An Discourse Analysis of News English Based On A News From TIME

Abstract：This paper intends to analyze a news report from TIME called A Tsunami Has Killed Hundreds in Indonesia form two perspectives --- the global perspective and the local perspective, by using the discourse analysis of stylistics.

Key words：discourse analysis; news report; TIME

Ⅰ. Introduction

In Stylistics, discourse is a unit of meaning embodied in a coherent set of sentences. Discourse can have many categories, which can be in written or oral and have no length limit. The main function of news report discourse is to report the valued events as soon as possible. This paper intends to analyze a news report called A Tsunami Has Killed Hundreds in Indonesia form two perspectives --- the global perspective and the local perspective.

Ⅱ. Global Analysis

For the context of culture, Indonasia always be troubled by tsunami. Indonesia stretches across the southwestern part of the Pacific Ring of Fire. According to the data, the Pacific Ring of Fire is the place where the vast majority of earthquakes occur. In rencent years, Indonesia was baptized in more than one deadly earthquake and tsunami. The writer Suyin Haynes was graduated from The London School of Economics and Political Science and worked for TIME magazine now. With a five-year experience as a news editor, she is very keen on the social news and has a calm and sophisticated style of writing.

As for the context of situation, the genre can be seenclearly: Field：This news report belongs to disaster news report; Tenor: The tenor of the news English is the relationship of “journalists – readers”; Mode: This news is in a written form and it was published on TIME magazine.

As for the register, this news is in a written form which was published on TIME. Field：This news report belongs to the disaster news report. There are many natural and man-made disasters around the world, disaster news mainly report the casualty, the main cause, the solutions and so on. Tenor: In this news, it show us a mournful News, a devastating disaster in Indonisia. So the journalist should pass this important news to the public in an apporiate way, thus the tenor should be more formal. Mode: this news is in a written mode.

Ⅲ. Local Analysis

The headline of this news report is A Tsunami Has Killed Hundreds in Indonesia, but it can’t tell all the information, thus it has a subtitle. It is obvious that this headline is an ellipitical sentence, and the full headline can be “A Tsunami Has Killed Hundreds of People in Indonesia”. Personification was used in the headline. The reporter personified the tsunami as a killer who killed hindreds of life, which can arouse the compassion of the reader.

In the main body, the overall method the reporter uses to illustrate the news is the highlight method. Firstly, he generally described the basic information about the tsunami, then he illustrate the cause and response of this tsunami in detail, and finally he gave a warning to the whole society. The journalist uses categorization method to help the reader know deeper about this tsunami, he divided this report into three parts: the cause, the responding and the warning, which can ensure a clear and coherent structure.

As for the grammatical features, firstly, the significance of news report is characterized by information consolidation. In this news report, there are some coressed components, like : “After one of the biggest ever-recorded ruptions more than a century ago”. Secondly, the main function of news report is to pass the true and objective information on to the public which can make the resders believe the news. In order to emphasize the truth of the news, the journalist has to indicate who is the “Sayer”, the source of the message. “The main affected areas are the coastlines of western Java and the southern Sumatra islands, the Associated Press reports.” This sentence cleaely shows the “Sayer” which maintains the facility and objectivity of the news.

As for the journalese words, news reports require to express as mush meaningful features as possible in the least form and require freshness at the same time. In this news report, there are some examples, such as: Journalese words group made composed by short words: such as “root cause” , and so on.

In functional linguistics, there are many reference cohesions in this news report, such as “The eruption of the Anak Krakatau volcano, the name of which translates to ‘Child of Krakatoa’”, in this sentence, “which” referce to Anak Krakatau volcano. Conjunction cohesion in this news report, such as “but”. “Tsunami” is a repetition cohesion as it occurs in this news many times.

Ⅳ. Conclusion

In the global aspect, Indonisia is a country in which tsunami happens very often, and the reporter Suyin Haynes has a calm and sophisticated style of writing, this news was published based on that. Besides that, this news belongs to disaster news report, the tenor of the news English is the relationship of “journalists – readers”. In the local aspect, this news is well organized with a headline, a subtlitle and a guidance. The main body is clearly divided into three parts --- the cause, the respond and the warning. Journalese words and cohesions are well-used in this news.

References

[1]劉世生，朱瑞青.文體學概論.北京大學出版社，2015 [M]

[2]錢璦.實用英語文體學. 外語教學與研究出版社出版的圖書，2011[M]

作者簡介：李佩耘（1994.06-今），女，漢族，四川成都，碩士研究生，研究方向：商務英語研究