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Article published In:
Chinese Language and Discourse
Vol. 13:2 (2022) ► pp.197–225

Who is to Blame?

A discourse analytic comparison of the news reports on the killing of George Floyd from Mainland China and Taiwan

ORCID logo | University of California at Los Angeles

Critical discourse analysis (CDA) has been broadly applied to understand the social implications of discourse, yet few studies have compared different forms of discourse in Chinese media, especially on the topic of race. Referencing the CDA framework, this study compares two sample news items from Mainland China and Taiwan about the killing of George Floyd and the associated social movements, analyzing their presentational forms, sourcing patterns, headlines, lexical and syntactic choices. A racial analysis is also conducted to better comprehend how racism is constructed and potentially reproduced in Chinese media. The results suggest that the two media sources bifurcate in reporting styles – due to respective journalistic environments and regulations – and their attitudes towards the cause of the reported event. However, they both explicitly identify the issue of racism in the US. This study applies CDA in a non-US context to uncover the reporting styles and racial connotations in Chinese news discourse from Mainland China and Taiwan, identifying future directions for racial discourse analysis in Chinese media.

Keywords: critical discourse analysis (CDA), television news, presentational forms, headlines and sub-headlines, lexical choices, syntactic choices, racial
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Data and methodology
  • 3.Analysis
    • 3.1Presentational Elements in News
    • 3.2Presentational structure of the Sample News Items
      • 3.2.1SET iNews
      • 3.2.2Dragon Television
    • 3.3Analysis of voice presentations and sourcing patterns
    • 3.4Headline and sub-headline analysis
    • 3.5Lexical, syntactic choices and styles
    • 3.6Racial discourse analysis of lexical and syntactic choices
  • 4.Discussion and conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
  • News sources
Published online: 10 September 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/cld.20030.lin
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News sources

三立iNews
2020 美國又爆種族歧視!?黑人男子因警察執法過當喪命!!黑人上街抗議爆發警民衝突!!! [The issue of racism explodes again in the US!?A Black man lost his life due to police brutality!! Black people launch protests on the street, which triggers police-citizen conflicts!!!] Accessed July 10, 2020. [URL]
看看新闻Knews综合
2020 美国警察涉嫌暴力执法致黑人死亡. [American police are suspected to cause a black man’s death with brutality.] Accessed July 12, 2020. [URL]