of discourse is realized through three stages.
The first stage is about description, dealing with formal properties of texts.
Fairclough (1992) asserts that scholars of critical linguistics draw extensively on
Halliday’s systemic grammar. Hence, Halliday’s systemic functional grammar is
exploited in order to describe the formal properties of texts at the first stage. The
second stage is about interpretation, in which the features of texts are regarded as,
according to Fairclough, “traces of the processes of text production, and cues in the
processes of text interpretation” (1992:79). The third stage is about social analysis of
2
the contexts of texts, at which the processes of text production and interpretation is
considered to be built-in a broader social practice, aiming to observe ideologies and
hegemony’s interference in language.
As far as the object of the research, news discourse, the author collects news
reports on the trade dispute from The New York Times. The New York Times is a
newspaper in the United States with worldwide influence and readership. The
international news is a major focus upon its reports, in particular news on the trade
dispute between China and the United States. The newspaper provides many news
discourses for critical analysis. Since news reports associated with trade war may
involve many political and economic issues, for example, tariffs, negotiations and
Section 301 Investigations, this research focuses upon the news reports about the tariff
measures taken by China in response to the United States. Through a thorough
analysis of twenty trade war-related news reports obtained from The New York Times,
the research intends to underline that political news reports, in particular about tariffs,
are not absolutely objective, and to highlight that language in news to a great extent is
determined by newsmakers’ ideologies and positions, and other social factors.
1.3 Research questions
The critical analysis of news discourse on Sino-US trade war follows the
three-dimensional model constructed by Fairclough, and linguistic data are extracted
from The New York Times. The following three questions will be addressed in the
research:
(1) What are the linguistic features in terms of lexical classification, transitivity and
modality in the news reports on Sino-US trade war from The New York Times?
(2) How are the news discourses on Sino-US trade war interpreted in terms of
intertextuality?
(3) What are the social factors that affect the production and interpretation of the
news discourses on Sino-US trade war from The New York Times?
3
1.4 Organization of the thesis
The study is presented by six chapters. Chapter one discusses the research background,
research rationale, research questions, as well as the organization of the thesis and
briefly describes the purpose and significance of analyzing news reports on Sino-US
trade war.
Chapter Two reviews the development of critical discourse analysis, including
some theories and concepts in critical discourse analysis and previous studies on news
discourse, particularly those studies on news discourses adopting critical discourse
analysis.
Chapter Three serves as an introduction to theoretical framework, which
incorporates the three-dimensional model built by Fairclough, and Halliday’s work in
SFG. The model contains three stages of discourse analysis: description, interpretation
and explanation. At the description stage, the author attaches great importance to
lexical classification, Halliday’s transitivity system and modality system for textual
analysis. Interpretation stage is the analysis of processes of production and
interpretation of news reports. Hence it involves intertextuality of news texts, which
points to the productivity of them.
Chapter Four presents methodology, data collection and research procedures of
this study. This part illustrates that the research mainly conducts quantitative analysis,
supplemented by quantitative analysis. Furthermore, twenty pieces of news reports
extracted from The New York Times are shown in this part, and the research procedure
is detailed according to the three dimension of discourse analysis.
Chapter Five shows the results of formal properties of news reports on the trade
war in terms of classification, transitivity and modality. Next, the news texts are
treated as a sort of discursive practice. And the processes of producing and
interpreting news are explained in terms of source and modes of discourse
representation to work out the way news texts transform from other texts. This allows
the author’s account into a sociologic analysis of news texts and the medium in the
explanation stage.
4
Chapter Six concludes the major findings according to the analysis in Chapter
Five. The limitations in this critical study of media discourses on trade war can also
be found in this part, together with suggestions for further studies.
The above six chapters constitute the whole research, in which every part is
committed to analysis of how language is applied in texts to achieve reporters’ goals,
and to explanations of the interrelations of language, ideology and power.
5
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter firstly outlines the development of critical discourse analysis, followed
by explanations of important concepts in critical discourse analysis, which are
discourse, ideology and power. And then comes a review of news discourse, including
definition of news and previous analysis of news discourses. Lastly, a review of
studies on news discourses from the perspective of critical discourse analysis is
presented.
2.1 Review of Critical Discourse Analysis
Critical linguistics, as a branch of linguistics, is firstly put forward by Fowler et al. in
their book – Language and Control in 1979, focusing upon the interrelations of
language, ideology and power. This section aims to present the development of CDA
according to studies carried out by some critical linguists, and to explain the
conceptions of discourse, ideology and power in the field of critical discourse
analysis.
2.1.1 Development of Critical Discourse Analysis
In the past three decades, on a basis of Halliday’s systemic theory of language and
other theories, numerous linguists, who devoted their efforts to developing CDA,
developed the theoretical studies and discourse analytical approaches concerning
CDA (Fang & Ke, 2016), including Roger Fowler, Norman Fairclough, Teun van Dijk
and Ruth Wodak, etc., who are well-known scholars in CDA.
Critical Discourse Analysis (or CDA, for short), is an interdisciplinary approach
to the study of discourse regarding language as a form of social practice. Scholars of
6
CDA investigate how societal power relations are established and reinforced through
language use, stressing the role of power in domains such as education, media, and
politics. Roger Fowler is one of those who initiated the study of critical discourse
analysis. Fowler, Hodge, Kress and Trew (1979) raise the term “Critical Linguistics”
in the last chapter of the book – Language and Control. According to the analysis of
language materials, Fowler et al. (1979) suggest that there are strong and pervasive
connections between linguistic structure and social structure. However, it differs from
sociolinguistics in that sociolinguistics speaks only of the influence of social structure
on the use of language. Critical linguistics suggest that language confirms and
consolidates the organizations that shape it. These organizations use it to manipulate
people, to establish and to maintain people in economically convenient roles and
statuses, as well as to maintain the power of state agencies, corporations and other
institutions (Fowler et al., 1979). According to Halliday, “language is as it is because
of its function in the social structure” (1973:65). Another claim made by Halliday is
that, since language is studied in contexts of interaction, and the structure of language
in use is responsive to the communicative needs of these interactions; language
structure should generally be seen as having been formed in response to the structure
of the society that uses it. The interrelation of language structure and social structure
is explained by Halliday as being reciprocal. Based on SFL theory and sociological
theories, Fairclough (1989) argues that language is social practice instead of simple
linguistic phenomenon that is independent from society. He believes that language
should be studied as discourse, both in speaking and written forms. In the theoretical
discussions of CDA in Language and Power, Fairclough (1989) puts forward his
three-dimensional approach of CDA for the first time, which is revised into a new
version presented in another book named Discourse and Social Change published in
1992. In its initial version, Fairclough (1989) suggests that discourse involves three
dimensions: text, interaction and context. The relationship of them is illustrated in the
Figure below.
7
Figure 2-1
Discourse as text, interaction and context (Fairclough, 1989:25)
It can be seen that the three dimensions of discourse are text, interaction, and
context. According to Fairclough (1989), text is a product of the process of text
production. As for discourse, it should be regarded as the process of social interaction
and text is a part of the social interaction. Accordingly, text analysis, together with the
analysis of production and interpretation process, constitutes discourse analysis.
Meanwhile context is specified as social conditions of production and interpretation.
These social conditions shape the way in which texts are produced and interpreted.
Consequently, three stages of discourse analysis are proposed by Fairclough:
description, interpretation and explanation. Fairclough establishes his model by
reference to systemic linguistics “in assuming that language in text always
simultaneously functions ideationally in the representation of experience and the
world, interpersonally in constituting social interaction between participants in
discourse, and textually in tying parts of a text together into a text and tying texts to
situational contexts” (1995a:6). This multi-functionality of language is helpful for
Fairclough to operationalize his theoretical claims about the socially constitutive
properties of discourse and text. Furthermore, it proves that any text, as Fairclough
(1992) points out, simultaneously represents reality; enacts social relations; and
establishes identities.
Fairclough (1992) improves the model in Discourse and Social Change. The
difference between the new one and the previous version is that interaction is replaced
by discursive practice and social practice displaces context, highlighting the idea of
8
discourse being a social practice. The new three-dimensional model of discourse is
represented as follows:
Figure 2-2
Three-dimensional conception of discourse (Fairclough, 1992:73)
Figure 2-2 shows that text is a product of discursive practice which includes
production, distribution and consumption of the text. The text dimension and
discursive practice dimension are confined by social practice. This is consistent with
the statement in Language and Power that discourse – language as social practice – is
determined by social structure. Seeing discourse as a social practice is helpful for
analyzing interrelations of texts, processes and context. Fairclough’s CDA is apt to a
sociological analysis of discourse because he absorbed a lot from methodologies and
linguistic theories like systemic functional grammar, pragmatics, Western Marxism
social criticism theory, in particular ideology theory, Foucault’s power theory as well
as theories about language and society of post-structuralism (Xin, 2007).
Different from Fowler and Fairclough, van Dijk studied critical discourse
analysis on a basis of psycholinguistics and cognitive linguistics, stressing the media
function of human mind in the relations of language use, context and social
construction (Xin, 2007). In Prejudice in Discourse, van Dijk (1984) puts forward the
social cognitive model of discourse. He holds the view that any activity or
communication is controlled by social cognition, which has important social
dimensions, and established a triangular model of discourse analysis – discourse,
cognition and society – which explains how power influences discourse through
9
cognition. He also places particular emphasis on text linguistics and cognitive
linguistics, and concentrated on analyzing discourses in a social cognitive approach.
In terms of cognition, it’s not hard to understand that this approach creatively
introduces the study of cognition into the discourse analysis in the field of CDA by
exploring the interrelationship of cognitive phenomenon and discourse structures, as
well as social structures.
Ruth Wodak is a female scholar dedicated to CDA. In Language, Power and
Ideology, Wodak (1989) studies ‘language and power’ and ‘language and politics’
from a critical perspective. In addition, she puts forward discourse – historical
approach, an integration of knowledge about historical sources, and social and
political background inlaid with discursive events. The strength of discourse-historical
analysis method lies mainly in the fact that it not only deals with immediate and
situational social context of text, but also deals with the remote social context.
Therefore, this analytical method conduces to working out the relationship between
processes of text production and historical culture, and is particularly useful for
researchers to find language that is tightly associated with cultural and historical
contexts like discrimination in western discourse against non-Western cultures. In
Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis, Wodak (2001) argues that the critical
discourse analysis should be multi-theoretical and multi-methodical, and reflective.
Researchers need to choose theories or approaches at every point during the process
of analysis, and make their choices transparent. In addition, they have to theoretically
justify their choices, that is, why some interpretations of discursive events are more
effective than others.
van Dijk develops a cognitive toolkit stressing the psychology of text processing.
And Wodak’s discourse-historical approach emphasizes the analysis of interweaving
of the texts. In contrast with Fairclough’s approach, van Dijk’s and Wodak’s
approaches are “less oriented toward lexicosemantic features of texts and more
focused on the variable cultural and social resources and contexts required of text
construction and comprehension” (Luke, 2002:101). However, Fairclough’s approach
of CDA “are based upon Hallidayan analysis of formal properties of text, beginning
10
with systematic analysis of lexical resources and categories, moving through a
targeted analysis of syntactic functions (e.g., transitivity, modality), building toward
the analysis of genre and text metafuntion” (Luke, 2002). His approach has a
comprehensive and systematic emphasis on the text as a sort of intentional code, a
position that focuses on revealing ideologies hidden in texts, which is the main focus
of the present study.
In China, Chen (1995a) firstly puts forward CDA in his A Review of Critical
Linguistics and regarded it as an application of linguistic approach to the analysis of
implicit ideologies in public discourse. He explains that critical linguistics adopts
Halliday’s system functional grammar as its devices for discovering ideologies or
power relations in public discourses. Later, Xin (1996) explains critical linguistics as
the study on the ideologies behind language and how language reflects social structure
and power relations. He conducts a critical discourse analysis of two news reports to
explain how ideologies affect language use and how the power hierarch controls
media to utilize language as an instrument to spread and impose ideologies to the
public.
In recent years, more scholars focus on the applied research of CDA, involving
politics, economy, education and other fields, which diversifies the development of
discourse practice. Li (2004) introduces the development background, analysis
methods of critical discourse analysis, and proved its importance in language teaching
and discourse analysis. Shi (2008) uses the theory of discourse analysis to study
power relations in court discourse, revealing the asymmetrical power relations among
judges, prosecutors, lawyers, plaintiffs, defendants and witnesses, as well as how the
dominant participants in court dialogues control and manipulate their subordinate
participants. Pan (2015) studies news reports from the perspective of CDA in an
attempt to unveil how the U.S. media exploited speaking right to affect readers’
perception of China’s naval power. CDA is also combined with corpus linguistics by
many researchers. Baker et al. (2016) adopts methods of corpus linguistics to carry
out a quantitative and qualitative analysis of news discourse about masculinity from
the perspective of CDA, in which they find that the use of corpus tool in CDA
11
contributes to more objective research findings.
2.1.2 Key concepts in the field of CDA
The introduction of the development of CDA provides us with the goal of CDA,
namely, to explore the relationship between discourse and the context in which it
exists. This is usually realized by examining ideologies in discourses, and explaining
functions of social conditions and power affecting the production of discourses. This
part presents a review of studies on the interrelations among discourse, ideology and
power in the field of CDA.
The term “discourse” is used by Fairclough to claim “language use to be
imbricated in social relations and processes which systematically determine variations
in its properties, including the linguistic forms which appear in texts” (Fairclough,
1995a:73). Language use or any text, should be seen as constituting social identities,
and social relations at the same time. The imbrication of language use in the social
relations and processes “is inherent to the notion of discourse that language is a
material form of ideology, and language is invested by ideology” (Fairclough,
1995a:73).
The conception of ideology was coined by Destutt de Tracy in 1769, a French
Enlightenment aristocrat and philosopher, who conceived it as the science of ideas
during the Reign of Terror in an attempt to develop a rational system of ideas to
oppose the irrational impulses of the mob. After years of evolution, researchers have
different ideas about the meaning of ideology. In the field of critical linguistics,
ideology is treated as a neutral notion by Fowler (1991). He put forward that when it
comes to ideology, critical linguists refer it to something that is related to people
arranging and proving their lifestyles instead an undesired concept in politics. Veron
(1971) proposes that ideology is a meaning layer that can exist in any kind of
discourse, even in scientific discourse. Thompson (1990) defines ideology concerning
the interrelations of power and ideology:
12
I shall argue that the concept of ideology can be used to refer to the ways in
which meaning serves, in particular circumstances, to establish and sustain
relations of power which are systematically asymmetrical- what I shall call
“relations of domination”. Ideology, broadly speaking, is meaning in the
service of power. The notion of ideology can be use. Hence the study of
ideology requires us to investigate the ways in which meaning is constructed
and conveyed by symbolic forms of various kinds, from everyday linguistic
utterances to complex images and texts; it requires us to investigate the social
contexts within which symbolic forms are employed and deployed.
(Thompson, 1990:7)
This explanation helps to specify ideology as a sort of meaning serving the power that
constructs it, and highlights the importance of the way in which meaning is produced
in language.
Althusser (1970) has made distinctions between repressive state apparatuses and
ideological state apparatus. The latter includes region, education, law, mass media,
etc., which aims to realize an ideology. An ideology always exists in an apparatus and
in the practice or practices of that apparatus. Fairclough (1989) asserts that through
discourse practice, the ideology advocated by the dominant class out of its own
interests is gradually recognized by others in society. These scholars’ viewpoints of
ideology contribute to our understanding the meaning of discourses. That is, the
meaning of a discourse is determined by the relationship of the discourse and its
context. It is always consumed by social people controlled by a specific ideological
state apparatus, such as family, school, media or other social institutions. Volosinov’s
idea about ideology and sign helps us to better capture the interrelations of discourse
and ideology. Volosinov (1973) believes that the domain of ideology coincides with
the domain of signs. Wherever a sign is present, ideology is present, too. As we know,
language can be a sign. This helps us to understand that language is along with a
certain ideology.
In general, the term ideology in critical discourse analysis refers to certain value
or ideas hidden in the discourse, advocating by some social groups out of their own
interest. Hence, exploring the interrelation between discourse and ideology is
13
significant, because it helps us to figure out the hidden ideologies conveyed by the
producer.
In addition to discourse and ideology, power is another essential concept that
initiates the study of critical discourse analysis. Weber (1947) defines power as the
possibility for an actor in asocial relationship to achieve his will without resistance.
Generally, the group that holds power in the society constantly reasserts and
strengthens their power within a specific period of time, whereas those who have no
power or little power always try to gain power. In terms of the social and institutional
properties of power, van Dijk defines social power as “a social relation between
groups or institutions, involving the control by a (more) powerful group or institution
(and its members) of the actions and the minds of (the members) a less powerful
group” (1993:10). News reports are unidirectional, in which the reporters hold
dominant power of producing discourses; decide contents of news; and choose the
way to report. As van Dijk points out “Media power is generally symbolic and
persuasive, in the sense that the media primarily have the potential to control to some
extent the minds of readers or viewers, but not directly their actions” (1993:10).
However, it is important to make clear that the individuals and organizations used as a
source of information by mass media do not represent the entire society. Usually news
source is from the powerful and dominant groups in society.
The above review of studies on CDA shows that CDA doesn’t deal with telling if
language use in discourse is right or not. The central idea of CDA is to explore the
relationship between text and the context in which it exists. Specific analytical
approach and linguistic devices, such as transitivity, are needed to achieve this goal.
2.2 Previous studies on news discourse
This section is a brief review of news discourse, including the definition of news and
previous researches on news discourse.
14
2.2.1 Definition of news discourse
There are more than one hundred definitions of news (Huang, 2009). In Collins
Learner’s English-Chinese Dictionary, news is defined as a sort of information
“published in newspapers and broadcast on radio and television about recent events”
(“news”, 2008:1071). This definition describes the specific form of news, which is
delivered through mass media. However, a major defect of this definition is that not
all information reported by the newspaper or TV can be news, for instance, want ads
in the newspaper. To define news as a kind of information cannot reflect the
objectivity, and other attributes of news. Chinese press refers news as to “the report of
facts that happen recently” (Hu, 1999:91). This definition indicates that news is a
report and a reflection of object from the subject. It is not just a fact or an idea, but it
is an integration of the subject and object and the reported issue points to recent event,
neither historical events nor fabricated stories. This definition reveals the essential
characteristics of news and avoids the factors that do not pertain to the characteristics
of news, such as “interest”, “novelty” and “human interest” (Hu, 1999). It helps to
distinguish news from non-news and to make people understand the features of news
better.
However, from the perspective of linguists, news is not just about reporting an
event. For instance, Roger Fowler (1991) states that the content of newspapers is not
facts about the world, but ideas that can be replaced by other terms like “values”,
“beliefs”, “theories”, “propositions”, “ideology”, etc. For him, language in news is a
highly constructive mediator instead of being neutral. As Fowler further explains in
his book Language in The News, “News is a representation of the world in language,
because language is semiotic code. It imposes a structure of values, social and
economic in origin, on whatever is represented; and so inevitable news, like every
discourse, constructively patterns that of which it speaks” (1991:4). In the sight of
Fowler, news is seen as a representation of world realized by language which is not
value-free. Fowler’s view about news negates the objectivity of news. And it is with
the thought that news is not a value-free account of fact that a number of linguists use
15
news reports as the main object of discourse analysis.
In sum, news can be known as items or reports in newspapers, on radio or TV,
which provide newsworthy information about events recently happened. This study
deals with a type of discourse that is expressed, used, or made in news media, namely,
news discourse, in which the role of language in political, economic and cultural life
of modern society, the interrelations of language, power and ideology, and the
tendency of colonization and hegemony of discourse (Fairclough, 1992) have long
aroused the attention of the western developed countries. In the present study, news
discourse is treated as a representation of the journalists’ expression and construction
of events, as well as readers’ understanding and cognition of the events after they
consume the news reports. In other words, news discourse is not a reflection of the
objective world. It is this feature of news discourse that attracts much attention to
analysis of news reports using different approaches and theories. Hence, a review of
studies on news reports is presented in the following part.
2.2.2
Previous studies on news discourse using CDA
Thompson (1990) claims that the analysis of ideology in modern society should focus
on the nature and impact of mass media on the producing and disseminating of
ideology. Therefore, although critical linguistics attaches importance to the critical
analysis of all non-literary texts, news discourse is its main object of analysis.
According to van Dijk (1988), news discourse is regarded as an ideological discourse,
involving many social factors. Xin (2005) argues that in the western capitalist society,
news reports are usually dominated by political and power groups. It seems that some
news reports are objective and impartial, but actually they contain all kinds of
ideologies, which subtly affect the readers. Therefore, linguists started to call for
critical study on mass media in order to discover ideologies behind language. This
section presents a review of critical studies on news discourse, among which studies
on news discourse of Fowler, van Dijk, Fairclough, and Xin are highlighted.
16
Toward the end of the 1970s, the first critical study of mass media in linguistics
was introduced by Fowler et. al. (1979). Fowler (1991) asserts that news is not
value-free reflection of facts. In other words, language use in news texts is not neutral.
It is seen as a highly constructive mediator in news reports. Therefore, Fowler (1991)
claims that news is a practice: a discourse far from neutrally reflecting social reality
and empirical facts, intervenes in the social construction of reality. His study explores
how language structure serves to construct ideas and beliefs in news and emphasizes
the linguistic devices for a critical analysis of discourse like lexical structure,
transitivity, modality, and speech acts.
Teun A. van Dijk also devotes himself to the study of media discourse. He
believes that news should be analyzed primarily as a kind of public discourse.
In
News as Discourse, van Dijk (1988) tries to combine discourse analysis with media
analysis for the first time, focusing on one of the most important types of discourse in
mass media – news in newspaper. News discourse is ideologically significant in the
sight of van Dijk. For one thing, it helps to convey the social and political attitude of
the producer. On the other hand, it is an economic product, which follows the
relationship of supply and demand in economy. Therefore, it is worth noting that there
are a lot of social factors involved in news. He also tries to establish a link between
news discourse and cognition. He believes that without a cognitive theory of writing,
reading and understanding news, it’s difficult to understand what mass media is and
what role it plays in shaping, confirming and changing our knowledge and attitude
towards the world. van Dijk (1998) comes up with several analytical tools – script,
macrostructure and news schemata – to analyze the cognitive processes of journalists
and readers. By using these tools, he analyzes numerous samples of news reporting
and conducted a study of racism in the European press in his two works, News as
discourse and News Analysis.
Fairclough (1995a) combines social theories with CDA to offer a new method for
analyzing language use in news reports, which involves poststructuralist’s interest in
genre mixing and intertextuality, as well as concerns of modern social theory. In
Media Discourse, he dedicates to the analysis of the media as another voice of
17
globalization and the mass media as the prime location through which the debate over
globalization is mediated. In his investigations to texts, Fairclough (1992) shows that
for any text, there is an assortment of other texts or voices may be incorporated into
the text. This property of discourse is called intertextuality, a recontextualization
which involves texts moving from one context to another and transformation caused
by material recontextualized in new context. Intertextuality makes information or
events represented in the text selective. By analyzing a report on extradition of two
Libyans who are accused of being responsible for the Lockerbie bombing in 1988,
Fairclough (2003) argues that an established structure helped to unfavorably interpret
the Libyan side in the report. In other words, it seems that there is a hidden
“antagonist-protagonist” structure that opposes the “good” western diplomats and
politicians to “bad” Libyans.
It was not until the 1990s that Chinese scholars began to work on this aspect. For
the first time, Chen (1995a) proposes the concept of critical discourse analysis in A
Review of Critical Linguistics. He regards critical linguistics as a linguistic method in
analyzing the application of ideology in public discourse. Chen (1995b) studies two
news reports on strike in two English newspaper and concluded that news reporters
utilize grammar, social relation and text structure to convey ideologies and realize its
control over power. Hence, the analysis of news texts should be critical, so as to
reveal the means of controlling ideology used by mass media.
Later, Xin (1996) introduces critical linguistics in detail and interpreted critical
linguistics as a study of the nature of ideology in language and how language reflects
social structure and power relations. He also conducts a critical discourse analysis of
two news discourses to explain how ideology affects language use and how the power
class uses language as a tool to spread and strengthen its ideology by controlling the
media. In another article, Intertextuality from a Critical Perspective, Xin (2000)
argues that news reports should be studied diachronically and synchronically in order
to reveal the ideology inside.
By using the transitivity system of Halliday’s SFG, Jiang and Gu (2000) study
the ideological meaning contained in English news reports. It is found out that the
18
ideological meanings are embodied in the speaker’s selection of transitivity system in
news reports, and this selection process is influenced and restricted by the speaker’s
standpoints, communicative intentions and social context. Comparing the newspapers
of China Daily to those of The New York times, Liu (2008) carries out a statistical
analysis of the use of modal verbs in China Daily’s reporting of domestic news. It
pointed out that China Daily lacked the flexibility in the combination of modal verbs
and reporting contents, which limited the negotiation and communications between
the news discourses and readers in terms of interpersonal meaning, and weakened the
readability and storytelling of news reports. Shi (2008) uses Fairclough’s
three-dimensional conception of discourse to study the power relations in court
discourse, revealing the disproportionate power relationship between judges,
prosecutors, lawyers, plaintiffs, defendants, and eyewitnesses in court dialogue and
concluded how the participants control and manipulate their subordinate participants
with language strategies.
Shan (2011) delivers a critical analysis of news discourse arguing that in addition
to the basic theory of critical discourse analysis and the steps of critical discourse
analysis, there are other aspects should be noted, such as language expression, the
accuracy of news reports, the issues discussed in news discourse, and the
understanding of intertextuality in news discourse. Only in this way can we further
enhance the critical discourse analysis ability of news discourse and accurately
understand the deep meaning of news discourse. Dai (2015) conducts a critical
analysis of English news discourse from the perspective of intertextuality, and stated
that news producers often indirectly express their thoughts and influence readers’
views on the reported events by using different ways to represent speeches from news
source. Liu (2018) employs dialectical-relational approach to conduct critical
discourse analysis. Based on a self-built small corpus on Chinese smog reports, he
studied Chinese and American media from four levels: word frequency, concordance,
collocation and clusters. By conducting a comparative analysis, he concludes that The
New York Times focused on rendering a negative image of China, while China Daily
attempted to construct a responsible government who is earnestly carrying out its
19
commitment of environmental governance.
In sum, it is obvious that even though CDA linguists and scholars conduct their
studies from different perspectives, they keep a common goal that is to work out
attitude sent out by mass media and ideologies embedded in news reports.
2.3 Summary
From the above review of CDA and news discourses, it can be concluded that CDA is
an interdisciplinary approach applied to a wide range of discourses, such as economic,
political, racial discourses, etc. The purpose of CDA is to investigate the relation
among discourse, ideology and power in sociocultural contexts. And lots of studies on
the theoretical development of CDA and CDA in specific discourse help to manifest
its validity and application as an analytical approach to discourse.
With regard to news discourse, it should not be regarded as a value-free
reflection of fact. Instead, it is a representation of the journalists’ expression and
construction of events, as well as readers’ understanding and cognition of the events
reported. It functions as a carrier that transmits ideologies and social values. CDA
helps to interpret the relation between language use and social contexts and reveal
ideological significance and power struggle in language.
Concerning previous studies adopting CDA, there are still some limitations. First
of all, most of the researchers focus on presenting theories and employing them into
public discourse, instead of coming up with new theories. Secondly, even though a
number of analysis are conducted on various kinds of discourses from different
perspectives, most of these previous studies emphasize political, economic and racial
news reports. Few of them focus on business or trade news reports, especially news
reports on trade war between the two large economies in the world. This finding
evokes the present author to carry out a critical analysis of the latest Sino-US trade
war-related news reports of The New York Times, in an attempt to contribute to critical
news study.
20
CHAPTER THREE
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Chapter Two reviews critical perspectives upon discourse in the work of many critical
linguists and researchers such as Fairclough, van Dijk, Xin, etc., who have influenced
the development of critical discourse analysis. This chapter goes on to present
Fairclough’s multidimensional approach as a synthesis of socially and linguistically
oriented perspectives of discourse. This approach is elaborated by detailing the three
dimensions of discourse analysis as well as linguistic devices used in analysis,
including classification, modality and transitivity of SFG, and intertextuality. An
analytical framework for later analysis is presented at the end of chapter.
3.1 An introduction to Fairclough’s Three-Dimensional Model
In Language and Power, Fairclough described the relationship between language and
society as being internal and dialectical. In the word of Fairclough, “Language is
centrally concerned in power, and struggles for power, and that it is so involved
through its ideological properties” (Fairclough, 1989:17). In order to examine the
interrelations among language, ideology and power, Fairclough proposed a
three-dimensional model, within which discourse involves text, discourse practice and
social practice and three dimension of discourse analysis in accordance with them:
description or text analysis, interpretation or processing analysis, and explanation or
social analysis.
The feature of this model is that “the link between social practice and text is
mediated by discourse practice” (Fairclough, 1995a:97). And it demonstrates an
internal and dialectical relationship of language and society, that is, according to
Fairclough, “Language is a part of society; linguistic phenomena are social
phenomena of a special sort, and social phenomena are (in part) linguistic phenomena”
21
(1989:23). This statement implies that the ways that people speak, write, read or listen
are determined socially, and they produce social effects. For instance, the way that we
use language in our most private and intimate encounters not only socially restrained
by the social relationships in family, they also affect our social relationships with
others through helping to maintain, or change such relationships. Figure 3-1 below
pragmatically presents the three-dimensional view of discourse and discourse
analysis.
Figure 3-1
The Three-Dimensional view of discourse (Fairclough, 1995a:98)
It can be seen that discourse is a multidimensional synthesis involving three
dimensions: text, discourse practice (text production and interpretation), sociocultural
practice at situational, institutional and societal levels. As a kind of discourse practice,
discourse is regarded as the product of production processes and resource for
interpreting. And social context is the main focus of sociocultural practice dimension.
Correspondently, discourse analysis contains three dimensions: “linguistic description
of the text, interpretation of the relationship between the discursive processes
(productive and interpretative processes) and the text, and explanation of the
relationship between the discursive processes and the social processes” (Fairclough
1995b:97). The three-dimensional view of discourse is adopted in this study as the
22
foundation of analytical framework.
In Discourse and Social Change, four main headings under text analysis were
provided: vocabulary, grammar, cohesion, as well as text structure. According to
Fairclough, “Vocabulary deals mainly with individual words; grammar deals with
words combined into clauses and sentences; cohesion deals with how clauses and
sentences are linked together; and text structure deals with large scale organizational
properties of texts” (1992:75). In addition, “the force of utterances, i.e. what sorts of
speech acts (promises, requests, threats etc.) the texts constitute; the coherence of
texts; and the intertextuality of texts” (Fairclough, 1992:75), are three main headings
under the analysis of discursive practice. According to Fairclough (1992), discourse
should be studied within a view of hegemony, and in a vision of power relation
evolving into hegemonic struggle. From this perspective, the relations of discourse,
ideology and power are investigated for analyzing discourse as social practice.
According to Fairclough (1992), theoretically all levels and all structures of
discourse may be ideologically significant. However, as Shi (2008) argues it’s
unnecessary and impossible to examine every linguistic element in discourse when
conducting CDA. Normally, on the basis of abundant knowledge and appropriate
comprehension of the context, function and social relations of discourse, critical
analysis should focus upon “language structures and processes that possibly have
important social significance, then meaningfully summarize the ideology of the
discourse accordingly” (Xin, 2005:65). In order to find the answer to the research
questions of this study, classification, modality, transitivity, intertextuality, situational
context, institutional context and societal context are going to be investigated in later
chapters. Classification, modality, and transitivity are employed in descriptive
analysis of texts; intertextuality falls into the analysis of discursive practice; the three
levels of context belong to the analysis of discourse as sociocultural practice. Next
section is an explanation of why the above seven aspects contribute to the critical
discourse analysis in the present study.
23
3.2
Three stages of Critical Discourse Analysis
The three stages of discourse analysis coincide with a new perspective of discourse.
This part further discussed the three stages of discourse analysis under Fairclough’s
model: text analysis (description), processing analysis (interpretation) and social
analysis (explanation), along with analytical devices employed in order to construct
an analytical framework of this research.
3.2.1
Text analysis
Text analysis or description deals with formal properties of the text, which involve
properties of vocabulary, grammar, textual structure and so forth. In analyzing
vocabulary, the method “is based upon the assumption that different ways of
lexicalizing domains of meaning may include ideologically different systems of
classification, so there is an interest in how areas of experience may come to be
relexicalized on different classificatory principles” (Fairclough, 1992:28). This
classification approach of vocabulary focuses upon experiential values reflected by
lexical choices and classification schemes drawn upon in a specific text. It is adopted
in the present study to confirm political and ideological significance of wordings in
texts.
Clause is seen as the main unit of grammar in text analysis. The main elements
of clauses are usually called groups or phrases, and the concern of grammar is
“restricted to certain aspects of the clause” (Fairclough, 1992:75). According to
Fairclough (1992), clauses are multifunctional and each clause is simultaneously of
ideational, interpersonal and textual significance, which comes close to systemic
grammar, which regards every “text as simultaneously enacting what Halliday calls
the ideational, interpersonal and textual functions of language” (Fairclough, 1995a:31).
Hence, for textual analysis, critical linguists draw heavily on Halliday’s work in
“transitivity” – “the aspect of the grammar of a clause that provides different process
types and associated participants as options, and systematic selection of a particular
24
process type may be ideologically significant” (Fairclough, 1992:27). It is this aspect
of the grammar of clauses that relates to their ideational meaning, that is, the way they
represent reality, to which critical linguistics make much reference, so as to “work out
what social, cultural, ideological, political or theoretical factors determine how a
process is signified in a particular type of discourse (and different discourses), or in a
particular text” (Fairclough, 1992:177).
Another focus upon the grammar is modality. According to Halliday (2004), the
clause of grammar is not only “representing certain process, but also a proposition, or
a proposal, whereby we inform or question, give an order to make an offer, and
express our appraisal of and attitude towards whoever we are addressing and what we
are talking about” (2004:29). This is the interpersonal function of the grammar. As
Fairclough (1992) argued, the producer must indicate a degree of affinity with the
proposition in any propositional utterance, and so any utterance has the nature of
modality, or is modalized. From this perspective, the grammar of modality is another
focus upon clause grammar relates to its interpersonal meanings. Below are further
explanations of classification, transitivity and modality.
3.2.1.1 Classification
Classification is “the linguistic ordering of the world” (Fowler et al., 1979:210). In
producing news reports, it is the newsmaker who has right to determine which word
appears or cannot arise in news. One focus upon vocabulary, as Fairclough (1992)
argues, is on alternative wordings and political and ideological meaning of them, on
how domains of experience are “reworded” on different classificatory principles, for
example, in the course of social and political struggle, or how some domains are more
intensively worded than others. From this perspective, two lexical features of
classification are reflected: re-classification and over-classification. According to
Fairclough, re-classification refers to generate new lexical items “which are set up as
alternatives, and in opposition to, existing ones” (1992:194), for instance,
re-classification “riots” as “demonstrations” or vice-versa. The choice between
25
“radical” and “liberal” to describe a set of people indicates different political and
ideological backgrounds of a text producer. Under this circumstance, lexical choice is
seen as the representation of a world in accordance with a specific ideological need of
a culture. Over-classification alludes to the dense wording of domain. According to
Ku (2004), over-classification means that there is an excess of quasi-synonyms for
entities and ideas within discourse in a specific culture. In the words of Fowler et al.,
over-classification is “a sign of intense preoccupation pointing to peculiarities in the
ideology of the group responsible for it” (1979:210). For instance, the
over-classification of “competence”, “skill”, “expertise”, “mastery” in a report on
English teaching seems to relate to a preoccupation in the report with the ideological
projection of a view of language as a set of technical skills.
3.2.1.2 Transitivity
Halliday argues that transitivity “construes the world of experience into a manageable
set of the clause” (1994:106), pointing to the ideational dimension of the grammar of
the clause. Halliday’s work in transitivity focuses upon the process, which is
presented by verb phrases in clause, and includes the participants realized by noun
phrases and pronounces, as well as the circumstances related with the process
(typically realized by prepositional and adverbial phrases). Halliday identifies six
processes types of the grammar of clause: material, mental, relational, verbal,
behavioral and existential processes in accordance with whether the clause is the
representation of action, speech, mental state or state of being. The options of the
process types and the positioning of the participants involved in processes are closely
related to the speaker’s or writer’s perceptions and understanding of reality. From this
perspective, “transitivity has the facility to analyze the same event in different ways,
which is of great interest in newspaper analysis” (Fowler, 1991:71). According to
Fairclough (1992), which process type is chosen to signify a real process may be of
cultural, political or ideological significance. One objective of analyzing transitivity in
the present study is to figure out whether particular types of process and types of
26
participants are favored in the texts and factors may account for that.
3.2.1.2.1 Material processes
Material processes are processes “of doing and happening” (Halliday, 2004:179),
within which an entity does something or performs an action, which extends to
another entity. Either in active or passive forms, two participants – the Actor who
carries out the deed, and the Goal which the deed is direct at or extended – may be
involved in the process. In some cases, however, the Actor as an Agent is omitted in
passive clause and the Goal doesn’t appear in active clause, as is shown in Table 3-1
and 3-2.
Table 3-1
Material processes in active clauses
Actor
Process
the policeman
shot
the woman
died
Goal
the woman
The two examples are clauses in active voice. In the first Example, “the
policeman” is identified as the Actor (also the Agent) of “shot” and his doing directed
at the Goal “the woman”. The policeman may undertake the responsibility for the
woman’s death considering the clause. In the second Example, however, the Agent is
suppressed without telling who is going to be responsible for the woman’s death.
Table 3-2
Material processes in passive clauses
Goal
Process
the woman
was shot
the woman
was shot
Actor
by the police
Unlike examples in Table 3-1, this Table shows two examples of passive and the
action process is initiated by the Goal rather than the Actor. In the first example, the
Goal is mapped on to the Subject and the Actor has the status of an Adjunct of the
clause, which may in fact be left out, as is shown in the second Example. In the
27
linguistic data of this study, any clause that includes an action in the form of active or
passive is treated as a material process. For instance:
(1) The Chinese government issued a muted response on Friday.
(2) Since Mr. Trump was elected, the two sides... fall apart.
Example (1) is an active clause, in which “the Chinese government”, as the Actor
(Agent), takes the action “issued” extended to the Goal “a muted response”. In
Example (2), the voice of clause is passive. The Goal “Mr. Trump” has the status of
the Subject, whereas the Actor is suppressed.
3.2.1.2.2 Mental processes
Mental processes refer to the processes of sensing, which represent feelings, thoughts
or perceptions of human being. This kind of process is about human experience of
their conscious world. Its participants are Senser and Phenomenon, instead of Actor
and Goal in material processes. The Senser is the conscious being, typically meaning
a person or persons, or a human collective (for example, the White House). The
Phenomenon is the one being “felt, thought, wanted or perceived” (Halliday,
2004:203). Mental processes are categorized into three subcategories: Affection
(hating, liking etc.), Perception (feeling, seeing etc.) and Cognition (understanding,
thinking etc.), which are illustrated in Table 3-3.
Table 3-3 The categorization of mental process
Subcategory
Senser
Process
Affection
Phenomenon
Mary
likes
the dog
Perception
I
can feel
your kindness to me
Cognition
she
remembered
how it was
The first example in the above table is a mental clause of Affection which
28
construes the emotion that the Senser “Mary” has for the Phenomenon “the dog”. The
second clause is a mental process of Perception, with “can feel” as the Process, “I” as
the Senser and “your kindness to me” as the Phenomenon being perceived. This
subtype of mental clause has its properties that set it apart from the others because it
captures a modulation of readiness with “can feel” compared with “I feel your
kindness to me”. In the example of Cognition, the Phenomenon “how it was”
remembered is construed as impinging on the Senser’s consciousness. In later
discussions, clauses containing sensory verbs, like sound, see, look, feel, hate, love,
are considered as instances of mental processes. For instance:
(3) Tom hates rats.
(4) I can see bee buzzing in the flowers.
(5) We know who one of the losers are and that’s us.
These three examples are mental clauses of Affection, Perception, and Cognition
respectively. Example (3) is the clause that construes the Senser’s (Tom’s) emotions
or feelings about rats. In Example (4), “can see” serves as the Process, and “bee
buzzing in the flowers” as the Phenomenon is perceived by the Senser “I”. Example
(5) as a mental clause of Cognition, with “know” as the Process serving the Senser
“we” is able to set up another clause as the ideas created by cognition, that is, “who
one of the losers are and that’s us.”
3.2.1.2.3 Relational process
Relational processes are about “being”. “Being” here does not refer to the state of
existing. As the term relational indicates, “being” means the relationship between two
independent entities. Intensive, circumstantial, and possessive processes are three
types of relational process. The corresponding structures of these clauses are “A is B,”
“A is on B” (“on” represents for, about, at, etc.), and “A has B”. All of them
accommodates two modes: attributive and the identifying mode. For attributive mode,
29
B should be an attribute ascribed to A, but for identifying mode, B should be the
identity of A. The above distinctions of relational processes are shown in Table 3-4.
Table 3-4 The types and modes of relational processes
Mode
Attribute
Identifying
Type
Intensive
Leslie is outstanding. Leslie is the artist; the artist is
Leslie.
Tomorrow is the 7th; the 7th is
Circumstantial The movie is on
Possessive
Sunday.
tomorrow.
Julie has a bicycle.
The bicycle is Julie’s; Julie’s is
the bicycle.
The examples given above embody an important distinction between attributive
mode and identifying mode. The identifying relational processes are reversible: Leslie
is the artist/ the artist is Leslie. The attributive ones are not reversible: there is no
form outstanding is Leslie, which is systemically related to Leslie is outstanding. In
the attribute intensive clause, “Leslie” is the Carrier of the attribute ascribed by the
Process “is”. This intensive clause functions as a resource for characterizing the entity
“Leslie” and also as a grammatical strategy for assessing by assigning the evaluative
attribute “outstanding” to “Leslie”. The attribute circumstantial clause indicating the
relationship between the Carrier “the movie” and the Attribute “on Sunday” is of time,
which is realized by the Process “is”. In the possessive attribute clause, the
relationship between the Carrier “Julie” and the Attribute “a bicycle” is of ownership,
with “has” serving as the Process. In the linguistic data of this study, every clause
which pertains to the above principle types is tagged as a relational process. Here is an
example of relational process from a news sample: The grain silos and pickup trucks
in Cass County are shiny and new. This example is an attributive intensive clause.
The Carrier “the grain silos and pickup trucks in Cass County” is assigned an
Attribute “shiny and new”.
3.2.1.2.4 Verbal processes
30
As its name implies, verbal processes are about saying, involving any kind of
symbolic exchange of significance. It is usually concerned with participants – the
Sayer, the Receiver and the Verbiage. The Sayer is different from the Senser in mental
processes since it can be anything that sends out a message or signal, such as a
textbook or a notice. The Receiver is the one who receives the saying. The content of
the saying or the name of the saying may be the Verbiage. Examples of verbal
processes are displayed in Table 3-5.
Table 3-5 Examples of verbal processes
Sayer Process
Receiver
Verbiage
She
asked
Jerry
said to
a question
his mom
In these two examples, “asked” and “said to” serve as Processes in verbal clauses.
“She” and “Jerry” are participants, both representing the Sayer. The Receiver in the
first example is left out, whereas “his mon” represent the Receiver in the second
example. The Verbiage “a question” in the first example corresponds to what is asked.
According to Halliday (2004), in news reporting, verbal processes provide the reporter
with the chances of attributing information to sources, including experts, eye witness,
and officials. In the linguistic data of this study, clauses containing verbal verbs are
tagged as verbal processes, for instance: The government said the tariffs were right on
target. Here, the Process is realized by the verb “said”, and the grammatical function
of “the government” is that of the Sayer, denoting a conscious speaker whose
Verbiage is “the tariffs were right on target.”
3.2.1.2.5 Behavioral processes
Behavioral process is the representation of physiological and psychological behavior,
for instance, crying, dreaming, sobbing, coughing etc., in which the participant is
called as the Behaver, as is shown in Table 3-6.
31
Table 3-6 Examples of behavioral processes
Behaver
Process
Circumstance
Gloria
is smiling
She
dreamed of
a big house
“Gloria” and “she” above are labeled Behaver in the two behavioral processes,
they are participants who are behaving. In the two clauses, “is smiling” and “dreamed
of” serve as physiological processes and “a big house” in the second example is
restricted to “dreamed of”, labeled the Circumstance. In later discussions, clauses
include verbs that are associated with human physiological and psychological are
regarded as behavioral process. For instance, “He breathes.” The clause is a typical
pattern of behavioral process according to Halliday, “The most typical pattern of
behavioral process is a clause consisting of Behaver and Process only” (2004:251).
“He” appears as the Behaver and “breathes” serves as Process in the clause.
3.2.1.2.6 Existential processes
Existential processes often take an elaborated element of time or place, suggesting the
existence and occurrence of something. Usually, the “there be” pattern marks
existential processes in clauses. “The entity or event which is being said to exist is
labelled, Existent” (Halliday, 2004:258), as is shown in Table 3-7.
Table 3-7
Examples of existential processes
Process Existent (Event/Entity)
Circumstance
there
is
a rainbow
in the sky
there
was
a murder
in the town
The word “there” is neither a participant nor a circumstance in both examples. It
serves to indicate the feature of existence. The first existential clause contains the
Process “is”, the Existent “a rainbow” and a distinct circumstantial element of place
“in the sky”. The Existent “a rainbow” is construed as an object in this existential
process. The Existent “a murder” in the second example, however, is construed as an
32
event, because the existential process merges into the type of material clause: the
difference between “there was a murder” and “a murder took place” is slight. In this
study, clauses in the samples including the structure “there be” are viewed as
existential processes. For instance: In the mid-1990s, there were 450,000 acres of
soybeans in the state. Here, “there” indicates the feature of existence of the clause.
The existential process consists of the Existent “450,000 acres of soybeans”, the
Process “were”, and the circumstantial element of place “in the state”, construing the
existence of “450,000 acres of soybeans”.
To sum up, the six types of process of grammar system –transitivity contribute to
representing human’s external and internal experience of the world. Newsmakers can
selectively use processes and position participants in clauses to report an event based
on their own perceptions and understanding of it. As Fowler (1991:71) argues,
newspapers are abundant with “examples of the ideological meanings of transitivity”.
Hence, transitivity is an essential tool in the analysis of representation of reality.
3.2.1.3
Modality
According to Halliday, “While construing, language is always also enacting: enacting
our personal and social relationships with the other people around us” (2004:29).
Modality deals with “the extent to which producers commit themselves to, or
conversely distance themselves from, propositions, their degree of ‘affinity’ with the
proposition” (Fairclough, 1994:142). We use language to show identity, status,
attitude and make judgment and appraisals of things, so as to build and maintain
relations with others around us.
Modality in grammar, as Fairclough (1992) states, traditionally relates to modal
auxiliary verbs, namely, “may”, “should”, “must”, “can”, etc.), which are an essential
way to realize modality. From this perspective, the investigation to modality in this
study focuses upon the employment of modal auxiliary verbs in the news samples.
About ten modal verbs in English are frequently drawn upon to express the meaning
of modality, including positive meaning and negative meaning. According to Halliday
33
(2000), modal verbs are distinguished into three types based on their value of
modality, as shown in Table 3-8.
Table 3-8
Modal operators (Halliday, 2000:76)
value of modality
modal
low
median
high
auxiliary verbs
meaning of modality
positive
can, may,
will, would,
must, ought to,
could,
should, is/was to
need, has/had to
needn’t,
won’t, wouldn’t,
mustn’t, oughtn’t
doesn’t/did
shouldn’t,
t，can’t，couldn’t，
n’t, need
(isn’t/wasn’t to)
mayn’t，mightn’t，
might,
(dare)
negative
to, have to
hasn’t/hadn’t to
The Table shows the classification of modal verbs based on value of modality, as
well as their meanings. The various values of modal verbs show the speaker’s or
writer’s attitude towards or degree of affirmation of propositions. In the analysis of
news reports, the objective of examining modal auxiliary verbs is to clarify the extent
of speaker’s or writer’s responsibility for the authenticity of propositions and his
commitment or obligation to future actions.
3.2.2
Processing analysis-intertextuality
Processing analysis is also called interpretation, within which the relation of text and
interaction is investigated. This dimension of discourse analysis “specifies the nature
of the processes of text production and interpretation, for example which types of
discourse are drawn up and how are they combined” (Fairclough, 1992:4). The nature
of these processes, as Fairclough (1992) argues, varies with social factors. This is
because these processes are restricted to the nature of social practice of which they are
parts. The nature of social practice affects what elements of members’ resources are
34
utilized, and how they are drawn upon. “It is this aspect of discursive processes –
determining what aspects of members’ resources are drawn upon and how – that is of
most interest” (Fairclough, 1992:80) in processing analysis. From this perspective,
intertextuality – “the property of texts being full of snatches of other texts”
(Fairclough, 1992:84) is treated as a major focus of discursive processes. An
intertextual perspective of processing analysis is helpful for emphasizing that it is not
only the texts that “intertextually constitute ‘text’, which shape interpretation, but also
those other texts which interpreters variably bring to the interpretation process”
(Fairclough, 1992:85).
In Bakhtin’s approach to analyze texts, analysis of intertextuality “was a major
theme of his work throughout his academic career” (Fairclough, 1992:101). For
Bakhtin, all utterances are distinct due to a change of speaker (or writer), and are
retroactive to the utterances of the former speakers and are prospective to the
utterances of the next speakers. It was Kristeva who coined “intertextuality” in the
late 1960s to refer to this feature of discourse. In the words of Kristeva, intertextuality
is a matter of “the insertion of history (society) into a text and of this text into history”
(Kristeva, 1986:39). Fairclough (1992) defines intertextuality as the productivity of
texts – how texts can transform previous texts and rebuild existing conventions to
produce new texts. Discourse representation, according to Fairclough, is “a form of
intertextuality in which parts of other texts are incorporated into a text and usually
explicitly marked as such, with devices such as quotation marks and reporting clauses”
(1992:107), for instance “she told” or “Jack claimed”, which is extremely important in
discourse, especially in news discourse. It is a major part of news discourse:
representations of what news worthy people have said.
One of the objectives for analyzing intertextuality is to specify what other texts
are drawn upon in the constitution of the text being analyzed, and how. Hence, source
and mode of discourse representation as the aspects of discourse representation are
addressed in the present study. The former indicates that texts from a set of other
people, or organizations, are drawn upon in news reports. Newsworthy events usually
originate from those “who have privileged access to the media, who are treated by
35
journalists as reliable sources, and whose voices are the ones which are most widely
represented in the media discourse” (Fairclough, 1992:100). If the voices of powerful
people and groups are represented in a version of everyday speech, then readers may
use the language that power groups are speaking, and the meanings of the power
groups become much easier to understand. In this case, the medium has an impact on
the ideological work of spreading the voices of power group in a disguised way and
thus the options of source significantly affect the value of new reports. The latter,
mode of discourse representation is helpful for explaining a significant variable in the
representation of discourse –the degree to which boundaries are maintained between
the presenting discourse and the represented discourse, or “between the voice of the
person being reported and the voice of the reporter” (Fairclough, 1992:107). The
degree of “boundary maintenance”, according to Fairclough (1992), points to an issue
of options of the modes of discourse representation, that is, choices between direct
and indirect discourse. Consequently, the analysis of intertextuality in news reports is
realized through two aspects of discourse representation: source and mode.
3.2.2.1 News sources
In academic circles, according to Bloor and Bloor (2001), “source” is usually drawn
upon and means the place where an idea or ideas originate. However, for journalists, a
“source” usually refers to a person, publication, document or record that offers timely
information. Newsmakers usually employ utterances from certain news source to
manifest the authority and reliability of their reports. Examples of sources include
experts, government officials, companies or organizations, and those influenced by or
involved in news events. Xin (2000) points out that it is the journalist, and ultimately
the newspaper, who determines whose voice to be represented in news, and its
decisions are vital in the ideological work of the media: providing images of and
categories for reality, positioning and shaping social subjects etc. (Fairclough, 1992).
Reporters is likely to choose the sources whose ideology is consistent with their
standpoints. Thus, news source is an essential tool in the analysis of attitude and
36
standpoints of the medium. Zhang (1994) draws a distinction on news source
according to the way that the source is offered, and divided it into three types:
specified sources, semi-specified sources and unspecified sources. Specified sources
are those whose detailed information (which may be name, position) is clearly
identified by the journalists. Semi-identified sources are those that the journalists do
not specify a person or persons, and only leave with a hint (which may be the name of
an institution, or a group). As for unspecified sources, they are usually expressed in
vague expressions because the medium may be not clear about the information of the
source or they simply want to hide it for certain reason. Examples of these three types
of news sources are shown in italics in the following table.
Table 3-9 Types and examples of news sources
Type of news sources
Examples
Specific source
Semi-specific source
Unspecified source
3.2.2.2
Zhu Guangyao, vice minister of finance, said at
a news briefing on Wednesday.
Tariffs on 545 US goods, valued at $34
billion…… will take effect on July 6, the
commission said in a statement.
It is reported that tariffs on 114 other
items……will be announced at a later date.
Modes of discourse representation
Discourse representation is appreciated by Fairclough in that it is not only an element
of text, but also a dimension of social practice. News reports are full of various forms
of direct and indirect quotations. The objective of the analysis of mode of discourse
representation is to examine how newsmakers turn to other’s utterances to produce
news reports and how news reports are interpreted according the options of the
medium. Fairclough (1992) has distinguishes mode mainly into two types: direct
discourse and indirect discourse. Direct discourses are represented in quotation marks
indicating that they are those of the original. Direct speech often uses the original
37
utterances of whom are reported. Hence, the words of the one reported and the words
of the reporter are demarcated by a clear boundary. The use of direct discourse usually
shows reporters faithfully report other’s utterances. Quotation marks are omitted in
indirect discourse, and the discourse represented is realized by a clause subordinated
to the reporting clause in grammar, a relationship marked by the conjunction “that”.
Using indirect speech usually means that reporters only report the propositional
content. According to Fairclough (1992), the boundary between the words of the
reported and the words of the reporter is less explicit, and the language employed to
show the former’s discourse is likely to be those of the latter instead of those of the
one being reported.
In addition to the above two type of reported speech, preset direct discourse was
put forward by Volosinov (1973), in which indirect speech slips into direct speech.
For example, He castigated the Finance Ministry instead for a “dearth of effective
fiscal policies,” referring to extra government spending and tax cuts. In this example,
the reporter firstly adopts indirect speech and then slips to direct speech. It is a half
narration and half reported speech, and it presets the context of the direct speech. By
employing this reporting mode, reporters mix their voices and the reported voices.
The boundary becomes obscured then. According to Fairclough (1992), expressions in
scare quotes of represented discourse are simultaneously used and referred to an
outside voice. Beyond that, they can play the role of keeping the outside voice away
from themselves, or taking advantage of their authority to sustain one’s view. The
modes of discourse representation and examples are presented below.
Table 3-10 Modes and instances of discourse representation
Modes of discourse
Examples
38
representation
Direct discourse
Indirect discourse
Preset direct discourse
“We are prepared to fight back,” it said.
Mr. Lau said he would rather not raise prices,
even if it meant earning less for now.
Mr. Powell said that Mr. Trump’s trade fights
“do seem to be having a significant effect on
financial market conditions and the economy.”
This paper will distinguish discourse representations in the news samples on a
basis of the above three modes and present a detailed discussion on specific examples.
3.2.3
Social analysis
Social analysis explores “the relationship between interaction and social context –
with the social determination of the processes of production and interpretation, and
their social effects” (Fairclough, 1989:26). A piece of discourse is embedded within
sociocultural practice at a number of levels: in the immediate situation, in the wider
institution or organization, and at a societal level. In the light of Fairclough’s account
in Language and Power, the situational context is the direct, or immediate social
environment in which the discourse is produced; the institutional context concerns the
social institutions that provides a wider matrix for the discourse; and the societal
context is the level seeing society as a whole which has a large influence on discursive
processes. Ideology and power issues may appear in each of these levels. And to
discuss discourse and power in terms of hegemony (Fairclough, 1992) is useful for the
analysis of these three levels of societal context.
3.3 Analytical framework for the present research
To achieve the analysis of relations between language and ideology, it is necessary to
construct a framework for analyzing language within news discourses. The approach
to this research draws together three-dimensional model of discourse analysis and
Halliday’s work in SFG. Discourse analysis will be carried out in terms of three
39
dimensions: description, interpretation and explanation (see Figure 3-2 below).
Figure 3-2
The analytical framework for the present research
The above framework shows that the approach to the critical analysis of news
discourse is based upon Fairclough’s three-dimensional view of discourse as well as
steps of discourse analysis involving analytical devices from Halliday’s systemic
grammar. The linguistic description of news texts explores formal features of them
including classification, transitivity, and modality. The interpretation dimension is
shaped by intertextuality. And discourse representation – as a form of intertextuality,
is investigated in terms of its source and mode. At last, the relationship between
discursive processes and social processes will be examined by focusing on the social
contexts within which news discourses exist: the situational context, the institutional
context, and the societal context.
40
CHAPTER FOUR
RESEARCH PROCEDURES
Chapter Three sets out the analytical framework of the analysis of news discourses for
this research, which highlights a view of the interrelations of language and society,
with the stress upon power and ideology. The gist of Chapter Four is to elaborate the
methodology, the process of data collection, and to give a specific presentation of the
procedure for critical analysis of news discourses.
4.1 Methodology and data collection
To answer the three research questions in the present study, qualitative and
quantitative methods are used to carry out the analysis and discussion of the news
discourses. Fairclough’s three-dimensional model and linguistic devices involving
those from Halliday’s systemic functional grammar are adopted to the critical analysis
of news reports on trade war from The New York Times. The author aims to analyze
the power relations between texts and society in order to reveal the attitude of the
medium – The New York Times towards China in the trade war as well as its ideology
in news discourses.
The New York Times, founded in 1851, is an American newspaper based in New
York City with worldwide influence and readership (Usher, 2014). It is ranked 17th in
the world by circulation and 2nd in the U.S. (Cision Media Research, 2019), which
manifests its wide coverage and is of great influence. It is recognized as “newspaper
of record” in the U.S. due to its depth reports of domestic and international events and
opinions. It is a leading newspaper in the world since it “exhibits fragments of an
overall American ideological perspective on news events and the world” (van Dijk,
1998:21). Meanwhile, The New York Times is widely called “the Gray Lady”, a
sobriquet that implies its stateliness, responsibility and high virtue in reporting events
41
and opinions. Above all, in most cases, The New York Times sets guidance for other
news agencies because of its reliability. The above introduction of The New York
Times proves its authority and influence in the press: it is considered as the
representative voice power of the United States. In respect of the event for the present
study, the Sino-US trade war is an issue that raises concerns and stirs panic worldwide
in the field of economy, business and politics. Hence, there is no wonder that the trade
war deserves in-depth investigations.
Since the trade war-related news reports may involve various political and
economic issues, for example, tariffs, negotiations, 301 Survey Investigation, etc., to
explore the medium’s towards the Chinese side in the trade war, the focus in this study
is upon the news reports on the tariff measures taken by China in response to the
United States. Hence, the author determines “tariff”, “China”, “the U.S.”, “trade
dispute”, “trade war” as key words in the searching bar of the website of The New
York Times. Twenty pieces of English news reports associated with China’s tariffs on
the United States are extracted, and used as linguistic samples in this study, as are
shown in Table 4-1. The time span of the linguistic data in the present study is from
March, 2018 to December, 2019. The number of words of the twenty pieces of
English news reports is 22,023, including the headlines and the body of news.
Table 4-1 Samples of news reports from The New York Times
News
Headline
Date
reports
Sample 1
China, Defiant but Careful, Promises
Number
of words
2019-05-10 1,123
Aggressive Response to Tariffs
Sample 2
Trade Dispute Between U.S. and
China Deepens as Beijing Retaliates
2019-05-13 1,559
Sample 3
With Higher Tariffs, China Retaliates
Against the U.S.
2019-05-13 1,273
Sample 4
China Reacts to Trade Tariffs and
Hong Kong Protests by Blaming
U.S.
2019-08-01 1,780
Sample 5
China Lifts Tariffs on Some U.S.
2019-09-11 1,154
Goods in Modest Olive Branch to
42
Trump
Sample 6
Their Soybeans Piling Up, Farmers
Hope Trade War Ends Before Beans
Rot
2018-11-05 1,689
Sample 7
China Threatens New Tariffs on $60
Billion of U.S. Goods
2018-08-03 897
Sample 8
Companies Warn More China Tariffs
Will Cripple Them and Hurt
Consumers
2018-08-20 1,231
Sample 9
U.S. and China Expand Trade War as
2018-06-15 1,298
Beijing Matches Trump’s Tariffs
Sample 10
Responding to Trump, China Plans
New Tariffs on U.S. Goods
2018-03-22 694
Sample 11
China Slaps Tariffs on 128 U.S.
Products, Including Wine, Pork and
Pipes
2018-04-01 556
Sample 12
China Strikes Back at the U.S. With
Plans for Its Own Tariffs
2018-04-04 998
Sample 13
W.T.O. Allows China to Impose
2019-11-01 1,041
Trade Sanctions on U.S. Goods
Sample 14
Trade Tensions Ease as China Drops
Some Pork and Soybean Tariffs
2019-09-13 857
Sample 15
China Strikes Back at Trump’s
Tariffs, but Its Consumers Worry
2018-06-06 966
Sample 16
China Once Looked Tough on Trade.
Now Its Options Are Dwindling
2018-10-07 1,053
Sample 17
China Once Looked Tough on Trade.
Now Its Options Are Dwindling
2018-09-18 1,251
Sample 18
Chinese Tariffs Are Already Hitting
Trump Voters
2018-06-15 1,074
Sample 19
China’s Taste for Soybeans Is a Weak 2018-07-09 1,177
Spot in the Trade War With Trump
Sample 20
After Truce With U.S., China Cuts
Tariffs on Many Global Imports
43
2019-12-23 271
4.2 Specific procedures
The three stages of critical analysis of news discourse are description, interpretation
and explanation, coinciding with the three dimensions of discourses: text, discourse
practice and social practice. The corpus “Sino-US trade war in The New York Times”
is built at first. And the specific procedure for analyzing the news reports is as follow:
In the linguistic description of news texts, classification, transitivity, and
modality of news discourses will be explored. Classification falls into the analysis
under the level of vocabulary. It deals with naming and representing people and
events. The focus of wordings in news samples is upon different meanings of the
naming of the participants in the news reports, and the adjectives that reporters have
used to describe China’s response to the trade war in order to examine the reporters’
attitude towards the person, or the event being referred to, and their impressions on
the audience. Another focus of linguistic description is upon the grammar of clause:
transitivity and modality in systemic functional grammar.
Transitivity enacts ideational meaning of clause as it is used for representation.
The analysis of transitivity of clause in this study follows Halliday’s classification:
material, verbal, relational, mental, existential and behavioral clauses. Accordingly,
the corpus data are tagged by using the UAM Corpus Tool3. First of all, start a project
in this software. Next, a manual annotation layer is created to tag the news texts.
Clauses of “doing” and “happening” are counted as material process. Such processes
include at least one participant – the Actor. For instance, “Brook Chen runs a plant in
Shanghai.” This example is a valid material clause in which “Brook Chen” (the Actor)
“runs” (the Process) “a plant in Shanghai” (the Goal). Verbal process is identified as
long as the clause involves any type of symbolic exchange of meaning. In clause “The
government said the tariffs were right on target”, there is a verbal process including
the Sayer – “the government” who are sending some information or a signal. Note that
this example also involves a relational clause “the tariffs were right on target” realized
by the Process “were”. Hence, two process are involved in this example. Clauses
express the feature, situation, etc., of an entity (e.g. “China’s attitude is clear.”) or the
44
relation between two entities (e.g. “The People’s Daily newspaper is the Communist
Party’s mouthpiece.”) are relational processes. Usually there are Senser and
Phenomenon in mental process. The Senser is thinking, seeing or feeling certain
Phenomenon. For instance, “He worries about losing his wife.” Existential clause
features “there be” pattern, initiating the existence or occurrence of an entity or an
event. Behavioral processes express physiological and psychological behavior of
human (e.g. “She is smiling.”). After the author tags the corpus data, the proportion of
the process type of clause is presented, followed by the discussions on results. The
main participants are labeled in the specific examples extracted from news samples.
As for modality of the grammar of clause, the frequency of modal auxiliary verbs
with high and low value of modality is calculated in each news text, according to the
Halliday’s categorization (see Table 3-8). The results will be discussed in detail and
specific instances are analyzed to explore how modal verbs enact interpersonal
meaning of clause and influence the readers’ understanding of trade war.
The interpretation of discursive processes is realized in terms of intertextuality,
which is examined through one form of it, that is, discourse representation. One of the
aspects of discourse representation is its source. The source of discourse
representation in news is divided into three types (see Table 3-9): specific source,
semi-identified source and unspecified source. Specific source refers to those whose
name or position is detailed in news. Semi-identified sources are basically the name of
a group or an institution without detailing a specific person, or persons. Unspecified
sources are vague expressions like idiomatic phrases “it is reported”. The frequency of
each type of news source is calculated after the author identifies the types of source in
news samples, followed by discussions on certain examples.
Another aspect of discourse representation is its mode. Discourse representations
are classified into three modes: direct discourse, indirect discourse and preset direct
discourse (see Table 3-10). Direct discourses are those sentences in which words
represented are in quotation marks. Indirect discourses usually lack quotation marks
and are not entirely original, expressed in reporter’s own paraphrases. The preset
direct discourses refer to those within which direct speech is incorporated into the
45
indirect speech. For instance, “I love the position we’re in,” he said, adding that the
country was “taking in billions of dollars in tariffs”. Here, “taking in billions of
dollars in tariffs” is direct discourse incorporated into the indirect speech “adding that
the country was”. The frequency of each mode of representation is calculated based
upon the above categories. Typical examples will be investigated, too.
Lastly, explanation of social context is carried out at different levels – the
immediate situational context (the Sino-US trade disputes), the institutional context
(the medium – The New York Times) and societal context (the American society, or
culture) to account for the relations between discursive processes and social
processes.
46
CHAPTER FIVE
ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION
This chapter will address the practicalities of doing analysis of news discourses on
Sino-US trade war from The New York Times. The critical analysis is based upon
three-dimensional model proposed by Fairclough, and Halliday’s work in SFG, and is
carried out at three stages: description, interpretation, and explanation. The twenty
pieces of news discourses analyzed are reports on China’s tariff actions on the U.S. in
trade war, from March, 2018 to December, 2019. During this period, the two countries
have been embroiled in a tit-for-tat tariff war, and show no sign of wanting to back
down. Therefore, the present study focuses on investigating whether the medium
distorts China’s motivations and image on tariff issue by means of implanting
ideological discourse, on how the image of China is constructed in the twenty news
reports, and on how power relations behind the news discourse use it to affect the
interpretation and understanding of China’s tariff measures against the United States.
5.1 Description stage
Description stage (also known as text analysis) mainly concerns the formal properties
of the news discourses, including lexical classification, transitivity and modality in
news samples in The New York Times. The objective is to describe formal features in
the news samples as particular choices from the options of vocabulary and grammar.
5.1.1
Classification
Classification enables reporter to name, and represent people or events through
options of vocabulary. It is the medium who determines words and phrases used in
news discourses. Its options usually help to explore its attitude towards the event
47
reported, and also to trace its ideologies. The analysis of classification is carried out
based upon re-classification and over-classification.
Re-classification is “relabeling, the provision of a new set of terms, either for the
whole language or for a significant area of the language; it promotes a new
perspective for speakers, often in specialized areas which are distinct from those of
the larger social group” (Fowler et al., 1979:211). Broadly stating, it is a naming
strategy used by a speaker or writer to imply certain meaning and to impress
audiences. Different naming of an entity may imply reporter’s attitude toward it. In
the news samples, the naming of China’s state news media is noticeable:
Table 5-1 Naming of China’s state news media in the news samples
Naming of China’s state news media
Text
State media outlets
Sample 1
China’s state-run news media
Sample 1, Sample 11
China’s state-controlled news media
Sample 15
China’s heavily controlled news media
Sample 1, Sample 15
the official news agency
Sample 10
the Communist Party’s mouthpiece
Sample 1
the state-run newspaper Global Times
Sample 1
Global Times, a tabloid owned by the Chinese
Communist Party
Sample 2, Sample 3
Global Times, a nationalist tabloid owned by
the Communist Party
Sample 15
It can be seen that the naming of the China’s state media undergoes some
changes in the news samples, especially the naming of “Global Times”. In Sample 1,
“Global Times” is named as a state-run newspaper. However, it is called “a tabloid
and a nationalist tabloid” in Sample 3 and Sample 15 respectively. A tabloid is often
thought of as a newspaper less serious than others. And the use of “state-run”,
“heavily controlled”, “mouthpiece” shows the reporters’ stereotype of the Chinese
media, providing readers an impression of the government’s centralized control over
the press in the country.
48
The focus now turns to over-classification, which means “a large number of
synonymous or near-synonymous terms for communication of some specialized area
of experience” (Fowler et al., 1979:211). A striking instance is about adjectives found
in the news samples. The adjectives employed to describe the Chinese side, including
the description of China as one party in trade war, of its response, of its economic
conditions and of its citizens etc., are shown in the table below:
Table 5-2
Adjectives describing the Chinese in news trade war
Value of Meaning
Adjectives
Text
Positive
Neutral
Negative
Sample 1
unafraid; polite;
careful; calm;
muted; neutral;
defiant; aggressive; not
invulnerable
Sample 2
-
-
Sample 3
unafraid
Sample 4
polite; confident
Sample 5
-
Sample 6
confident
-
Sample 7
-
-
Sample 8
-
vital;
not
replaceable
unchanged
modest
swift
-
Sample 10
not afraid
planned
Sample 11
-
innocent
immediate
unusual
Sample 13
-
-
Sample 14
-
-
Sample 15
clearheaded;
united
Sample 16
-
painful
weakening
Sample 9
Sample 12
limited
weaker (2); slowing
unfair (3)
negative
defiant; trickier
reluctant
-
-
trickier; retaliatory
-
aggressive; angry
invisible; limited ；
aggressive; unrealistic,
difficult, not doable;
limited; confused
-
-
Sample 18
-
-
unfair (2)
Sample 19
-
-
retaliatory(2);
underdeveloped,
herculean
Sample 17
Frequency
13
9
34
Percentage
23.21%
17.86%
58.93%
49
The adjectives used for description of the Chinese side are shown in the above
table. According to the results it can be seen that the percentage of adjectives of
negative meanings in news texts is the biggest, 58.93%, followed by positive
adjectives (23.21%), and neutral adjectives accounts for the smallest percentage,
17.86%. This indicates that adjectives used by the reporters are emotional or
evaluative, which violates the principles of being objective and impartial for a
medium in reporting news. More than half of adjectives in the table are unfavorable
terms to describe something, dominating the description of China. There is no doubt
that they will create an undesirable image of the country. Examples of adjectives with
negative meaning are presented below.
(1) China’s economy has shown it is not invulnerable. (Sample 1)
(2) China’s other options are limited ... (Sample 2)
(3) But a weakening renminbi also creates an incentive for Chinese companies…
(Sample 5)
(4) But a weaker currency would make China’s imports … (Sample 17)
(5) It’s unrealistic, it’s difficult in practice, it’s not doable, and it’s against basic
trade rules. (Sample 17)
“Not invulnerable” in Example (1), “limited” in Example (2), “weakening” in
Example (3), and “weaker” in Example (4) can be seen as near synonyms repeatedly
used to describe China. This over-classification seems to be linked to a preoccupation
in the report with the ideological projection of a view of China as a vulnerable
economy in a trade war. “It” in Example (5) refers to “Chinese tariffs on equal
fractions of trade”. Here, the medium use derogatory words “unrealistic”, “difficult”
and not “doable” to describe it. These are typical instances of over-classification,
which indicates the application of words with similar meanings to describe the same
thing repeatedly and help the medium to construct a contrast between the two
countries’ tariff-based retaliation for each other. They conduce to emphasizing that
50
China’s tariff action against the U.S. is limited.
5.1.2 Transitivity
Fowler (1991) argues that transitivity in Halliday’s systemic theory of language lays
the foundation of representation, and shapes the way the clause employed for
analyzing events and situations as being of certain types. In the present study, the
objective of the analysis of transitivity is to probe into what social, cultural,
ideological, political or theoretical factors determine how a process is signified in
news discourses. According to Fowler, news discourses are abundant with instances of
“ideological significance of transitivity” (1991:71). Hence, this section explores the
transitivity of clause in news texts. The identifying process of the type of each clause
in the news data is realized by UAM Tool3 and Table 5-3 below clearly shows the
proportions of the six types of clause in the twenty pieces of news samples collected
from The New York Times.
Table 5-3 Processes Distribution in news samples
Type of process
Number
Percentage
Material
1472
62.93%
Mental
154
6.58%
Relational
308
13.17%
Verbal
377
16.12%
Behavioral
8
0.34%
Existential
20
0.86%
Total
2339
100%
It can be seen that material process accounts for the largest percent in the twenty
pieces of news report, far exceeding other types of process, followed by the verbal
(16.12%) and relational process (13.17%). The mental process takes up 6.58%,
followed by existential and behavioral process. The medium – The New York Times
mainly adopts material and verbal process to report Chinese tariff sanctions on the
United States in the trade war. Material clauses express the process of doing, meaning
51
that certain entity does something, extended to another entity or other entities. Since
newsworthy usually comes from a set of people who are regarded by journalists as
reliable sources, verbal clauses are commonly seen in news discourses. Relational
clauses are processes of characterizing and identifying of events or people involved in
news. Mental process helps people to express their feelings, perceptions or cognition
of a specific event or thing. Note that processes of feeling are usually subjective, so
mental process is less likely than material process to appear in news texts
In the case of behavioral and existential clause, the former expresses human
psychological and physiological behavior; the latter represents the existence or
happening of something. The news reports on the Chinese tariff measures to counter
sanctions of the U.S. mainly concentrate on representing actions taken by the Chinese
government in the “event” – the Sino-US trade war, rather than representing personal
feelings or existence of something. Hence, behavioral and existential processes rarely
appear in the selected news reports. In the following part, these two types of clauses
will not be further discussed, whereas material, verbal, relational and mental clauses
will be examined within specific examples.
5.1.2.1 Material process
The proportion of each process shows that the medium uses many material clauses in
the news reports, accounting for 63.12% among all the processes. This indicates that
material process is of great significance in the news discourses. As process of doing,
material clause usually includes the Actor who carries out the action, and the Goal at
whom the action is directed. Reporters need to inform the readers what both side of
the trade war have done to each other, and thus material processes are the best options
for the medium to representing their “doings”. Therefore, it’s natural for material
process taking up the largest proportion of the news discourses. The Actor in the
material processes is also noteworthy, because different Actors may leave different
impressions on readers. Since China and the United States are involved in the trade
52
war, the present researcher has counted the proportion of the two sides as the Actor in
material process.
Table 5-4
Actor
Number
The proportion of China-related and US-related Actors
China-related Actor US-related Actor Total
384
Proportion 50.79%
372
756
49.21%
100%
Referring to the percentage of processes in Table 5-3, it can be seen that there are
1472 material processes. The percentage of material processes with China-related and
US-related Actors is 51.36% among all the material processes, showing that the
actions are mainly performed by the two countries. The rest of the material processes
are mainly performed by trade war-related issues like “another round of tariffs” in
Sample 2, “trade tensions” in Sample 14, and the third party like W.T.O. in Sample 13,
Canada in Sample 18, etc. What should be noticed in Table 5-4 is that even though the
ratios of China-related actor and US-related actor are quite close to each other, the
proportion of material processes with China-related Actor (50.79%), such as China in
Sample 1 and Chinese officials in Sample 4, is larger than that of the U.S. (49.21%),
including President Trump in Sample 1, the Federal Reserve in Sample 4, etc. This
shows that in the news discourses on Sino-US trade dispute, the medium presents
China as the Actor in most of the material process. It leaves an impression on readers
that most of the actions about the trade war are initiated by China and it is China who
should bear the primary responsibility for the results caused by the trade tensions
since China is the Actor in most of the material process. In this case, the American
medium is taking the American side instead of being objective when reporting the
trade war, which can be reflected by analyzing specific examples. Every example
below involves at least one material process. Clauses that are particularly of
ideological significance are underlined, and participants in material process are
labeled.
53
(6) China’s decision to impose tariffs on soybeans squeezes some of Mr. Trump’s
Actor
Process
Goal
staunchest supporters across the Midwestern farm belt. (Sample 6)
(7) As China swallows the world’s supply of non-American soybeans, other countries
Actor Process
Goal
are buying more beans from the United States... (Sample 6)
(8) China is pressing its own farmers to grow more. (Sample 19)
Actor Process
Goal
(9) Mr. Trump extended a lifeline to the Chinese telecommunications company, ZTE,
Actor
Process
Goal
at the request of President Xi Jinping. (Sample 9)
(10) Soybean farmers also spent millions of dollars cultivating the Chinese market.
Actor
Process
Goal
(Sample 6)
The above five processes all represent the “doing” of Actors: “China’s decision”
in Example (6), “China” in Example (7) and (8), “Mr. Trump” in Example (9) and
“soybean farmers” in Example (10). This shows the function of material process to
represent actions taken by the parties involved in the trade dispute. China and U.S. are
opposing countries involved in the war. Their tasks are to beat each other by using
economic, political, and diplomatic means etc., or to reach a peace agreement through
negotiations. Under this circumstance, the material clause in Example (6) represents
decision made by China as a means to suppress the Goal “some of Mr. Trump’s
staunchest supporters”, who are the American farmers, with “squeezes” serving as the
Process. In Example (7), the Actor “China” is represented as a predator who
“swallows” (the Process) resource from other countries, and the Goal is “the world’s
supply of non-American soybeans”. The Actor “China” in Example (8) is “doing”
something to the Goal “its own farmers”. And the Process is realized by a verb phrase
“is pressing”. These three material processes are used to give a presentation of
China’s image in the trade war. The descriptive analysis of the Example (6), (7) and
(8) helps to represent China as being aggressive and active in the trade war.
54
Meanwhile, the Goals (Mr. Trump’s staunchest supporters in Example (6) and
Chinese farmers in Example (8)) are being exploited and oppressed, representing that
they are the weak groups, and intensifying an undemocratic and autocratic Chinese
government. The Actor (“Mr. Trump”) in Example (9), however, “extended to” (the
Process) the Goal “a lifeline to the Chinese telecommunications ZTE”. However, in
Liu’s (2019) contrastive study on economic news reports from China Daily and the
Washington Post, when it comes to describing the treatment of ZTE in the U.S., the
process used by China daily is “banned”, indicating that the American side is curbing
the development of Chinese technology company. It should be noticed that both of the
two processes present the U.S. as the dominant power of the life the Chinese
technology enterprise. As Liu (2019) points out, China Daily presents a more
aggressive and negative image of America to the public. Here, however, the U.S. side
is described as being less aggressive and even amicable in the trade war. Obviously,
The New York Times is taking the side of America. The process in Example (10) is
realized by “cultivating” serving as the Process, representing the doing of “soybean
farmers” (the Actor) directed at “the Chinese market” (the Goal). Obviously, the
representation of actions of the Chinese side is a sharp contrast to that of the
American side, leaving different impressions of the two countries on readers and thus
affects readers’ understanding of the roles played by the two countries in the trade
disputes.
5.1.2.2 Verbal process
Verbal process refers to the process of saying which includes Sayer, Receiver and
Verbiage as participants. Verbal clauses account for 20. 84% in the news reports
collected from The New York Times. Many of them are voices from the officials and
organizations of the American side, such as the U.S. President, owners of the
American companies, the U.S. trade representative and so forth, expressing support
for a trade war started by the U.S. government, for instance:
55
(11) “While many of our companies are hurt by the tariffs and ongoing trade tensions,
we understand the U.S. government’s frustration,” Mr. Gibbs said in a statement,
Verbiage
Sayer Process
“There needs to be a deal that rebalances the economic relationship.” (Sample 1)
Verbiage
(12) “I love the position we’re in,” Mr. Trump said, adding that the United States was
Verbiage (a)
Sayer Process (a) Process (b)
Verbiage(b)
“taking in billions of dollars in tariffs.” (Sample 2)
(13) Mr. Karel said many of his customers wear red ‘Make America Great Again’
Sayer Process
Verbiage
caps and insist that the pain of lost business and lower profits is worthwhile.
(Sample 6)
(14) “My company has been severely impacted by China’s predatory marketing
practices…,” Mr. Korchmar wrote in a letter requesting to testify. “These
Verbiage
Sayer
Process
Verbiage
additional duties will help us greatly to continue rebuilding our U.S.A.
manufacturing.” (Sample 8)
The Sayer in Example (11) is “Mr. Gibbs” (the president of the American
Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai), with “said” serving as the Process. Example (12)
incorporates two verbal clauses, within which “Mr. Trump” functions as the Sayer.
Process(a) is realized by “said”, whereas “adding” serving as the Process in clause(b).
“Mr. Karel” (an American entrepreneur from agriculture) is the Sayer in Example (13),
with “said” being the Process. In Example (14), Mr. Korchmar (an American
entrepreneur from leather industry) is the Sayer, and “wrote” is the Process. In the
case of the American side as Sayers, the verbiage is in favor of the trade war on the
grounds of protecting the American interests, and is also stressing the unfair trade
with China. The presentation of their verbiage gives readers an impression that the
U.S. government and Americans are defending the interest of the American people,
and thus the trade war with China is justified.
56
In addition to the above processes, there are verbal clauses of which the verbiage
gives a presentation that China is playing a damaging and negative role in the bilateral
trade between the U.S. and China. For example:
(15) “China is our real trade enemy, and their theft of intellectual property and their
refusal to let our companies compete fairly threatens millions of future American
jobs,” Mr. Schumer said. (Sample 9)
Verbiage
Sayer
Process
(16) “America is waking up to the loss of its technological advantage through China’s
restrictions on access to its internal markets,” she told reporters. “That is now a
Verbiage
Sayer Process
Verbiage
place where policy is beginning to change.” (Sample 11)
(17) Some companies say that Beijing finds ways to force them to hand over
Verbiage
Process
Sayer
Verbiage
technology if they want to sell their wares in China, an allegation that Chinese
officials dispute. (Sample 12)
The Sayer “Mr. Schumer” in Example (15) is the Senator Chuck Schumer of
New York, the Democratic leader, with “said” being the Process. and the Sayer “she”
in Example (16) refers to Senator Elizabeth Warren, with “told” being the Process.
Both of them are American officials in authority whose words are of high credibility.
The verbiage of the two Sayers constructs an image of China – a real enemy of the
United States who acquires technological intellectual property from the U.S. through
threat and oppression, which seems to be unwelcomed and unfavorable. China is
described as being hostile for the United States by reporting their words. Moreover,
verbiage of Senator Elizabeth Warren – “America is waking up to the loss of its…”
helps to justify the polices made or trade war caused by the United States. Verbal
clause in Example (17) incorporates the Sayer “some companies” (companies in
Europe and the United States), and the Process “say”. The verbiage of these
companies shows China’s oppressions on the foreign enterprises (in Europe and the
57
United States) again, representing an arbitrary government and delivering a negative
image of China, who is unfriendly and even rude to foreign companies.
5.1.2.3 Mental process
Mental process is the process representing the mental world or the conscious world,
which accounts for 6.14% in the news reports. There are mental clauses in the news
samples transmitting the feelings of Chinese citizens, businessmen and others affected
by the trade war, for instance:
(18) The Chinese public could see any effort to soothe tensions as capitulation.
Senser
Process
Phenomenon
(Sample 17)
Example (18) involves a perceptive mental clause, in which the Process is “could
see”. The Senser is “the Chinese public” and “any effort” is the Phenomenon. This
mental process is a representation of the Chinese public’s perception of China’s
efforts in the trade war and constructs a position of the Chinese public inconsistent
with that of the Chinese government.
(19) When he contemplates moving production out of China — to Southeast Asia...
Senser Process
Phenomenon
(Sample 1)
(20) … but is being led instead by traders in currency markets, who are increasingly
Senser
Process
worried about China’s slowing economy and huge debt burden.
(Sample 7)
Phenomenon
The mental process in Example (19) is a cognitive one realized by the Process
“contemplates” and the Senser “he” refers to Brook Chen who runs a plant in
Shanghai. The mental process in Example (20) is of affection realized by the Process
“are increasingly worried about”, and the Senser is “traders in currency markets”.
58
These two mental clauses show business people’s concern about Chinese market.
Note that the verb phrases of the Process in Example (20) presenting the Senser’s
negative emotion for the Phenomenon (China’s slowing economy and huge debt
burden) continuously increases. An unstable economic condition of or an economic
downturn in China is constructed in this process.
5.1.2.4 Relational process
Relational processes are mainly used to describe the “being” of China in the trade
dispute. Followings are three typical types of relational processes extracted from the
news samples.
(21) Still, China’s economy has shown it is not invulnerable. (Sample 1)
Carrier Process
Attribute
(22) The question now is whether another round of tit-for-tat tariff increase portends
an economic struggle between the United States and China that could last for
Carrier
Process
Attribute
many years. (Sample 3)
(23) And demand for lifesaving drugs is growing as China’s residents age and have
Carrier
Process
more chronic diseases, like cancer. (Sample 5)
Attribute
Relational processes are underlined in above three examples. “It isn’t
invulnerable” in Example (21) is an intensive process. The Carrier “it” (China’s
economy) has an Attribute “not invulnerable” ascribed to it. Here, a double negative
Attribute intensifies the medium’s negative evaluation of China’s economy. The
clause underlined in Example (22) is a circumstantial relational clause, which can be
paraphrased as:
An economic struggle between the United States and China could last for many years.
59
Carrier
Process
Attribute
Here, the Carrier is realized by a nominal group “an economic struggle between
the United States and China”. The circumstantial relation is construed in the form of
Process “could last”, and the Attribute is realized by a prepositional phrase “for many
years”. The circumstantial relation implies the medium’s negative attitude toward the
trade war between the United States and China.
There is a possessive relational process in Example (23) which could be
paraphrased as:
China’s residents have more chronic diseases.
Carrier
Process
Attribute
The possessor “China’s residents” is the Carrier and the possessed “more chronic
diseases” is the Attribute. The possessive relation between them is realized by the
verb group “has”. Note that the producer hasn’t specified the Carrier “China’s
residents” with a quantifier or a qualifier. Then comes the question: do all the China’s
residents have more chronic diseases? This shows the language used by the medium is
not scientific, and inappropriate. The Attribute is expressed in a comparative nominal
group. It implies that the physical condition of China’s residents is worse than before
and presents a rather negative description of the Chinese side.
5.1.3
Modality
Modality system expresses interpersonal function (Xin, 2005). It deals with the extent
to which news reporters commit themselves, or conversely distance themselves from,
propositions. To determine the medium’s degree of affinity expressed with
propositions in news samples, the focus upon modal verb (a feature of modality) in
this section aims to assess the importance of modal verbs for social relations in the
news and their control over the representations of reality. According to Halliday
(1994), modal verb is regarded a set of “modal operators” or “the Finite verbal
operators”, which serves as the finite element in clause, namely, it has the function of
making the proposition finite. The frequency of modal verbs with different value of
60
modality used in news samples is presented in table below (the number in bracket
after each modal verb is the frequency of it).
Table 5-5
Frequency of modal verbs in news samples
truth value
modal verbs
low
median
meaning
of modality
can
positive
(24), will(86),
may
(18), would(94),
could(87),
should(8),
might(11)
to(2)
won’t,(9)
wouldn’t(6),
shouldn’t(1),
have to(3)
negative
Total
143(38.75)% 206(55.83%)
high
must(2),
need(3),
is/was has/had to(3)
can’t(12)
20(5.42%)
It can be seen that modal verbs of value median account for 55.83% in news
samples, of which “will” and “would” are mostly used to express probability. Modal
verbs of value low account for 38.75%, of which “could”, associated with certainty, is
mostly used to express certainty. The proportion of value high modal verb is the
smallest, which is 5.42%. The modal operators of value high, such as “must” in “the
war must stop”, may express a high degree of affinity with the proposition. The low
frequency of modal verbs of value high may be due to the medium’s efforts to keep a
distance with propositions so as to achieve objective in reporting. Next, modal verbs
in clauses that may express the reporter’s degree of affinity with propositions will be
examined. Followings are five instances in which modal verbs vary with the truth
value from low to high. The modal verbs with different value can be seen in Table
3-8.
(24) Hu Xijin, the well-connected chief editor of Global Times, a tabloid owned by
the Chinese Communist Party, tweeted on Monday evening that China might
61
halt purchases of American agricultural and energy products and Boeing aircraft,
and restrict offerings of American services in China. (Sample 2)
(25) To reduce its dependence on American soy, Beijing could also try to squeeze
more beans out of each acre at home. (Sample 19)
(26) Trump administration officials say privately that the shuttering of the appellate
body will be no great loss. (Sample 13)
(27) For all its economic might, China hasn’t been able to solve a crucial problem.
(Sample 19)
(28) It just can’t grow enough of them. (Sample 19)
The above five examples show the reporter’s authority with respect to the truth,
certainty or probability of events or people along a degree of affinity. In Example (24)
and (25), “might” and “could” are modal verb of low value, expressing probability of
propositions: China halt purchases of American agricultural and energy products…;
Beijing squeeze more beans out of each acre at home. The two propositions are
expressed in low probability with “might” and “could”, which implies doubt of
China’s self-sufficiency in soybeans.
The proposition associated with the appellate body of the W.T.O. in Example (26)
is expressed with “will”, a modal verb of median value, which helps the reporter
distance himself from the proposition: the shuttering of the appellate body is no great
loss. The proposition is made in perspective of Trump administration and thus
modality is subjective here.
“Hasn’t” and “can’t” (in Examples (27) and (28) respectively) on their own are
of high value, and negate propositions with their negative meaning. The reporters’
degree of affinity is high with the propositions. The propositions are: “China able to
solve a crucial problem” (cultivating soybeans by itself) in Example (27); and “It
grows enough of them” (“it” refers to “China”, “them” refers to “soybeans”) in
Example (28). However, Liu’s analysis of modal verbs “should” in But the US should
know that China, unlike Japan, is not its ally, and the current world is not what it was
during the Cold War era of China Daily, shows that the Chinese medium tries to use
62
the median value of modal verb to show China’s confidence in the trade war against
the U.S. This reflects that The New York Times, is presenting a weak Chinese
government to the readers. The two propositions in Example (27) and (28) are made
explicit, in which modality is objective. In other words, it is not clear whose
perspective is being presented. The medium may shape its own perspective into a
universal one, or it may function as a carrier for the perspective of other individual or
group. In either case, the modality made in the two examples implies a form of power
struggle between China’s capacity of producing soybean and its soybeans dependence
on the U.S.
5.2 Interpretation stage – intertextuality
So far, the study has conducted an analysis of the news samples at description stage to
investigate formal features in the news discourses. It would be preferable to move to
the stage of interpretation to examine the processes of news discourse production and
interpretation in terms of intertextuality. At this stage, news discourse is treated as a
dynamic process. Reporters are confronted with many choices in the process of
producing news. This stage focuses upon what other texts are drawn upon in the
construction of news discourse and how.
A central sight of Fairclough’s, made very explicit in his book –Discourse and
Social Change, is that “intertextuality points to the productivity of texts, to how texts
can transform prior texts and restructure existing conventions (genres, discourses) to
generate new ones” (Fairclough, 1992:9). His view on this property of texts raises
issues of what goes into generating a text. Journalists often quote or report voices of
newsworthy people. The voice represented in news reports is treated as discourse
representation, a form of intertextuality. The analysis of discourse representation
contributes to discovering traces of sources of texts incorporated into the news
discourse and how they are used to generate the news discourse. As the aspects of
discourse representation, source and mode are focuses at this stage.
63
5.2.1
News source
For reporters, a “source” can be a person, an institution, or a document, who provides
reporters with timely and newsworthy information. Zhang (1994) distinguishes news
source into three types: specified, semi-specified and unspecified sources (see Table
3-8). Specified source refers to the one whose detailed information such as name,
position, etc., is made explicit in the news, for instance, “Thomas J. Donohue, the
president of the United States Chamber of Commerce said…”. As for semi-specified
source, its information is not stated in detail but along with a hint (the name of an
organization, or a group), for example, “Economists say…” If newsmakers are not
sure of the specific information of source or they want to hide it for certain purpose,
they may employ vague expressions, such as “it is reported that…” The distribution of
the three types of news sources in news samples is shown in Table 5-5.
From Table 5-5 it can be seen that specified source accounts for the highest
proportion among the three types of news source, and no unidentified source is used
in the news discourses. Especially in Sample 2, specified source is most frequently
used, including the U.S. president, experts and scholars (such as “the president of the
American Apparel & Footwear Association” and “Zhu Ning, a Tsinghua University
economics professor”). The employment of specified source is helpful for reflecting
authority and credibility of the news reports. As Ku (2004) states, it enables the
reporter to present himself as being objective and reliable in producing news. If we
make a meticulous observation on the newsworthy information source, most specific
sources are mainly occupied by the American officials and citizens who are making
complains about the Sino-US trade relation and support the trade war (i.e. Senator
Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader; Mr. Karel, the general manager
of the Arthur Companies in eastern North Dakota). By choosing negative voices about
the Chinese side as specific source (i.e. “China is our real trade enemy, and their theft
of intellectual property and …” from Mr. Schumer), the medium intends to implant its
own views that the trade relation between the two countries is unfair and China
behaves badly in the trade transactions, leading to the growing of people’s opposition
64
to the Communist Party.
Table 5-6
Text
The distributions of news sources in the news samples
Specific Semi-specified Unidentified
Total
Source
Source
Source
Sample 1
7
3
-
10
Sample 2
12
5
-
17
Sample 3
2
1
-
3
Sample 4
5
7
-
12
Sample 5
5
2
-
7
Sample 6
6
1
-
7
Sample 7
1
3
-
4
Sample 8
6
3
-
9
Sample 9
5
6
-
11
Sample 10
4
2
-
6
Sample 11
2
0
-
2
Sample 12
4
4
-
8
Sample 13
2
2
-
4
Sample 14
3
5
-
8
Sample 15
6
3
-
9
Sample 16
8
3
-
11
Sample 17
6
5
-
11
Sample 18
2
4
-
6
Sample 19
5
0
-
5
Sample 20
0
1
-
1
Total
91
60
-
151
39.74%
-
100%
Percentage 60.26%
What’s more, it should be noticed that more than one third of news sources are
semi-specified in Table 5-5. And no unidentified source exists in the linguistic data of
the present study. But in Liu’s (2019) analysis, it is found out that about 18% of the
news sources used by the Washington Post are unidentified. In this case, The New
York Times is more rigorous and normative than the Washington Post when employing
news sources. If the news sources are not identified clearly, the authenticity of reports
may be negatively affected since it gives readers an impression of vagueness.
65
According to Edelman (1977), sometimes reporters will deliberately conceal the
source for some reasons, which is called as “reference to mythical groups”. The
purpose of employing “reference to mythical groups” is to publicize and reinforce
reporter’s standpoints (Xin, 2005). From this perspective, options of semi-identified
sources are ideologically significant, helping to interpret the news discourse from a
new perspective, for instance:
(29) Government advisers and analysts have said that the government is not
deliberately driving the currency down against the dollar to derive a trade
advantage... (Sample 7)
(30) Goldman Sachs economists said Friday that the initial tariffs on $34 billion of
products would have a minimal effect on growth and inflation, in part because it
was concentrated on industrial rather than consumer goods. (Sample 9)
(31) Many companies in Europe and the United States say they fear the program
will create state-supported competitors, an argument that has won backing in the
Trump administration. (Sample 12)
Examples (29)-(31) are information from semi-specific source. Under this
circumstance, it is necessary to focus on the group or the institution these sources
stand for. The utterances in Example (29) are quoted from the Chinese government
advisers and analysts without elaborating the specific people. The employment of the
semi-specified source lowers the credibility of discourse represented which is about
China’s currency policy: the Chinese side didn’t deliberately drive down the RMB
against the dollar to create a trade advantage for itself. Under this circumstance, the
medium may want to give audiences chances to evaluate whether it is true or not, or to
what degree it is true by themselves. Another possibility is that the medium may
deliberately represent the source without specifying so as to reduce the credibility of
the discourse.
Now we turn to Examples (30) and (31), in which discourse represented comes
from the “Goldman Sachs economists” and “many companies” (European and
66
American enterprises) respectively. Goldman Sachs is the world’s leading investment
bank, on behalf of the interests of capitalism. The employment of “Goldman Sachs
economists” and “many companies” (European and American enterprises) gives
readers an impression of a large number of experts and enterprises. Such expressions
help the reporters emphasize the message represented: a minimal effect on the U.S.
economy caused by China’s tariff, and the injustice treatment that the European and
American enterprises may suffer in China. Besides, in the case of using
semi-specified in Example (30) and (31), the one who should take responsibility for
what are represented cannot be specified, compared with a specific source. To further
interpret these two examples, now pay attention to the relations between sources and
discourse representation. The “Goldman Sachs economists” and “many companies”
(European and American enterprises) both are sources taking the side of the U.S. The
discourse of “Goldman Sachs economists” in Example (30) shows that this group is
optimistic for U.S. in the trade war. In the case of “European and American
enterprises”, discourse presented shows concern about “the program” (Made in China
2025 program)1 of China, which they think may threaten them. From this perspective,
ideological meanings of discourse are revealed.
(32) China’s responses have so far failed to thwart Mr. Trump’s trade offensive…
Chinese leaders aren’t sure how to respond, people briefed on economic
policymaking discussions say. (Sample 17)
The source of Example (32) is also semi-specified. “People briefed on economic
policymaking discussions” here is also vague expression. This group of people is
familiar with the economic policymaking. Their discourse represented in news
indicates China’s inability to fight against the Trump administration. On the one hand,
the medium may attempt to convey its own idea or comments by reporting the voices
of this group, so as to present China’s limited capabilities when faced with the trade
1
A strategic plan aims to move away from being the “world’s factory” and move to producing higher-value
products and services.
67
war. On the other hand, however, the use of such vague expressions negatively affects
the authority of the information in the news.
5.2.2
Modes of discourse representation
Options of different modes of discourse representation enable reporters to intervene in
the words of others to varying degrees (Xin, 2005). In other words, each mode of
discourse representation may provide the reporters with the opportunity to intervene
with the words of others. This section deals with the modes of representation in the
news discourse. There are three types of modes of discourse representation: direct
discourse, indirect discourse and preset direct discourse (see Table 3-10). The
distribution of mode of discourse representation in the news discourses is displayed in
Table 5-6.
In Table 5-6, it is shown that the indirect discourse accounts for 45.34% among
the tree types of mode of discourse representation followed by a 42.11% of direct
speech. Direct speech is more expressive in that the boundary between the utterances
of the person reported and the utterances of the medium is clear, so as to maintain the
information original. The employment of direct speech in the news discourses
contributes to representing the event “objectively and impartially” (Ku, 2004:69).
Whereas the use of indirect speech and preset direct discourse may provide more
opportunities for reporters to add their own comments or attitude to other’s voice.
Hence, both indirect discourse and preset direct discourse can be treated as a blend of
two voices. The present researcher has carried out an investigation into these two
types of reporting mode in an attempt to find out how the medium intervenes its own
ideas with other’s voices in the processes of news production.
It is interesting to see that there are indirect discourses in which the medium adds
their own explanations to the end of the indirect discourses, helping the medium to
intervene in the original voices to a higher degree. Two indirect discourses of this type
are presented in Example (33) and Example (34).
68
Table 5-7
Text
The distribution of modes of discourse representations
Direct
Indirect
Preset Direct
Total
Discourse
Discourse
Discourse
Sample 1
9
8
2
19
Sample 2
7
13
2
22
Sample 3
2
3
2
7
Sample 4
6
13
7
26
Sample 5
5
8
1
14
Sample 6
8
7
1
16
Sample 7
2
4
0
6
Sample 8
7
11
2
20
Sample 9
5
8
4
17
Sample 10
4
4
3
11
Sample 11
3
3
2
8
Sample 12
4
5
1
10
Sample 13
3
5
1
9
Sample 14
9
1
0
10
Sample 15
9
3
0
12
Sample 16
8
4
1
13
Sample 17
7
7
1
15
Sample 18
1
2
1
4
Sample 19
5
2
0
7
Sample 20
0
1
0
1
Total
104
112
31
247
45.34%
12.55%
100%
Percentage 42.11%
(33) Jason Wang…says that what frustrates him is that the tariff negotiations are
taking place far from the people, like him, who are most directly affected.
(Sample 1)
(34) Many companies in Europe and the United States say they fear the program will
create state-supported competitors, an argument that has won backing in the
Trump administration. (Sample 12)
The parts in bold in the above two examples are the extensions or further
explanations of the previous words. But it may not be easy for readers to judge
69
whether they come from the news source or the newsmaker. The employment of
Example (33) helps the medium blends its own voices with Jason Wang’s (an exporter
in China) voices to show readers that Chinese exporters are badly influenced in the
trade war. In Example (34), the use of indirect discourse helps the reporter to further
intensify the negative attitude towards “the program” (see Footnote1), taking the side
of the Trump administration.
In addition to the indirect discourse, preset direct discourse, in which indirect
speech slips into direct speech, appears a few times in the news samples. The direct
speech is usually marked with quotation mark. According to Fairclough (1992),
expressions in scare quotes can be used to establish them as an outside voice, or to
distance the medium from the outside voice, or to use its authority to support
reporter’s position. For instance:
(35) …Mr. Trump said that the trade talks between the United States and China in
Shanghai this week were “constructive” and that he looked forward to more
“positive dialogue” between the countries. (Sample 4)
(36) In return, Mr. Trump said that China had agreed to “immediately” begin buying
American farm products… (Sample 4)
(37) Mr. Trump, for his part, said last week that “we’re much closer” to striking a
deal with China... (Sample 6)
In the above three examples, discourse representation all originates from Mr.
Trump, among which “constructive”, “positive dialogue”, “immediately”, “we’re
much closer” are specially marked with quotation marks, indicating that they are
Trump’s original words. They all point to Trump’s comments and expectations on
Sino-U.S. trade negotiations, and they are all positive. The reporters particularly
marked them, either due to their disagreement with them, or their emphasis on them.
No matter what the purpose is, it shows that reporters are not completely neutral when
reporting news and the process of production is of ideological significance.
70
5.3 Explanation stage
At the explanation stage, discourse is regarded as a social practice. The analysis of the
discourse at this stage is closely related to the social background in which the text is
produced. Since discourse is a social practice, it is of great importance to figure out its
social background to better understand the ideological meaning in the news discourse.
Therefore, this section deals with the analysis of the social factors that affect the
production of the news discourses at different level: the situational context, the
institutional context, and societal context of the news reports.
5.3.1
Situational context
According to Fairclough (1989), the situational context is treated as the immediate
social environment in which the news discourse is generated. The news discourses in
this study are about China’s tariff against the United States during 2018 to 2019.
Hence, this section will focus on the trade dispute, which is taken as the situational
context of the discourse in the present study.
It is clear that China’s tariff against the United States is part of the Sino-US trade
war. The reasons for this trade war initiated by the United States are diverse, which
cannot be simply attributed to the trade deficit between China and the United States.
The United States is the initiator of the trade war, while China hopes that the bilateral
economy and trade consultations get back on track, seeking to reach a mutually
beneficial agreement based on mutual respect and to maintain the development of the
global economic environment. However, the trade war keeps escalating since the two
sides failed to reach an agreement and started to impose tariffs to each other.
The situational context is easy to find out by reference to the headlines from the
news reports, like the headline “Trade Dispute Between U.S. and China Deepens as
Beijing Retaliates” in Sample 1, and “U.S. and China Expand Trade War as Beijing
Matches Trump’s Tariffs” in Sample 9 and so on. Also note that the headline “China
Strikes Back at Trump’s Tariffs, but Its Consumers Worry” in Sample 15, gives readers
71
an impression that the Chinese consumers are at odds with the Chinese government,
and indicates that the Chinese consumers may be negatively affected by the actions
taken by the government. In Sample 13, when it comes to China applying to the
W.T.O. for a legal measure to impose tariff products of the United States, the medium
employs such wording as “further inflame the Trump administration’s antipathy
toward the global trade body”, and “the Trump administration has embraced other
W.T.O. rulings in the favor of the United States…”, showing the U.S. government’s
contempt for W.T.O. Ruling that against the interests of the U.S. will not be complied
by the administration. This reflects the American hegemony, and disrespects for the
independence and sovereignty of other countries. The influence of such hegemony on
the news production can be observed by taking a look at the discourse representation
appear in the news samples, such as “while many of our companies are hurt by the
tariffs and ongoing trade tensions, we understand the U.S. government’s frustration…”
and “there needs to be a deal that rebalances the economic relationship…” in Sample
1. We see that the medium takes the American side and repeatedly refer to the
opinions and attitude from those who support and understand the actions of the U.S.
government. Hence, the processes of production and interpretation of the news
samples are influenced by the American hegemony. It seems that any action that
serves to protect the interest of the United States, even a trade war between the
world’s two biggest economies is favored.
5.3.2 Institutional context
Institutional context is the social institution that construct a broader matrix for the text
(Fairclough, 1989). This research will regard the background information of the
medium – The New York Times – as the institutional context of the news samples.
The New York Times was founded by Henry Jarvis Raymond and former banker
George Jones in 1851, based in New York City. With a history of 168 years, The New
York Times still ranks among the top three newspapers in the United States today.
According to Zhang (2014), the medium is an economic concept in the U.S. From this
72
perspective, news is the product, and a medium is the company. This attribute of the
American medium allows it to defend the interests of its own company and interest
groups behind it, especially when the events reported is associated with its economic
foundation. Therefore, although the western media claim to be independent of the
government and political parties, advocating objectivity and justice and pursuing facts,
in many cases, the “facts” they describe may not be true, and the justice may not be
objective. For example, The New York Times once admitted some of its articles had
been insufficiently qualified on Iraq one year after the Iraq war. It acknowledged that
it falsely induced public’s belief in Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction before the U.S.
led invasion of Iraq.
According to Zhang (2014), circulation usually increases when a country is in the
war, TV ratings and radio rate will greatly rise. Popular media, especially those close
to interests and ideologies of large enterprises, will receive funds of the enterprises,
such as increasing advertising expenditures. This is one of the reasons that the
American media was so keen to promote the war in Iraq. The scandal of The New York
Times shows its unjust reports on Iraq war. Therefore, there is no doubt the medium
may not be objective in reporting the Sino-US trade war. For instance, in Sample 12,
“many companies in Europe and the United States say they fear the program will
create state-supported competitors, an argument that has won backing in the Trump
administration” and “some companies say that Beijing finds ways to force them to
hand over technology if they want to sell their wares in China”, are two examples of
discourse representation used to generate the news reports, which represent an
aggressive and unfriendly image of China. The news sources of them – “many
companies in Europe and the United States” and “some companies” are vague
expressions without pointing out the specific source. Even though the use of this type
of news source negatively influences the authenticity and authority of the news
reports, the medium still adopts it to generate the news and convey the points or
ideologies of these groups.
73
5.3.3 Societal context
A wider social context, within which the discourse is embedded in society as a whole
is the societal context of news discourse (Fairclough, 1989), which heavily affects the
production of news reports. It is known to us that the western media have long held a
“China threat theory”.2 The “China Threat” idea arises as the western power fears
that China’s increasing international influence will threaten its global hegemony. For a
long time, the United States has actively expanded its influence to the world. As the
only one superpower in the world today, the United States relies on its strong
economic and military forces to interfere with the internal affairs of other countries,
and to infringe the sovereignty of other countries with economic sanctions and
military invasions, etc. Force is advocated in the mainstream American culture and
tradition, which can be seen from the wars and armed conflicts that the U.S. has
launched and participated in after its independence. This contributes to explaining that
in the news reports from The New York Times, the medium pays more attention to the
contrast of economic power of the two countries instead of problem solving.
The “China Threat” idea has been dominating the thoughts of western policy
toward China for a long time, particularly that of the United States. It has deeply
influenced the U.S. strategy toward China. The Trump administration’s trade war with
China has targeted the “Made in China 2025” program (see Footnote1) and restricted
China’s access to high-tech technology through the acquisition of U.S. companies,
which can be found in the news report, like “the White House said Thursday was
punishment for China’s use of pressure and intimidation to obtain American
technology and trade secrets” in Sample 10. An expression shows China’s
“misbehavior” of despoiling the American technology.
5.4 Summary
This chapter carries out a detailed analysis and discussion of the twenty pieces of
The “China threat theory” refers to that with the sustained and rapid growth of China’s economy, the reports of
western media are full of “rise of China” and “the strategy of making China stronger”.
74
2
Sino-US trade war-related news reports from The New York Times by employing
Fairclough’ three-dimensional model as the framework and Halliday’s work in SFG as
the analytical device.
The analysis of the twenty news samples reveals that the medium uses different
discursive strategies in reporting the events. Specifically, it is found out that the option
of vocabulary is helpful for proving that language use is not neutral in the news. It is
in fact a representation of the world dominated by the medium who creates so-called
realities or facts. The employment of classification helps the medium create an image
of the Chinese media outlets that are all accountable to the Communist Party, and
depicts a not well-received image of the Chinese side, whose economic conditions are
vulnerable due to the trade war. Besides, the descriptive analysis of transitivity offers
the present author opportunities of examining ideational meanings of the clauses in
news samples. The discussions of specific examples show the medium is not neutral
when reporting news. The options of types of clause and the positioning of
participants made by the medium enable it to represent China as an unfavorable and
negative country. Hence, it is always worth attending to what processes are used for
representation in clauses and sentences, and what participants involved in them. In
addition, the investigation of modal auxiliary verbs examines reporters’ degree of
affinity with propositions associated with the trade war. The discussion on modality
shows that under objective modality, whether the medium is representing its own
view as being universal, or is acting as a carrier for the view of other person or group,
it often implies some form of power. It is worth analyzing modal auxiliary verbs in
clauses because it can give insight into ideological meanings which may at no point
be made explicit. It is also found out that intertextuality helps to interpret news
discourse as a sort of discursive practice. It is the medium who dominates the
processes of production and interpretation of news discourses. This is because it
determines whose voices are represented and quoted in the news and stresses their
own comments or standpoints by identifying or blurring the news sources.
Furthermore, it can add their voices into news discourse by adopting different modes
of discourse representation. Their options in producing news give insight into
75
ideological significance made explicit or implicit in news, such as highlighting the
voices in favor of the U.S. side.
To explain the above results and findings, the present author analyzes the
situational context, institutional context and social context of the news reports in The
New York Times and concludes that the tension and balance of the power relationship
between China and the United States in the trade war, the control and power of the
interest groups behind the news medium, the American hegemony, and the “China
Threat” idea all together have impact on the news reporting. These can be recognized
by investigating the linguistic stances taken by the medium, who employs various
discursive strategies to express its own positions explicitly or implicitly in reporting
the news on tariff issues, and then influence the news readers’ interpretation and
understanding of tariff war between the two countries.
76
CHAPTER SIX
CONCLUSION
Based on the combination of Fairclough’s three-dimensional model and important
concepts and theories in SFG, the author studies the news samples in terms of formal
properties of text, process of text production, as well as social factors affecting the
news production. The description stage explores classification, transitivity and
modality of news texts. The interpretation of the news discourses regards discourse as
discursive processes and interprets the news discourse in terms of intertextuality. At
last, an explanation of the social factors that affect the construction of the news
reports is outlined. On a basis of the analysis of news reports by regarding it as a
three-dimensional concept, the answers of the research questions in this study are
given in the next section.
6.1 Major findings
This study is to explore how language use in the news is affected by the newsmakers’
ideologies and positions, or other social factors in the news reports on China’s tariff
on the United States. In accordance with the research questions, the major findings of
this study are illustrated as follows:
Through the analysis of formal features of the news discourses in terms of
classification, transitivity and modality, it is found out that language use is not
arbitrary in news reports. The classification of words contributes to the representation
of the Chinese media and the country. It provides the medium with chances of
representing China as a “centralized”, and “undesirable” state in the news discourses.
Transitivity serves as an aspect of grammar of clause for options. Among the six types
of process found in the news samples, the material process is mostly used followed by
the verbal process, and the options of types of clause and the positioning of
77
participants enable the medium to construct a negative image of China and represent
China as an unfavorable country. In terms of modality, the newsmakers employ modal
auxiliary verbs such as “can” and “might” to express uncertainty, “hasn’t” and “can’t”
to show its high degree affinity of modality with propositions, implying a form of
power struggle between China’s capacity of producing soybean and its soybeans
dependence on the U.S.
At the interpretation stage, news discourses are interpreted as discursive
processes in terms of intertextuality. The intertextual analysis is realized by
investigating news source and mode of discourse representation. More than half of the
news sources are specified, which is helpful for reflecting authority and credibility of
the news reports. However, the medium still adopts semi-specific source that is over
one third. The use of semi-specific source helps the medium create a negative image
of China. At the same time, however, it negatively affects the authenticity of the news.
As for the mode of discourse representation, reporter’s indirect discourse accounts for
the largest proportion, closely followed by direct discourse. Indirect discourse and
preset direct discourse both provide the reporters with opportunities to incorporate
their own voices into the news reports. This is a reflection of reporters’ control over
the production of the news reports.
In order to give an explanation for the options made by the medium in the
process of news production, we shall take notice of the macro social context in which
the news discourses are produced. Reporters’ positions and ideologies heavily
influence the production of news reports. The options made in the process of
producing news reports can be affected by the tension and balance of the power
relation between the U.S. and China in the trade war. The New York Times’ favor of
the American interest determinates its linguistic stance in the news reports. In a more
macro perspective, the American hegemony and the advocacy of force also result in
language use in news samples more like a contrast of power and strength between the
two countries rather than an objective and fair covering of the event.
78
6.2
Implications
This study examines and reveals the ideologies embedded in language of news
discourse and how the medium –The New York Times wields the language use to
strengthen its ideologies, which has both theoretical and practical meaning.
Theoretically, the present study is an extension practice in the field of CDA,
which helps to widen the research scope of CDA. The major findings show that the
critical analysis of news reports guided by Fairclough’s three-dimensional model,
carried out by Halliday’s work in SFG and theory of intertextuality is effective in
figuring out the underlying ideological significance in trade war-related news, a hot
issue concerned by people from all walks of like in recent days.
Practically speaking, the revealing of ideologies in news discourse is conducive
to inspiring readers to be cautious about ideology penetration when reading news
reports. It provides readers with insights into how to enhance critical awareness and
construct their own criterion concerning the Sino-US trade war.
In addition, the present study is a worthy endeavor upon the apprehensive and
strained relations between China and the United States. The trade war between the
two largest economy is threatening the world economy with recession. This has
brought more uncertainty to the world’s development and is a threat to global interests
and human well-being. Even though The New York Times, to some extent, has
distorted China’s image, both sides should take immediate measures to reduce the
impact of the trade war on the world economy and maintain their international image.
At the same time, for those news agencies with worldwide influence and authority, it
is necessary to be objective and impartial when reporting the news related to the trade
war and to spread positive and effective information to the public.
6.3 Limitations and suggestions for further research
The present research is guided by the three-dimensional framework proposed by
Fairclough. Although in the last section the author has answered three research
79
questions, this thesis still has limitations. The limitations of this research and
suggestions for further research are presented in this section.
First of all, the present research only combines Fairclough’s three-dimensional
framework with systemic functional grammar to study the news discourse. Other
cognitive theories and social theories like Gramsci’s hegemony theory, also deserve
researchers’ concern. Further researches can incorporate hegemony theory and
Fairclough’s method of discourse analysis to achieve a deeper understanding of
ideological communication in language use.
Secondly, the present study only collects twenty pieces of news reports from
2018 to 2019 from The New York Times. The number of the sample can be larger. For
further studies, researchers can collect more news reports from more than one medium
to construct a larger sample size, which may help to enrich the findings of the study.
What’s more, the present researcher only focuses on the American medium –The
New York Times to reveal the hidden ideology in news discourses. Future researchers
are suggested to conduct a comparative study of news reports from a variety of news
media to find out more vivid positions of the media.
Lastly, the present study is mainly based on qualitative analysis. A critical
analysis of economic news reports requires a wide range of background knowledge.
And all of the three stages involve the interpretation of the news producer, thus the
study may not be free of subjectivity despite the author’s efforts to be objective. If
allowed, researchers can turn to colleagues or experts in the related fields to achieve
objectivity for further studies.
80
REFERENCES
Althusser, L. (1970). Ideology and ideological state apparatuses. In J. Rivkin & M.
Ryan (Eds.), Literary Theory: An Anthology (pp.693-702). Oxford: Blackwell
Publishing.
Baker, P., & Chen, Yuhua. (2016). Investigating criterial discourse features across
second language development: lexical bundles in rated learner essays, CEFR
B1, B2 and C1. Applied Linguistics, 37(6), 849-880.
Bloor, T., & Bloor, M. (2001). The Functional Analysis of English: A Hallidayan
Approach. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.
Chen, Zhongzhu. (1995a). Piping yuyanxue shuping (A review of Critical Linguistics).
Waiyu Jiaoxue yu Yanjiu (Foreign Language Teaching and Research), 101(1),
21-27.
Chen, Zhongzhu. (1995b). Yupian yu yishixingtai: pipingxing yupian fenxi (Discourse
and ideology: Critical Discourse Analysis). Waiguoyu (Journal of Foreign
Languages), 97(3), 42-45.
Cision Media Research. (2019). Top 10 U.S. daily newspapers. Retrieved February, 28,
2020, from Cision: https://www.cision.com/us/2019/01/top-ten-us-dailynewspapers/
Congressional Research Service Reports. (2019). Enforcing U.S. trade laws: section
301 and China. Retrieved March 18, 2020, from Washington International
Trade Association: https://www.wita.org/atp-research/enforcing-u-s-tradelaws-section -301-and-China/
Dai, Liqiong. (2015). Huwenxing shijiaoxia de yingyu xinwen yupian zhuanshu
huayu de pipingxing fenxi (Critical discourse analysis of reported speech in
English news discourse.) Hunan Youdian Zhiye Jishu Xueyuan Xuebao
(Journal of Hunan Post and Telecommunication College), 14(1), 85-88.
Edelman, M. (1977). Language and Politics. New York: Academic Press.
Fairclough, N. (1989). Language and Power. London: Longman.
Fairclough N. (1992). Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge: Polity Express.
Fairclough N. (1995a). Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of Language.
London and New York: Longman.
Fairclough, N. (1995b). Media Discourse. London: Edward Arnold.
81
Fairclough N. (2003). Analyzing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research.
New York: Routledge.
Fang, Guo & Ke, Liu. (2016). A Review on Critical Discourse Analysis. Theory and
Practice in Language Studies, 6(5), 1076-1084.
Fowler, R., Hodge, B., Kress, G., & Trew, T. (1979). Language and Control. London:
Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Fowler, R. (1991). Language in the News: Discourse and Ideology in the Press.
London: Routledge.
Halliday, M. A. K. (1973). Explorations in the Functions of Language. London:
Edward Arnold.
Halliday, M. A. K. (1994, 2000, 2004). An Introduction to Functional Grammar.
London: Arnold.
Huang, Weicheng. (2009). Xinwen dingyi xinjie (A new interpretation on the
definition of news.) Huazhong Shifan Daxue Yanjiusheng Xuebao (Huazhong
Normal University Journal of Postgraduates), 16(2), 72-76.
Hu, Yu. (1999). Xinwen dingyi: lishi pingxi yu kexue chongjian (Definition of news:
historical analysis and scientific reconstruction.) Qinghua Daxue Xuebao
(Journal of Tsing Hua University), 14(1), 88-95.
Jiang, Jie & Gu, Tongqing. (2000). Yingyu yupian jiwuxing de pipingfenxi (A critical
linguistic analysis of English news text.) Sichuan Shifan Xueyuan Xuebao
(Journal of Sichuan Teachers College), 2, 69-71.
Ku, Mei. (2004). Language and ideology: a critical study of political news discourse
on Iraq War. MA thesis, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies.
Kristeva, J. (1986). The Kristeva Reader. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Liu, Guangli. (2019). A contrastive study of economic news about Sino-US trade war
from the perspective of critical discourse analysis, MA thesis, Inner Mongolia
Normal University.
Liu, Lihua. (2008). Meiti yupianzhong de qingtai dongci fenxi (An Analysis of Modal
Verbs in Media Discourse.) Tianjing Waiguoyu Xueyuan Xuebao (Journal of
Tianjin Foreign Studies University), 15(5), 21-29.
Liu, Ning. (2018). Jiyu yuliaoku de zhongmei meiti guanyu zhongguo wumai baodao
de duibi yanjiu (A corpus-based contrastive study of the reports on the haze in
China). Beijing Di’er Waiguoyu Xueyuan Xuebao (Journal of Beijing
International Studies University), 265(5), 37-53.
Li, Suling. (2004). Pipingxing yupian fenxi: fazhan gaikuang ji yingyong qianjing
(Critical Discourse Analysis: brief review and its prospective application.)
82
Shandong Waiyu Jiaoxue (Shandong Foreign Language Teaching), 102(5),
23-26.
Luke, A., (2002). Beyond science and ideology critique: developments in critical
discourse analysis. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 22, 96-110.
News. (2008). In Collins Learner’s English-Chinese Dictionary (1st ed.). Beijing: The
Commercial Press.
Pan, Yanyan. (2015). Meiguo meiti huayu baquanxia de zhongguo haishang liliang
goujian (The construction of China’s maritime power under the hegemony of
American media discourse.) Waiyu Yanjiu (Foreign Languages Research),
150(2), 7-12.
Wodak, R. (1989). Language, Power and Ideology: Studies in Political Discourse.
Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamin’s.
Wodak, R., & Meyer, M. (2001). Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis. London:
Sage.
Shan, Shenjiang. (2011). Xinwen yupian de pipingxing huayu fenxi (Critical
Discourse Analysis of news discourse.) Waiyu Xuekan (Foreign Language
Research), 163(6), 78-81.
Shi, Guang. (2008). A critical analysis of Chinese courtroom discourse. Ph.D.
dissertation, Nanjing Normal University.
Thompson, J. B. (1990). Ideology and Modern Culture. Cambridge: Politely Press.
van Dijk, T. A. (1984). Prejudice in Discourse. Amsterdam: John Benjamins
Publishing London & New York: Routledge.
van Dijk, T. A. (1988). News as Discourse. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates.
van Dijk, T. A. (1993). Principles of Critical Discourse Analysis. Discourse and
Society, 4, 249-283.
van Dijk, T. A. (1998). Opinions and Ideologies in the Press. In A. Bell& P. Garrett
(Eds.), Approaches to Media Discourse. Oxford: Blackwell.
Veron, E. (1971). Ideology and the social sciences. Semiotica, 3(1), 59-76.
Volonsinov, V. N. (1973). Marxism and the Philosophy of Language. New York:
Seminar Press.
Weber, M. (1947). The Theory of Social and Economic Organization. New York:
Oxford University Press.
Xin, Bin. (1996). Yuyan, quanli yu yishixingtai: piping yuyanxue (Language, power
and ideology: Critical Linguistics.) Xiandai Waiyu (Modern Foreign
Languages), 71(1), 21-26.
83
Xin Bin. (2000). Piping yuyanxue yu yingyu xinwen yupian de pipingxing fenxi
(Critical linguistics and critical analysis of English news) Waiyu Jiaoxue
(Foreign Language Education), 21(4), 44-48.
Xin, Bin. (2005). Piping Yuyanxue: Lilun yu Yingyong (Critical Linguistics: Theories
and Application.). Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Languages Education Press.
Xin, Bin. (2007). Piping yuapian fenxi de shehui he renzhi quxiang (The social and
cognitive orientations of Critical Discourse Analysis.) Waiyu Yanjiu (Foreign
Language Research), 106(6), 19-24.
Yang, Na. (2016). Xinwen huayu yanjiu de gainian, shijiao he yiti (Concepts,
perspectives and topics in news discourse analysis.) Xiandai Waiyu (Modern
Foreign Languages), 39(5),714-723.
Zhang, Guoqing. (2014). Meiguo liyi jituan dui meiti huayuquan de kongzhi (The
control of media discourse by American interest groups.) Hongqi Wengao
(Red Flag Manuscript), 9, 34-37.
Zhang, Jian. (1994). Xinwen Yingyu Wenti yu Fanwen Pingxi (Journalistic English:
Style and Analysis.). Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.
84
APPENDIX
Two Pieces of News Samples from The New York Times
China, Defiant but Careful, Promises Aggressive Response to Tariffs
May 5, 2019
BEIJING — When the United States ratcheted up trade tensions with Beijing on
Friday, the news was greeted with weariness and foreboding among the people in
China who will pay the immediate price: owners of factories big and small.
Brook Chen runs a plant in Shanghai that makes suitcases for brands including
Samsonite. More than four-fifths of his orders come from the United States.
The trade war, now nearly a year old, has already squeezed Mr. Chen’s bottom
line. American customers insisted that he lower his prices so they wouldn’t have to
raise theirs. When he contemplates moving production out of China — to Southeast
Asia, for instance — he worries about losing access to China’s vast supply chain and
capable work force.
“This is totally a lose-lose situation,” Mr. Chen said. “We lose profits and have
to shut down. American importers cannot find effective alternatives that can deliver
products with the same quality.”
The Chinese government issued a muted response on Friday after President
Trump raised tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods. China’s Ministry of
Commerce vowed to retaliate, although it did not say how or when. Still, global
financial markets — which have been hit by trade tensions in recent days — rose in
hopes of an eventual deal.
China’s heavily controlled news media have been walking a careful line, calling
for defiance but not more dramatic action, such as a boycott of American products.
Before Friday’s tariff increase, multiple state media outlets had published a
cryptic, anonymously written article with the headline, “If You Want to Talk, We Can
Talk. If You Want to Fight, We’ll Fight.” The article presented China as a calm,
neutral presence upon which American policies had, very regrettably, exerted
pressure.
Chinese people are polite by nature, the article said, yet unafraid of confrontation.
“We are prepared to fight back,” it said.
The question for Chinese leaders is how long the higher tariffs will last. China
has ways to keep its economy humming, at least in the near term. Negotiators also
85
have time to reach a deal, as the Trump administration effectively delayed the tariff
increase by saying they only applied to goods that leave China on Friday or later.
Oceangoing goods, in other words, won’t get hit by the 25 percent levy until they
arrive at American ports over the next few weeks.
Still, China’s economy has shown it isn’t invulnerable. Some factories are
already suffering.
“You can definitely feel the anxiety,” said Lu Mengxi, the founder of a winery in
northwestern China that sells both domestically and abroad, including in the United
States.
What began last year as an investigation into China’s practices toward American
companies operating within its borders has turned into a sprawling conflict that has
weighed on financial markets and economic activity across the globe.
While analysts widely believe the two countries will eventually reach a deal to
avert a trade dispute that could seriously hurt the world economy, the appetite for
further conflict seems unabated on both sides.
American companies operating in China have generally chided both countries”
governments for using tariffs to bring each other to the negotiating table. On Friday,
however, Ker Gibbs, the president of the American Chamber of Commerce in
Shanghai, sounded more favorably inclined toward the Trump administration’s
policies and less tolerant of Beijing’s.
“While many of our companies are hurt by the tariffs and ongoing trade tensions,
we understand U.S. government’s frustration,” Mr. Gibbs said in a statement. “There
needs to be a deal that rebalances the economic relationship.”
Few in China appear to believe that a change of tactics is due, either.
“It would be easy to do what a small minority of people in China are advocating,
and to go along with America on everything,” Hu Xijin, editor in chief of the state-run
newspaper Global Times, wrote in a commentary on Friday. “But that just won”t do.
That would not be responsible to the people’s interests.”
“The trade negotiations have gone on for so long because the two countries”
fundamental interests cannot be reconciled,” Nicole Zhang, 26, an employee at an
online travel company, said while shopping in a Beijing mall on Friday. “National
interests are unfeeling things like that. That’s just how it is.”
At the beginning of the year, China’s position was more defensive. Its economic
growth slowed in the second half of last year, in part because tariffs hurt business
confidence. Since then, the Chinese government has poured billions of dollars into the
financial system and pressed state-run banks into service extending credit.
Officials said last month that the economy grew 6.4 percent in the first quarter of
the year, matching the pace from the previous quarter. Industrial output has been solid.
Shoppers have opened their wallets.
86
Still, for many Chinese businesses, especially those that sell overseas,
uncertainty remains front of mind. China’s exports to all major regions, not only to
the United States, grew more slowly in the beginning of this year. Should the trade
war intensify further, China may find it increasingly expensive to prop up its economy,
and it could face another slowdown or widespread job losses.
The state news media have worked to reassure the country’s consumers. In a
headline published on Friday before the tariffs rose, the People’s Daily newspaper,
which is the Communist Party’s mouthpiece, declared that Chinese trade “has positive
momentum and strong driving power.”
Some companies with business on both sides of the Pacific are trying to stay
positive, too. Née Lau, the owner of Amourvino Winery in Napa, Calif., said the
tariffs China imposed last year had hurt his profits. Still, Mr. Lau said he would rather
not raise prices, even if it meant earning less for now. Holding onto his overseas
dealers and clients, he said, was more important to the long-term health of his
business.
“The United States and China will definitely come to some kind of agreement.
It’s just a matter of time,” Mr. Lau said. “It’s impossible for a war between two
superpowers to go on forever.”
Jason Wang, who owns a shoemaker in Fujian Province that sells to the
American market, says that what frustrates him is that the tariff negotiations are
taking place far from the people, like him, who are most directly affected.
Mr. Wang also lamented the nationalist sentiment on both sides that he felt had
egged on the two countries” leaders. Americans, he said, probably felt that their
country was taking a strong stance by imposing tariffs.
“And when China fights back, many praise the government for being tough,” he
said.
“But I think no one actually wins in the end,” Mr. Wang said. “Ordinary people
on both sides are paying the price.”
Trade Dispute Between U.S. and China Deepens as Beijing Retaliates
May 13, 2019
WASHINGTON — The United States and China intensified their trade dispute on
Monday, as Beijing said it would increase tariffs on nearly $60 billion worth of
American goods and the Trump administration detailed plans to tax nearly every
sneaker, computer, dress and handbag that China exports to the United States.
The escalation thrust the world’s two largest economies back into confrontation.
While President Trump said on Monday that he would meet with China’s president,
87
Xi Jinping, next month in Japan, the stakes are only increasing as the president
continues to taunt and threaten China, causing it to retaliate on American businesses.
Financial markets fell on Monday after China detailed plans to increase tariffs,
with the S&P 500 index down more than 2.4 percent for the day and more than 4
percent this month. Shares of companies particularly dependent on trade with China,
including Apple and Boeing, fared poorly, and yields on three-month Treasury
securities exceeded those on 10-year bonds, a sign that investors may be souring on
the outlook for short-term economic growth.
China’s Finance Ministry announced Monday that it was raising tariffs on a wide
range of American goods to 20 percent or 25 percent from 10 percent. The increase
will affect the roughly $60 billion in American imports already being taxed as
retaliation for Mr. Trump’s previous round of tariffs, including beer, wine, swimsuits,
shirts and liquefied natural gas exported to China.
The move came after Mr. Trump increased tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese
goods to as much as 25 percent on Friday, and threatened to move ahead with taxing
the remainder of goods that the United States imports from China. The Office of the
United States Trade Representative released a list on Monday of the roughly $300
billion worth of products that could face up to a 25 percent tariff and requested public
comment, which will begin the formal process for enacting those duties. The list
includes almost every consumer product imaginable, from coffee makers to sneakers
to telescopic sights for rifles.
In remarks at the White House on Monday, Mr. Trump said he had not decided
whether to proceed with those additional tariffs but gave no indication he was ready to
back down from his trade fight.
“I love the position we’re in,” Mr. Trump said, adding that the United States was
“taking in billions of dollars in tariffs.”
Mr. Trump, appearing to relish the renewed trade war, suggested that his
approach would ultimately drain business activity from China as companies shifted
production to the United States or other nations that did not face American tariffs. He
played down Beijing’s retaliation, saying the American economy was in a much
stronger position than China’s and could more easily withstand a trade war, despite
comments from his top economic adviser on Sunday that both sides would suffer from
a trade fight.
The president said he would take steps to blunt any pain for American farmers
and provide financial support to those hurt by Beijing’s retaliation.
“We’re going to take the highest year, the biggest purchase that China has ever
made with our farmers, which is about $15 billion, and do something reciprocal to our
farmers,” the president said. “Our farmers will be very happy. Our manufacturers will
88
be very happy and our government is very happy because we’re taking in tens of
billions of dollars. I think it’s working out very well.”
Economists and industry groups were not so sanguine.
“Americans” entire shopping cart will get more expensive,” said Hun Quach, the
vice president of international trade at the Retail Industry Leaders Association, which
represents Best Buy, Walmart, Target, Dollar General and other stores.
Rick Helfenbein, the president of the American Apparel & Footwear Association,
called the measure a ‘self-inflicted wound” that he said would be “catastrophic.”
While footwear and apparel were largely spared from Mr. Trump’s first two rounds of
tariffs, they are on the list of items that would be taxed if the president follows
through with his threat to raise taxes on an additional $300 billion worth of goods.
“By tightening the noose and pulling more consumer items into the trade war, the
president has shown that he is not concerned with raising taxes on American families,
or threatening millions of American jobs that are dependent on global value chains,”
Mr. Helfenbein said.
Both China and the United States have left a window for negotiators to try to
reach a deal before the latest round of higher tariffs goes into effect. China said it
would delay the higher rates until June 1, while Mr. Trump’s new 25 percent rate
affects only products sent to the United States as of May 10, leaving a two- to
four-week gap from the time most goods leave China by boat to when they arrive at
an American port.
But the two sides would have far to go to quickly resolve what has once again
become a heated economic dispute. Progress toward a trade agreement between the
United States and China nearly collapsed over the past two weeks, after American
negotiators accused China of reneging on substantial portions of a potential trade
agreement it had previously committed to. Significant differences remain over how
tariffs should be rolled back between the countries, and whether the negotiated
provisions must be enshrined in Chinese law.
Beijing” s retaliation comes as many in China feel that the United States has
behaved highhandedly in threatening tariffs. “Mutual trust and respect are of the
essence in handling the negotiations,” said Zhu Ning, a Tsinghua University
economics professor.
While China is limited in how much it can retaliate on American goods, given
that it imports far less from the United States than it sells, Beijing has other ways of
retaliating.
Hu Xijin, the well-connected chief editor of Global Times, a tabloid owned by
the Chinese Communist Party, tweeted on Monday evening that China might halt
purchases of American agricultural and energy products and Boeing aircraft, and
restrict offerings of American services in China. He also cited unidentified Chinese
89
scholars who speculated that China might sell some of its large holdings of Treasury
bonds.
“We’re obviously very worried about how China will retaliate and whether
they’ll start to target U.S. companies in China,” said Rufus Yerxa, the president of the
National Foreign Trade Council, which represents major exporters. “I certainly can’t
strike a note of optimism.”
The question now is whether another round of tariffs cements a prolonged
economic struggle between the United States and China. Since Mr. Trump was
elected, the two sides have repeatedly seemed close to a deal only for it to fall apart.
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross seemed to have the outlines of a deal in 2017.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin talked of a deal being at hand a year ago.
With talks at an impasse, economists are warning that consumers could soon start
to feel the pain from Mr. Trump’s trade fight, particularly if the United States taxes all
of China’s imports. While economists differ in their forecasts of how much tariffs on
both sides will reduce economic growth, most agree that the cost of tariffs is passed
on to businesses or consumers in the form of higher prices.
“If there was a policy action that the administration could unilaterally engage in
that would add half a point to G.D.P. growth, that would be something that people
would be quite excited about,” said Michael Strain, the director of economic policy
studies at the American Enterprise Institute. “This is the opposite.”
The president’s top economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, acknowledged on Sunday
that both the United States and China would ‘suffer” as a result of the tariffs. But he
insisted that America would benefit in the end if the trade war forces China to give
better treatment to American businesses than it had in the past.
Eric Rosengren, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, said that the
Fed would need to think about cutting rates if the economy were to slow in such a
way that might push unemployment higher and make 2 percent inflation harder to
reach. For now, the Fed is comfortable standing pat but that could change if the trade
war begins to chip away at global growth.
“I think monetary policy is appropriate for now,” Mr. Rosengren said in an
interview. “If the global economy were to slow down because of concerns about trade,
that is something that we’d have to think carefully about.”
Because China’s imports from the United States total considerably less than $200
billion, it has not had the option of matching the United States dollar for dollar on the
tariff threats. Last September, China had matched Mr. Trump’s 10 percent tariffs on
$200 billion a year in goods with its own tariffs of 5 to 10 percent on $60 billion a
year in American goods.
90
On Monday, China’s Finance Ministry raised those tariffs by introducing four
new categories for the $60 billion in goods. The tariffs on those four categories are 25,
20, 10 and 5 percent.
The Finance Ministry did not specify the dollar value of goods in each of the four
categories. But the largest number of tariff codes in the $60 billion was assigned to
the 25 percent category, suggesting that China was raising the tariffs on many imports
to that level.
91