laysia. Immediately, President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang gave instructions on the matter; Wang Yi, the Chinese Foreign Minister, also showed his concern about the incident; Department of Chinese Transportation, China’s Civil Aviation Administration of China and other relevant departments also launched the emergency mechanism promptly. Two rescue boats of the South China Sea Rescue set out at 10:49, Xisha and 11:30, Haikou in the morning of March 8, 2014 respectively to carry out search-rescue work. Of course, after the incident, many related news reports have emerged, including China Daily, which is the largest English portal in China, and an important window for China to understand the world and for the world to understand China. As one of the most influential newspapers in China, it delivered authoritative coverage of incident. And then I choose ten reports to conduct my analysis.
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Chapter Two Literature Review
News discourse has become one of the most influential fields in linguistic study. Here I mainly review the definitions, classifications, and features of news discourse. Also, the most important are the previous analyses of news discourse from different perspectives, which have put up with significant research findings.
2.1 Definitions of News Discourse
dispensible thing in our daily life. It is nearly impossible that people can escape from the influence of certain news in modern society. However, what is news? There is no specific answer to the question. Scholars from different fields have attempted to come up with different definitions of news. They put forward various definitions of news from different views, but none of them gain unanimous acceptance around the world. In order to understand what news discourse is, it is necessary for us to make a clear definition of news firstly. Of course, the definitions differ in the emphasis that one puts. Oxford English Dictionary and Longman Dictionary of English Language & Culture put the emphasis on the content of news discourse. The former defines news as “tidings, the recent happened events, the new information, the new subject of a report.” The latter defines it as “facts that are reported about a recent event or events”. W. Lance Bennett and John Bogart pay more attention to the features of news discourse. Bennett (1988) states that news usually refers to the timely information. And Bogart, once remarked “When a dog bites a man, that is not news, but when a man bites a dog that is big news”.
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2.2 Classifications of News Discourse
Based on different criteria, news discourse can be classified into various categories. Several common divisions are introduced here: According to the content of reporting, news can be involved in many aspects, including
