ABSTRACT

South China Sea is one of the hottest and most serious political topic around the world. This topic is also an important resource for the news commentaries. It is a kind of commentary that news media expresses about people, social events or the social phenomena. Various news media express opinions and thoughts through news commentaries. Actually, its essence is a kind of rational criticism to the debate of discourse. Its aim is to persuade the readers reasonably and lead the trend of public opinion. Current studies on news commentaries on South China Sea are mainly about whether the specific content is right or wrong. However, they neglect the persuasive function of news commentary. Fallacy destroys the rationality of news commentary therefore it reduces its power of persuasion. Analyzing the fallacies in the news commentary is of great help for us to understand the persuasive function of news commentary.

This research is based on the framework of Pragma-Dialectics about fallacy. Through setting up corpus and reconstructing the argumentative dialogue about news commentaries on South China Sea in New York Times, this research will present the types of fallacies usually used during argumentation. After analyzing the related resource, Appeal to Pity is the most common one. In addition to this, the Fallacy of Stick, Personal Attack and Popular Fallacy are also used a lot in the news commentaries.  

Key Words: Argumentation; Fallacy; New York Times; Pragma-Dialectics

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABSTRACT

摘要

Chapter One INTRODUCTION-1

1.1 Research Background-1

1.2 Aim and Significance-2

1.3 Organization of the Thesis-3

Chapter Two LITERATURE REVIEW-4

2.1 The Studies on News Commentary-4

2.2 Study on the South China Sea Disputes-5

2.3 Summary-6

Chapter Three RESEARCH DESIGN-7

3.1 Theoretical Assumptions-7

3.1.1 The Definitions and Development of the Theory of Fallacy-7

3.1.2 Types of Fallacies-8

3.2 Research Questions-11

3.3 Data Collection-11

3.4 Research Methods-12

Chapter Four RESULTS AND DISCUSSION-13

4.1 The Fallacy of the Stick ( argumentum ad baculum )-13

4.2 Personal Attack-14

4.3 Appeal to Pity-16

4.4 Popular Fallacy ( argumentum ad populum )-18

Chapter Five CONCLUSION-20

5.1 Major Findings-20

5.2 Implication-21

5.3 Limitations-21

REFERENCE-23