Abstract：Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is an interdisciplinary approach to the study of discourse, which views language as a form of social practice and focuses on the ways social and political domination are reproduced in text and talk.

This paper takes two reports from China daily and New York Times respectively as study materials and adopts Theo van Leeuwen’s social actor thoery characterized by “generic reference”, “association and disassociation”, “aggregation” as research method. In terms of the number and description of social actors as well as their unique roles in news discourses, the author makes a comparison between social actors from above-mentioned two study materials. In addition, the author also pays attention to readers’ responses to different media discourses.

The results indicate that Chinese news media use no more than three social actors, with government and eminent political figures as discourse subject. Secondly, though Chinese news have realized what social actors are, they have trouble in shaping their images in media discourses. Besides, Chinese news media have not fully realized the power social actors can have on affecting readers’ attitudes towards a case.

On the contrary, American media discourses use six varied social actors as discourse subjects, much more than that of Chinese media discourses. Secondly, American news media are good at shaping social actors’ images. What’s more, American news media have completely known that social actors can affect how readers understand the case and could help build legitimacy and reasonableness.

The findings of the study provides some implications for Chinese news media: Chinese news media should learn to use more and varied social actors to shape images, which can help effectively lead readers’ opinions about one case.

Key words: critical discourse analysis; social actor; news media; readers’ opinions

CONTENTS

ABSTRACT

中文摘要

Chapter One INTRODUCTION-1

Chapter Two LITERATURE REVIEW-3

2.1 Definition of Critical Discourse Analysis-3

2.2 Researches on CDA Abroad-4

2.3 Researches on CDA in China-5

2.4 Summary-6

Chapter Three RESEARCH DESIGN-7

3.1 Research Objectives-7

3.2 Research Questions-7

3.3 Research Subjects-8

3.4 Research Method-8

3.5 Summary-8

Chapter Four Data Analysis and Findings-9

4.1 Numbers of Social Actors in Chinese and American Media Discourses-9

4.1.1 Social actors in New York Times reports-9

4.1.2 Social actors in China Daily report-11

4.2 Descriptions of Social Actors in Chinese and American Media Discourses-12

4.2.1 Description of social actors in American media discourses-13

4.2.2 Description of social actors in Chinese media discourses-15

4.3 Summary-16

4.4 Findings-16

Chapter Five CONCLUSION-18

REFERENCES-20

APPENDIX I NEWS REPORT FROM CHINA DAILY-22

APPENDIX II NEWS REPORT FROM New york times-24