As a type of public discourse closely related to litigation practices, Chinese legal news reports incorporate the important progress in China’s judicial reform. Meanwhile, due to the competitive pressure and driven by profit, Chinese legal news reports are characteristic of an evident trend of marketization. This article examines how and to what extent sensationalism invades Chinese legal news reports. The research methodology combines the theoretical paradigms of critical discourse analysis and genre analysis, with particular attention paid to the notions of genre and interdiscursivity. The data include 70 legal news reports in Legal Daily. Analytical results show that Chinese legal news reports, although being a highly institutional genre, include a number of sensational strategies which promote the restructuring of legal news reports in China.
AllanS (1999) News Culture. Buckingham: Open University Press.
2.
AnZ (2011) The historical process of the marketization of Chinese newspaper (浅谈我国报纸市场化的历史进程). Mass Media Today (今传媒) 7: 43–44.
3.
AskehaveISwalesJM (2001) Genre identification and communicative purpose: A problem and a possible solution. Applied Linguistics22: 195–212.
4.
BadgerR (2003) Legal and general: Towards a genre analysis of newspaper law reports. English for Specific Purposes22: 249–263.
5.
BazermanC (1994) Systems of genres and the enhancement of social intentions. In: FreedmanAMedwayP (eds) Genre and New Rhetoric. London: Taylor & Francis, pp. 79–101.
6.
BednarekM (2006) Evaluation in Media Discourse: Analysis of a Newspaper Corpus. London: Continuum.
7.
BellA (1991) The Language of News Media. Oxford: Blackwell.
8.
BerenkotterCHuckinTN (1995) Genre Knowledge in Disciplinary Communication: Cognition/Culture/Power. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
9.
BhatiaVK (1993) Analyzing Genre: Language Use in Professional Settings. London: Longman.
10.
BhatiaVK (2004) Worlds of Written Discourse: A Genre-based View. London: Continuum.
11.
BhatiaVK (2010) Interdiscursivity in professional communication. Discourse & Communication4: 32–50.
12.
BowlesH (1995) Why are newspaper law reports so hard to understand?English for Specific Purposes14(3): 201–222.
13.
CaiL (2007) On the relationship between media education and moral education (论媒介教育与道德教育之间的关系). Journal of Educational Science of Hunan Normal University (湖南师范大学教育科学学报) 6(1): 57–59.
14.
CandlinCN (2006) Accounting for interdiscursivity: Challenges to professional expertise. In: GottiMGiannoniD (eds) New Trends in Specialized Discourse Analysis. Bern: Peter Lang, pp. 21–45.
15.
ChenHLiangL (2005) Citizens’ legal quality and construction of society with rule of law (公民法律素质与法治社会建设). Theory Research (理论探索) 154(4): 138–140.
16.
ChengG (2010) Analysis of the functions of Chinese legal news reports in the New Era (新时期我国法制新闻报道的功能分析). Pioneering with Science & Technology Monthly (科技创业) 1: 130–132.
17.
ConnellIGalasinskiD (1998) Academic mission statement, an exercise in negotiation. Discourse & Society9: 457–479.
18.
FaircloughN (1992) Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge: Polity Press.
19.
FaircloughN (1993) Critical discourse analysis and the marketization of public discourse: The universities. Discourse & Society4(2): 133–168.
20.
FaircloughN (1995) Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of Language. London: Longman.
21.
FaircloughN (2003) Analysing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research. New York: Routledge.
22.
FiskeJ (1992) Popularity and the politics of information. In: DahlgrenPSparksC (eds) Journalism and Popular Culture. London: SAGE, pp. 45–63.
23.
FranklinB (1997) Newszak and News Media. London: Arnold.
FreedmanAMedwayP (eds) (2003) Genre in the New Rhetoric. London: Taylor & Francis.
26.
GallagherMEDongB (2011) Legislating harmony: Labor law reform in contemporary China. In: KuruvillaSLeeCKGallagherME (eds) From Iron Rice Bowl to Informalization: Markets, Workers, and the State in a Changing China. New York: Cornell University Press, pp. 36–60.
27.
GrabeMELangAZhaoX (2003) News content and form. Communication Research30(4): 387–404.
28.
GrabeMEZhouSBarnettB (2001) Explicating sensationalism in television news: Content and the bells and whistles of form. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media45(4): 635–655.
29.
HanZ (2011) The discursive construction of civil judgments in Mainland China. Discourse & Society22(6): 743–765.
30.
HuZ (2003) The post-WTO restructuring of the Chinese media industries and the consequences of capitalization. Javnost/The Public20(4): 19–36.
31.
HylandK (2000) Disciplinary Discourse: Social Interactions in Academic Writing. Harlow: Longman.
32.
HylandK (2005) Metadiscourse: Exploring Interaction in Writing. London: Continuum.
33.
KressG (1988) Linguistic Processes in Sociocultural Practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
34.
KristevaJ (1980) Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach to Literature in Art. New York: Columbia University Press.
35.
LangerJ (1998) Tabloid Television: Popular Journalism and the ‘Other News’. London: Routledge.
36.
LynchDC (1999) After the Propaganda State: Media, Politics, and Thought Work in Reformed China. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
37.
McCarthyM (2001) Issues in Applied Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
38.
McLachlanSGoldingP (2000) Tabloidization in the British press: A quantitative investigation into changes in British newspapers, 1952–1997. In: SparksCTullochJ (eds) Tabloid Tales: Global Debates over Media Standards. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 75–89.
39.
McManusJH (1994) Market-driven Journalism: Let the Citizen Beware. London: SAGE.
40.
MachinDPapatheoderouF (2002) Commercialization and tabloid television in Southern Europe: Disintegration or democratization of the public sphere?Journal of European Area Studies10(1): 31–48.
41.
MartinJR (1984) Language, register and genre. In: ChristieF (ed.) Language Studies: Children’s Writing Reader. Geelong, VIC, Australia: Deakin University Press, pp. 21–29.
42.
MillerCR (1984) Genre as social action. In: FreedmanAMedwayP (eds) Genre and the New Rhetoric. London: Routledge, pp. 23–42.
43.
Molek-KozakowskaK (2013) Towards a pragma-linguistic framework for the study of sensationalism in news headlines. Discourse & Communication7(2): 173–197.
44.
Niu Wei (2009) Strengthening the political sensitivity of news propaganda (增强新闻宣传的政治敏感性). Cover and Edit News (新闻采编) 1: 3–4.
45.
RichardsT (2001) Media and conflict portrayal. Conflict Resolution Notes18(4): 122–131.
46.
RyuJS (1982) Public affairs and sensationalism in local TV news programs. Journalism Quarterly59(1): 74–137.
47.
ScannellP (1996) Britain: Public service broadcasting, from national culture to multiculturalism. In: RaboyM (ed.) Public Broadcasting for the 21st Century. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, pp. 23–41.
48.
SkovsgaardM (2014) A tabloid mind? Professional values and organizational pressures as explanations of tabloid journalism. Media, Culture & Society36(2): 200–218.
49.
StockmannDGallagherME (2011) Remote control: How the media sustain authoritarian rule in China. Comparative Political Studies44(4): 436–467.
50.
SwalesJM (1990) Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
51.
TannenbaumPHLynchMD (1960) Sensationalism: The concept and its measurement. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly37(3): 381–392.
52.
UribeRGunterB (2007) Are sensational ‘news stories more likely to trigger viewers’ emotions than non-sensational news stories? A content analysis of British TV news. European Journal of Communication22(2): 207–228.
53.
Van DijkTA (2006) Discourse, context and cognition. Discourse Studies8(1): 159–177.
54.
Van DijkTA (2008) Critical discourse analysis and nominalization: Problem or pseudo-problem?Discourse & Society19(6): 821–828.
55.
Van DijkTA (2013) News as Discourse. London: Routledge.
56.
Van LeeuwenT (1987) Generic strategies in press journalism. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics10(2): 199–220.
57.
Van LeeuwenT (2008) News genres. In: WodakRKollerV (eds) Handbook of Communication in the Public Sphere, vol. 4. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, pp. 345–362.
58.
WangP (2009) A historical investigation and functional reflection on Chinese legal news reports in the New Era (新时期以来我国法制新闻报道的历史考察与功能反思). News Knowledge (新闻知识) 5: 19–22.
59.
WangTL (2012) Presentation and impact of market-driven journalism on sensationalism in global TV news. International Communication Gazette74(8): 711–727.
ZelizerBBirdSEBrookesR. (2000) Tabloid Tales: Global Debates over Media Standards (ed. SparksCTullochJ). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
62.
ZhaoY (1998) Media, Market, and Democracy in China: Between the Party Line and the Bottom Line. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.
63.
ZhaoY (2005) The state, market, and media control in China. In: ThomasPNainZ (eds) Who Owns the Media? Global Trends and Local Resistance. Penang, Malaysia: Southbound, pp. 179–212.
64.
ZhengB (2003) Discussing the Development of Conglomeration of the Economy and the Media (论媒介经济与传媒集团化发展). Beijing, China: China Renmin University Press (中国人民大学出版社).
65.
ZillmannDChenLKnoblochS. (2004) Effects of lead framing on selective exposure to Internet news reports. Communication Research31(1): 58–81.
