With the rapid development of information technology and increasingly frequent international communication, English news is playing a more and more important role in bridging the world and exchanging information. The English news in various publications such as newspapers, magazines and journals has become an effective way for readers as well as researchers to acquire different messages involving different countries.

When analyzing news reports, People pay special attention to reported speeches. There are a great amount of reported speech in the news text with the aim of enhancing its impartiality, objectivity and accuracy, but some reporters unconsciously convey their views to influence the readers. To better understand the English news, promote the appreciation of news, and develop a correct attitude towards news, the research on reported speeches about English news of The Times is of necessity.

The English news as a frequently used and very practical approach to know global events has long draw the attention of researchers. As a complex subject, the English news has been studied from different perspectives, with abundant achievements and still a lot of work to be done in future studies.

Taking a panoramic view of the history of researches on reported speech, we can find that the earlier studies of it in Western countries are mainly made in the fields of grammar and discourse analysis. Reported speech was originally used to distinguish direct speech and indirect speech; some scholars even used it to refer to indirect speech in particular. Reported speech is defined as the recurrence or reproduction of prior utterance, including its style and content. In grammatical field, the researches mainly focus on the changes of sentence structure and grammatical form in the transformation of direct speech to indirect speech. But as the development of linguistics, the studies on reported speech are being combined with other branches of linguistics or the subjects derived from linguistics, such as pragmatics, cognitive linguistics, psychological linguistics, critical linguistics and so on. Thereby, a lot of doors of new fields are open up to the study on reported speech. The typical representatives of this research abroad are Bakhtin, Fairclough, Compagnon, Genette, Leech amp; Short, Geis, Halliday, Thompson, Baynham and so on.

In the early 1920s, Bakhtin systematically studied reported speech from the perspective of socio-pragmatics and from the perspective of speech communication, he discoursed dialogic relation between reported speech and prior utterance. He criticized the study which was limited to the mechanical grammatical conversion from one form to another. His study focused on the discourse and pragmatic functions of reported speech, emphasized its dynamic relation with reporting context or reporting speech. Fairclough (1979) pointed out that any discourse is full of fragments of the other discourse; reported speech is an effective way to embody intertextuality. Compagnon(1979) studied “citation” (reported speech), which is considered as the repetition of an utterance unit in another discourse. Leech amp; Short (1981) classified reported speech into five types and explained their stylistic functions. The five types are direct speech, indirect speech, free direct speech, free indirect speech, and the narrative report of speech acts. Geis (1987) conducted his study on one of the aspects of reported speech --- reporting verb. He distinguished reporting verb into positive verb, negative verb, common verb and divergent verb. He also furthered his research into the emotional coloring of those verbs. Halliday (1994) categorized reported speech as quote and report, and put them into the projection system. He indicated that what quote projects is wording, and what report projects is meaning. Thompson (1996) made a detailed exposition on reported speech, which he thought if the speaker or writer signaled “another voice” in some way in a discourse, any segment originated from this voice is named as reported speech. Baynham(1996) analyzed the function of direct speech in non-narrative genres and suggested the study on reported speech should be built up in specific context and discourse. He proposed the study on reported speech should focus on: 1) what strategies or language techniques could the speaker draw on to indicate his utterance or communicating activity in specific speech context? 2)what are the functions of the reported speech in this specific context? 3) what do these strategies distribute in the context? How can they construct this context?

The traditional domestic research on reported speech is mainly on rhetoric study, such as citation, reported speech or “yuanyin” and so on. In his book “An Introduction to Rhetoric”, Chen Wangdao (1932) made detailed definition, classification and exposition to reported speech and regarded it as a type of rhetoric devices. In China, the term “reported speech” was first adopted by Lv Shuxiang and Zhu Dexi in “A Talk on Grammatical Rhetoric”. But in a narrow sense, they considered reported speech the same as indirect speech. Since 1990s, due to the increasing academic communication with western scholars, Chinese researchers utilized the relevant theories and achievements of western linguists, the domestic researches on reported speech have been promoted. The main representatives are Xin Bin, Peng Jianwu, Tang Qingye, Li Jingfeng and Ren Fengmei and so on. From the perspective of critical linguistics, Xin Bin(1998) made a general study and analysis on the discourse and pragmatic functions of reported speech in news discourse and revealed the ideological meaning behind language, that is, in virtue of reported speech, the news reporter introjects ideologies of the individual, social group or interest group into news report. Xin Bin (2008), based on his previous studies on reported speech, made a comparative analysis on reporting verbs in Chinese and English news discourses. He emphasized the properties and functions of reported speech varied in different discourse types. So the research on reported speech should be carried out in specific discourse and context. While because reporting verb can constitute the most direct context of reported speech, it can play an indicating and dominating role in the interpretation of reported speech. Peng Jianwu (2003) made a dissertation on reported speech from the cognitive and pragmatic perspective. He considered reported speech as any syntagm touching upon another voice. From the perspective of cognitive linguistics, he probed how cognitive factors (such as man's perceptive experience) influence the generation and operation of reported speech. Tang Qingye (2004) studied reported speech in academic discourse and made a comparative analysis on the differences, functions and motivations of reporting mode, reporting verb and reporting tense between liberal and scientific discourses. According to Tang's view, a functional interactive relationship is set up among writer, reported people, reader and even the study objective during the generation of discourse. Thereby, discourse is provided with intertextuality. Zhang Rongjian (2007) analyzed English reported speech from a multi-view. He illuminated the type, context, function, viewpoint and domanial words of reported speech and therefore exposed the essence and significance of reported speech, Li Jingfeng (2009), based on Xin Birf s viewpoints, combined Bakhin’s dialogism with Peter White’s intertextual positioning framework to elaborate on the dialogic relation between reported speech and news discourse from the aspects of reporting mode, source, relationship between reporter’s words and reported utterance, and relationship among reported speeches. From the angle of intertextuality, Ren Fengmei(2010) analyzed news discourses in English and Chinese. She emphasized that intertextuality is a way for human’s cogintion and communication, and its major embodiment is reported speech, which may make different voices participate in discourse communication. Various voices interact and communicate to realize implicit semantic expression. She thought intertextuality is manifested more fully and generally in news discourse.

2. 研究的基本内容与方案

Main content: A reported speech accounting for a major part of a news report is subject to the news sources, reporting modes and reporting verbs. Through manipulating them, the reporter can secretly convey his views, and hence influence the reader's judgment on the reported event. The paper gives a critical analysis of English news related to China from the perspective of the news sources, reporting modes, and the reporting verbs. It is composed of four chapters.

Chapter 1: the introduction of reported speech and critical discourse analysis

Before our study, we should have a basic understanding to the topic and the theories and methodologies adopted in the study on English news discourses. The definition and classification of reported speech will be dealt with. The theories of critical discourse analysis and concepts like ideology and power are also introduced in this chapter.

Chapter 2: the literature review on reported speech