话语与社会的变迁—基于《人民日报》元旦社论（1949）的历时研究毕业论文.doc

青岛农业大学 毕 业 论 文 题 目：话语与社会的变迁基于人民日报 元旦社论（1949-2013）的历时研究 姓 名： 学 院： 外国语学院 专 业： 英语 班 级： 1002 学 号： 20105519 指导教师： 纪卫宁 2014年 6 月 17 日Discourse and Social Change A Diachronic Study of the New Years Editorials (1949-2013) in the Peoples Daily Xing Jianping A Thesis Submitted in Conformity with the Requirementsfor the Degree of Bachelor of Arts Supervised by Ji Weining Foreign Languages School of Qingdao Agricultural UniversityJune 6, 2014Contents 1. Introduction.22. Theoretical Background.33. Diachronic Study of High Frequency Key Words .34. Diachronic Study of Titles.65. Diachronic Study of Generic Structure.85.1 The Identification of Generic UnitsMove and Step.95.2 Changes of Generic Structure over the Five Periods.106. Conclusion.13References .14Acknowledgements.16Appendix.17Discourse and Social Change A Diachronic Study of the New Years Editorials (1949-2013) in the Peoples DailyXing JianpingClass 2, 2007, Foreign Languages School, Qingdao Agricultural UniversityAbstract: There is a dialectical relationship between language and society. Language changes with changes of society, in converse, also casts effects on social changes. Since 1949, Chinese society has experienced several major social changes. Whether these social changes will affect language use or not has been one of the major concerns of linguistic field. This paper chooses the New Years Editorials of the Peoples Daily as study object for the purpose to explore the relations between discourse and social change. Taking systemic functional linguistics theory as theoretical basis and the combination of qualitative and quantitative analysis as research method, this study investigates the diachronic changes of the New Years Editorials over 65 years (1949-2013). This investigation mainly precedes through three aspects, namely, analysis of the high frequency key words, title, and generic structure. The analysis reveals that the New Years Editorial, as a type of discourse, displays evident diachronic changes which have a close relationship with the changes of social and cultural context, showing covariant characteristics. Keywords: The New Years Editorial; Covariant Relations; Generic Structure; Social Situations 话语与社会的变迁基于人民日报元旦社论(1949-2013)的历时研究摘要：语言与社会之间具有一种辩证相关的关系。语言随着社会的发展而变化，并反过来影响社会的变化。1949年以来，中国社会经历过几次重大的社会变革，这种变革对语言的使用是否产生影响是语言学界关注的问题之一。本文以人民日报的元旦社论为研究对象，以系统功能语言学的思想为观照，运用定性分析与定量分析方法，对建国以来人民日报65篇（19492013）元旦社论进行历时研究。研究主要从语篇的高频关键词、标题、体裁结构三个方面对元旦社论进行历时的语言学层面的文本分析，目的在于揭示话语和社会环境的关系。研究发现元旦社论这一语篇类型的语言学特征呈现出明显的历时变化，这些语言学特征的变化与社会环境的变化具有密切的关系，呈现出共变的特征。关键词：元旦社论、共变关系、体裁结构、社会环境1. IntroductionDiscourse is the result of language when it is used in communication, which is confined by social conventions and it also can reflect them. It is a tangible form of communication act that is semantically and pragmatically coherent, and can be rendered in either written form or spoken form and is used to achieve communication goal. As one type of discourse, the New Years Editorial in the Peoples Daily is a typical study object to study the relationship between language and social changes. The New Years Editorial which is published by the main stream media on the countrys most important festival epitomizes not only the state line, principles and policies of the party and the country, but also the outlook of the party and country on various aspects of politics, economy and culture in the new year. As one type of news comment, the New Years Editorial reflects the social environment where it happens, and has covariant relations with it. Since the foundation of China, the Peoples Daily has issued the 65 New Years Editorials (1949-2013). There are many previous researches on the New Years Editorial. However, most of them focus on macro study of social relations; few of them pay attention to detailed linguistics studies with a view to the relationship between language and social changes. This study aims at investigating a diachronic study of the New Years Editorial in order to disclose the relationship between language and social changes through a combination of qualitative and quantitative analysis of the text. The paper divides the 65 New Years Editorials into five periods according to main developing periods of Chinese society: the earlier years of new China (1949-1956), the period of tough development of China (1957-1965), the period of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1977), the period of early years of “Reform and Opening up” (1978-1992) and the period of building socialism with Chinese characteristics (1993-2013). In order to avoid one-sidedness and subjectivity on the selected corpus, and to ensure the validity of the study as far as possible , this paper follows comprehensive, full and objective principles, and analyzes all the 65 New Years Editorials (1949-2013). 2. Theoretical Background The study takes Hallidays systemic functional grammar as theoretical basis. According to Halliday (1985), “whatever the final purpose or direction of the analysis, there has to be a grammar at the base. A discourse analysis that is not based on grammar is not an analysis at all.” A systemic functional approach can be applied to discourse study. Many scholars have conducted discourse analysis from the perspective of systemic functional linguistics (SFL), from which many features about discourse have been discovered. SFL is chosen as the main theory for the present study, for it is a theory that is particularly dedicated to expounding the relationships between culture, society and language use. SFL suggests that there are direct interconnections between social environment and language use. Halliday believes the social structure is realized by the language structure, which also reflects the social structure obviously. Language variation is a symbolic expression of social variation. It is created by society, and in turn, it helps to create society. Halliday regards language as social symbols and social behavior. First, language is a social symbol and it is a subsystem of the social symbol. Second, language is social behavior, and social behavior is embodied through language. According to Halliday, one of the aims of SFL is to serve the purpose of text analysis. The effectiveness of discourse can be investigated from the perspective of SFL. Another supporter of systemic functional grammar, Fairclough (1992:64-65) also emphasizes the dialectical relation between language and social change. Language is the product of society and is subjected to the social structure. Language and social structure are inseparable. He insists that the language variant has its own social values and social functions and he believes that language and society is an inseparable unity. Language can lead to social change and reflects a deeper level of social reality.3. Diachronic Study of High Frequency Key WordsThis study employs a corpus linguistics method to collect and analyse the high frequency key words in the New Years Editorials and explains the reasons why these key words appear frequently. The corpus linguistics combines corpus with computer analysis software and other ways to deal with data, allowing researchers to identify language patterns. The research method of corpus seems more convenient and reliable when it comes to analyzing a large corpus of discourse. This study uses corpus analysis method to observe the high frequency key words in the New Years Editorials, seeking social changes through the New Year Editorials. Corpus analysis of high frequency words presents us a typical type of language usage, and provides us a clear clue to understand the social situations in different historical periods. The paper first divides the 65 New Years Editorials (1949-2013) into five specialized corpus according to the five periods. This paper uses Word Smith Tools Version 4 to analyze these five specialized corpus, and regards the McEnery & Xiao (2004) Lancaster Chinese corpus (LCMC) as a reference corpus, with the purpose to collect the key words in the five specialized corpus. According to research needs, the paper mainly retrieves high frequency key words in the five specialized corpus, hoping to find the changes of Chinese society through the corpus analysis. Through the corpus analysis, the high frequency key words of the five periods are listed in the following table.PeriodsHigh Frequency Key WordsThe first period(1949-1956)困难(difficulty)、侵略(aggression)、苏联(the Soviet Union)、改造(transformation)、合作(cooperation)、农业改造(agricultural reform) The second period(1957-1965)矛盾(contradiction)、速度( speed)、调整(adjustment)、苏联( the Soviet Union)、帝国主义( the imperialist)The third period(1966-1977)无产阶级(the proletariat)、文化大革命(Cultural Revolution)、无产阶级专政(the proletarian dictatorship)、毛主席(Chairman Mao)、毛泽东思想(Mao Zedong Thought)The fourth period(1978-1992)调整(adjustment)、改革开放( Reform and Opening up)、经济建设(economic construction)、稳定( stability)、中国特色社会主义(socialism with Chinese characteristics)The fifth period(1993-2013)政府(government)、人民(people)、中国特色社会主义(socialism with Chinese characteristics)、小康社会(well-off society) Table 1. High frequency key words in each periodIt can be seen through the table above, “difficulty”, “aggression”, “the Soviet Union”, “transformation”, “cooperation”, “agricultural reform” are the high frequency key words in the first period. These high frequency key words reflect the main issues and social situation of China in the first period. After the founding of the new China, the new country faced many difficulties, for instance, low productivity and backward economy because of aggression of other strong countries. The Soviet Union, as the first country acknowledging new China, gave help to China and cooperated with China. At that time, China had close relationship with the Soviet Union. Moreover, in order to solve the survival issues of farmers, the Communist Party of China launched a land reform in the liberated areas. The Communist Party of China also carried out the socialist transformation of capitalist industry and commerce for neatening remnants of industry of the Kuomintang and the establishment of new Chinas industrial base. In the second period, with the completion of socialist transformation by the end of 1956, the Eighth Party Congress announced: the socialist system in China was basically established, opening a new page in history and the government adjust the economic policy. However, China also faced new problems. The leaders of the Communist Party made a wrong judgment from the year of 1957 and China undergone the Anti-rightist Movement and The Great Leap. The Anti-rightist Movement featured “taking class struggle as the key link”, and the cooperative relations between China and the Soviet Union also broke up, so the key word “contradiction” was used often. The Great Leap meant just focusing on speed and neglecting the realistic conditions. There were many reports about the high speed of agriculture and industry and there was an unrealistic goal to surpass the imperialist countries. In this period the party line and philosophy had big deviation, so the New Years Editorials also inevitably deviated from the correct direction. During 1959-1961, China suffered a natural disaster which made a significant loss to the whole nation; therefore, at the end of 1960, the government began to adjust policy to develop economy. The economy of China began to recover after the adjustment, however, the leaders of the Communist Party made another big mistake in the following years. The third period is a serious setback for Chinas social development, for the leaders of the CPC Central Committee made a wrong understanding on the political environment, and launched the Cultural Revolution. During this period, people blindly admired Chairman Mao. Therefore, “the proletariat”, “the Cultural Revolution”, “the proletarian dictatorship”, “Chairman Mao” and “Mao Zedong Thought” these words appeared frequently. In the fourth period, the Third Plenary Session of the Party ended the “leftist” mistakes in the Communist Party. The Communist Party of China re-established the Marxist ideological, political and organizational lines and focused on solving problems. The leader Deng Xiaoping insisted to reform, focusing on economic construction, and carried out the Reform and Opening up. The society became stable gradually. Therefore, “adjustment”, “Reform and Opening up”, “economic construction”, “stability” and “ socialism with Chinese characteristics” are the main points of the New Years Editorials in that period. In the fifth period, with Chinas rapid economic development and stable political environment, the Communist Party of China was more concerned about the people, focused on improving peoples living standards and promoting the well-off society. The government also continued to strengthen the functions of the public service and made effort to build a service-oriented government. These issues are reflected by the high frequency key words as “government”, “people”, “socialism with Chinese characteristics ”, and “ well-off society” in the fifth period.4. Diachronic Study of TitlesTitle is the “eye” of an article from which we can know what the article is mainly about. A good title can convey main context of the New Years Editorial and reflect its characteristics. In this part, the paper analyses the titles of the New Years Editorials in each period. From the titles, we can gain insights about the social situations in each period. In order to let the readers know the titles of the New Years Editorials well, the paper adds an appendix about titles of all the 65 New Years Editorials (1949-2013) at the end of the paper.The language selection of the titles in the New Years Editorials is dynamic. Although the New Years Editorial is published every year, the choice of title language changes significantly in different eras. The changes of the title language reflect the main tasks and social situations in different periods. In the first period, the titles of the New Years Editorials are mainly about revolution and mission. For instance, the title of 1950 is “完成胜利，巩固胜利迎接一九五零年元旦”. The reason is that the new China has to finish the Democratic Revolution and build a united nation. At that time, the new