Vietnam national university hanoi
College of foreign languages and international studies
Postgraduate department NGUYỄN THU TRANG A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF
CNN ONLINE AND BBC ONLINE NEWS
ON BEIJING OLYMPICS 2008
(PH¢N TÝCH DIÔN NG¤N PH£ PH¸N TIN TøC
TRUYÒN TH¤NG VÒ OLYMPICS B¾C KINH 2008
TR£N B¸O §IÖN Tö CNN Vµ BBC)

M.A. minor thesis

Field: English Linguistics

2.1.3. Critical, ideology and power 7
2.2. A review of media news discourse studies 8
2.3. Systematic functional grammar and its role in CDA 10
Chapter III: A Critical Discourse Analysis of CNN Online and BBC Online News on
Beijing Olympics 2008
3.1. Content and presentation analysis 15
3.1.1. Highlighted topics 15
3.1.2. The use of pictures and videos 18
3.2. Lexical analysis 20
3.2.1. Use of neutral referring expressions for the event 22
3.2.2. Use positive references to indicate the Games 22
3.3. An analysis of two sample texts 23 v
3.3.1. Syntactic structure analysis 23
3.3.1.1 The use of transitive and intransitive sentences 23
3.3.1.2. The use of active and passive voices 24
3.3.2. Cohesion 26
3.3.2.1. Conjunction 27
3.3.2.2. Reference 30
3.3.3. Transitivity 32
Chapter IV. Conclusion 42
4.1. Conclusions 42
4.2. Suggestions for further study 43
REFERENCES 44
APPENDICES I iii

The Beijing Olympics 2008, which took place from the 8th August to 24th August 2008 in
China, is one of the most successful Olympic Games which won great approval from the
media world. With a total of 11,468 athletes from 204 countries and regions, about 100,000
Olympic volunteers, 400,000 city volunteers, and 1 million social volunteers, Beijing saw
the largest number of female athletes competing in the history of the Games.
As the NBC Universal assesses, the Beijing Olympics is the most-watched U.S. television
event of all time. More than 220 television agencies and over 25,000 journalists covered
the event. The IOC site logged 5 million clicks during the entire process of the Beijing
Games, whereas it logged 2.8 million clicks during the Athens Olympics.
More than 80 heads of states and governments participated in the opening ceremony of the
Beijing Games. About 80 percent of the people in China and about half of the people in the
United States and Europe watched the opening ceremony on television. This was a record
number. Few other events have received so much attention.
The closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympics received wide coverage by most U.S.
media outlets, with many praising the Games as the most memorable summer Olympics. It
was described as "the most memorable Olympics ever."
In a piece titled "Truly exceptional Games," NBC said the Beijing Olympics made history
"in virtually every regard.‖ Beside, many U.S. media outlets heaped praises on the Chinese
volunteers at the Beijing Games; the Los Angeles Times praised the Chinese volunteers for
their friendliness and efficiency.
BBC (The British Broadcasting Corporation) and CNN (Cable News Network) are the
world's largest broadcasters which are very familiar with English users. BBC has bases or
correspondents in more than 200 countries and, as officially surveyed, is available to more
than 274 million households, though also possibly far more individual persons and groups
than surveys can gather, and it is the oldest surviving entity of its kind and is more widely
known internationally than any other news organization. As of June 2008, CNN is
available in over 93 million U.S. households. Broadcast coverage extends to over 890,000 2


3
intransitive sentences as well as active and passive voices). Besides, some cohesive devices
like conjunction and reference and transitivity are also factors of concerns in the thesis.
1.4. Methods of the study
In order to obtain the aims of the study, the following activities will be carried out:
In the first place, a literature review will be carried out to provide a theoretical background
for the study.
Then, a number of articles on BBC online and CNN online about Beijing Olympics will be
analyzed in the light of critical discourse analysis. The research method applied in this part
is both quantitative and qualitative.
The analysis will be made in terms of the content and presentation. Apart from that,
vocabulary, syntactic structure and cohesion are also analyzed.
From the analysis, a comparison between the news reported in the two newspapers will be
interpreted and analyzed.
1.5. Design of the study
The thesis is divided into 4 chapters:
Chapter I is the Introduction which provides the rationale, the aims, the methods and the
design of the study.
Chapter II naming Theoretical background first gives an overview of Critical Discourse
Analysis. In this part, the history of CDA and some aspects such as critical, ideology and
power are mentioned and analyzed. Then, it deals with media discourse studies and
systematic functional grammar.
Chapter III is entitled A Critical Discourse Analysis of CNN Online and BBC Online
News on Beijing Olympics 2008. This is the main focus of the thesis which provides and
discusses the main findings of the study.
Chapter IV is the Conclusion summarizing the main findings of the study, drawing
important conclusions and offers suggestions for further research.
Apart from these main parts, appendices and references are also included.


"situated," whether we like it or not. Reflection on the role of scholars in society and the
polity thus becomes an inherent part of the discourse analytical enterprise. This may mean, 5
among other things, which discourse analysts conduct researches in solidarity and
cooperation with dominated groups.
2.1.2. The history of CDA
In the late 1970s, Critical Linguistics (CL) was developed by a group of linguists and
literary theorists at the University of East Anglia (Fowler et. al., 1979; Kress & Hodge,
1979).
Their approach was based on Halliday's Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). CL
practitioners such as Trew (1979a, p. 155) aimed at "isolating ideology in discourse" and
showing "how ideology and ideological processes are manifested as systems of linguistic
characteristics and processes." This aim was pursued by developing CL's analytical tools
(Fowler et al., 1979; Fowler, 1991) based on SFL.
Following Halliday, these CL practitioners view language in use as simultaneously
performing three functions: ideational, interpersonal, and textual functions. According to
Fowler (1991, p. 71), and Fairclough (1995b, p. 25), whereas the ideational function refers
to the experience of the speakers of the world and its phenomena, the interpersonal
function embodies the insertion of speakers' own attitudes and evaluations about the
phenomena in question, and establishing a relationship between speakers and listeners.
Instrumental to these two functions is the textual function. It is through the textual
function of language that speakers are able to produce texts that are understood by
listeners. It is an enabling function connecting discourse to the co-text and con-text in
which it occurs.
Halliday's view of language as a "social act" is central to many of CDA's practitioners
(Chouliaraki & Fairclough, 1999; Fairclough, 1989, 1992, 1993, 1995b, 1995a; Fowler et
al., 1979; Fowler, 1991; Hodge & Kress, 1979). According to Fowler et al. (1979), CL,
like sociolinguistics, asserts that, "there are strong and pervasive connections between

with little attention to higher-level organization properties of whole texts". Despite raising
these issues with regards to earlier works in CL, Fairclough (1995b) inserts that "mention
of these limitations is not meant to minimize the achievement of critical linguistics they
largely reflect shifts of focus and developments of theory in the past twenty years or so".
The "shifts of focus and developments of theory" which Fairclough (1995b) talks about,
however, have not resulted in the creation of a single theoretical framework. What is
known today as CDA, according to Bell & Garret (1998), "is best viewed as a shared 7
perspective encompassing a range of approaches rather than as just one school". Also, van
Dijk (1998a) tells us that CDA "is not a specific direction of research" hence "it does not
have a unitary theoretical framework." But, van Dijk (1998a) asserts, "given the common
perspective and the general aims of CDA, we may also find overall conceptual and
theoretical frameworks that are closely related."
2.1.3. Critical, ideology and power
In order to have better knowledge of CDA as a new linguistic approach, some core notions,
such as ―Critical‖, ―ideology‖ and ―power‖ should be mentioned.
According to Fairclough, ―Critical is used in the special sense of aiming to show up
connections may be hidden from people – such as the connections between language,
power and ideology referred above them.‖
In Ruth Wodak‘s opinion, however, ―Critical‖ is understood as having distance to the data,
embedding the data in the social, taking a political stance explicitly, and a focus on self-
reflection as scholars doing research.
―Ideology‖ is among the most controversial concepts. For Thompson, ideology refers to
social forms and processes within which, and by means of which, symbolic forms circulate
in the social world. The study of ideology is, therefore, a study of ―the ways in which
meaning is constructed and conveyed by symbolic forms of various kinds‖.
According to Simpson, ideology is ―a mosaic of cultural assumptions, political beliefs and
institutional practices.

of social issues in different languages. Craig and Lee (1992), for example, study how US
newspaper report labor issues in South Korea and Poland with a view to discerning the
ideological framework of US international political reportage with a textual analysis. The
study indicates that while in the dispute of South Korea, US mainstream newspapers does
not focus on the issue and the demands of strikers, US newspapers provide readers on its
front page with breaking news about the strikes to the ‗crisis‖ of the whole Polish system.
Other researchers examine the way different newspapers report about particular political,
diplomatic or social issues of countries.
Peter Teo (2000) focuses on news reports relating to a Vietnamese gang in Australia whose
violent and drug-dealing activities have received publicity in two Sydney-based
newspapers: The Sydney Morning Herald and The Daily Telegraph. The analysis of these
reports adheres to the analytic paradigm of Critical Discourse Analysis and is undertaken 9
in two stages. The first, a general characterization of the newspaper discourse, reveals
evidence of a systematic ‗othering' and stereotyping of the ethnic community by the ‗white'
majority. This is followed by a comparative analysis of two reports, which surfaces
evidence of a racist ideology manifest in an asymmetrical power discourse between the
(ethnic) law-breakers and the (white) law-enforcers. The study concludes with a discussion
to explain the evidence of `Racism in the News', which both reflects and reinforces the
marginalization of recent Vietnamese migrants into Australia
Different from above researchers, some other researchers take a multi-perspective view by
examining both international and domestic coverage of an event. For instance, in the study
―Intertextuality and national identity: discourse of national conflicts in daily newspapers in
the United States and China‖, Juan Li examines the

effects of intertextuality on the
discursive construction of



of national
identities and positions.Another method that gains interests from researchers is analysis of a discourse written by a
well-known person. Nguyen Thi Thu Ha (2004) carried out a study ―Critical discourse
analysis of President Bush‘s ultimatum to President Saddam Hussein‖. The study
investigates the power and ideology hidden behind the discourse of President Bush‘s
ultimatum to President Saddam Hussein. The analysis consists of text description, the
relationship between the processes of the discourse and that between discourse processes
and social processes.
The reviewed studies only focus on newspapers reporting political, diplomatic or social
events. None of them have done any researches on a sport event that draws attention from 10
all over the world as Beijing Olympics. Therefore, I hope that this study will contribute to
the diversification of critical discourse analysis.
2.3. Systematic functional grammar and its role in CDA
Systemic functional grammar (SFG) or systemic functional linguistics (SFL) is an
approach to language developed by Michael Halliday in the 1960s. It is part of a broad
social semiotic approach to language called systemic linguistics. The term "systemic" here
refers to the view of language as "a network of systems, or interrelated sets of options for
making meaning"; The term "functional" shows that the approach is concerned with
meaning rather than word classes as formal grammar.
SFG is concerned primarily with the choices the grammar makes available to speakers and
writers. These choices relate speakers' and writers' intentions to the concrete forms of a
language. Traditionally the "choices" are viewed in terms of either the content or the
structure of the language used. In SFG, language is analyzed in three different ways

directly
involved
Example
1. Material

Processes of doing
things; express the
notion that some entity
―does‖ something,
which may be done
―to‖ some other entity
'doing'

Actor, (Goal)

Action 'doing' The boy hit the
dog
Event

'happening'

The mayor
resigned
2. Behavioral


12
Affection 'feeling'

The boy loved
the girl
Cognition

'thinking'

She didn‘t
believe her
husband
4. Verbal
Processes of saying
'saying'
Sayer, Target,
Recipient
John told me the
truth
5. Relational:

Processes of ―being‖,
―being at‖ and
―having‖
‗Being‘


There was a
storm
The interpersonal metafunction
The interpersonal metafunction relates to a text's aspects of tenor or interactivity. Like
field, tenor comprises three component areas: the speaker/writer persona, social distance,
and relative social status. Social distance and relative social status are applicable only to
spoken texts. Note - this is not so, looking at the text of O´Halloran we are told that we no
longer have the option to contrast the various speakers but we can examine "how the
individual authors present themselves to the reader", therefore, we are able to look at social
distance and relative social status in texts where there is only one author. 13
The speaker/writer persona concerns the stance, personalization and standing of the
speaker or writer. This involves looking at whether the writer or speaker has a neutral
attitude, which can be seen through the use of positive or negative language. Social
distance means how close the speakers are, e.g. how the use of nicknames shows the
degree to which they are intimate. Relative social status asks whether they are equal in
terms of power and knowledge on a subject, for example, the relationship between a
mother and child would be considered unequal. Focuses here are on speech acts (e.g.
whether one person tends to ask questions and the other speaker tends to answer), who
chooses the topic, turn management, and how capable both speakers are of evaluating the
subject.
The textual metafunction
The textual metafunction relates to mode; the internal organization and communicative
nature of a text. This comprises textual interactivity, spontaneity and communicative
distance.
Textual interactivity is examined with reference to disfluencies such as hesitators, pauses
and repetitions.
Spontaneity is determined through a focus on lexical density, grammatical complexity,

(Meaning of the sentence = function of [Structure (i.e. semantic structure) +
compositionality (Representational + Interpersonal + Textual)].
He emphasizes the use of + compositionality in counting the meaning of the sentence (with
added cultural values) among the total meaning of text which is very crucial to CDA in
general.
Hence, one of the strengths of applying a SFL analysis to CDA is that its detailed and
rigorous analysis of texts helps to preserve the interpretation from ideological bias.
In short, this chapter reviews the theories of CDA, different media news discourse studies
and provides some features of systematic functional grammar and its role in CDA. This
creates a background for the main part of the study that is chapter III.15
Chapter III: A Critical Discourse Analysis of CNN Online and
BBC Online News on Beijing Olympics 2008

3.1. Content and presentation analysis
3.1.1. Highlighted topics
In this part, the author investigates the focused topics found in both BBC and CNN
online. Table 2 and table 3 illustrate these topics.

Table 2: Topics focused in BBC online
No.
Topics
1
Results
2
Medals table
3
Olympics map

6
Everyday people preparing for the 2008 Summer Games
7
Monetary issue
8
Olympic social, cultural calendar

From above tables, it can be pointed out that both two newspapers focus on the results, the
medals awarded, the successful athletes and development of sport competition fields. On
BBC online, readers can also find information on Team Great Britain and Paralympics
while on CNN there are clear parts providing updated news about SI photos, logistics
issues such as everyday people preparing for the 2008 Summer Games, and monetary issue
as well as the host nation and the list of athletes.
In addition, on the front page on the Olympic Games, both e-newspapers highlight the
closing ceremony of the Olympics Games; and many have videos on the Games.
Regarding competition fields, BBC have a greater number of headlines than CNN. This
does not include articles on schedule and results of the games.
From table 4, it can be seen that all the headlines examined in the two newspapers are short
and clear. Most of the headlines highlight medal winner athletes as well as medal winner
countries. 17
Table 4: Wording of competition fields in headlines of BBC online and CNN online
BBC online
CNN online
Federer and Nadal make last eight
Federer and Williams sisters crash out
Nadal to face Gonzalez in final
Federer, Nadal and Djokovic cruise through


18
Closely examining the headlines, it is noted that both media agencies sometimes use
positive words (adjectives, nouns and verbs) to judge. While BBC uses the words
―cruises‖, ―storms‖, ―brave‖, ―historic‖, ―surprise‖, CNN prefers ―top seed‖, ―smash‖,
―overpowers‖, ―beautiful game‖, ―glory‖ to show their praise for success of the athletes
and the games.
Most of the examined headlines formed a simple sentence of structure SVO. However,
CNN has some noun phrases as its headlines, such as: ―Spanish Olympic basketball team
in 'racist' photo row‖, ―Phelps on course with third gold medal‖, ―Endorsements pure gold for
Phelps‖. With these headlines, CNN would like to focus on the actors, not the actions.
From above analysis, we can see that both newspapers devote many columns to praise success of
athletes and countries that win in competitions.
3.1.2. The use of pictures and videos:
Both BBC and CNN use pictures to demonstrate their desired contents. For example, when
studying coverage on swimming in the two newspapers, we can find that CNN put pictures
highlighting the number of medals Michael Phelps grab and the swimmer‘s happiness
when winning the competition. By adding the pictures, writer‘s respect to the greatest
swimmer as well as one of the greatest Olympians of all time is highly emphasized. Picture 1: Michael Phelps is one medal away from holding
the record for the most gold medals in Olympic history.
(CNN, August 12, 2008, on ―Phelps dives into Olympic history‖) 19

Picture 2: Left to right: Brendan Hansen, Aaron Piersol
and Michael Phelps celebrate Sunday's historic win.


Referring
expressions
Cited in the
article
Referring
expressions
Cited in the
article
1.
One of the best
organized Games
in history
Beijing bids
farewell to
Olympics
The games in
Beijing
Iraq cleared to
compete in
Summer
Olympics
2.
The 29
th
Games of
the modern
Olympiad
Beijing bids
farewell to

5.
The sporting
action
Beijing bids
farewell to
Olympics
The 29
th
Olympic
Games
Olympic show
opens with a
bang, 8 August
2008
6.
Sixteen days of
action, starring
10,000 athletes
from 204 nations
Organizers hail
'glorious' Games
The Summer
Olympics
Olympic show
opens with a
bang, 8 August
2008
7.
16 glorious days
Organizers hail

with Olympics,
24 August 2008
Beijing‘s
Olympics
Grand spectacle
close Beijing‘s
Olympics
There are both similarities and differences in the use of expressions to refer to the
most unforgettable Olympic Games held in Beijing in the British and American press
organizations.
3.2.1. Use of neutral referring expressions for the event: