International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences

Vol. 1 3 , No. 1, 2023, E-ISSN: 2 2 2 2 -6990 © 2023 HRMARS

A Critical Discourse Analysis of News Discourse on in The

Times
Guo Rubing, Shanti C. Sandaran
To Link this Article: http://dx.doi.org/10.6007/IJARBSS/v13-i1/16241 DOI:10.6007/IJARBSS/v13-i1/16241

Received: 19 November 2022, Revised: 21 December 2022, Accepted: 05 January 2023

Published Online: 23 January 2023

In-Text Citation: (Rubing & Sandaran, 2023)

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A Critical Discourse Analysis of News Discourse

on in The Times
Guo Rubing, Shanti C. Sandaran
Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Malaysia
Email: [email protected], [email protected]

Abstract
The Brexit event has attracted wide attention from the world since its occurrence and has a
significant impact on the world development pattern and the global economy. For ordinary
people, news is not first-hand information, but the product of processing by news agencies
and journalists, so news discourse is an effective way to spread ideology-news discourse is an
effective way to spread their ideologies who wrote this discourse by using various language
strategies. This study examines and reveals how news reporting is ideological. It looks at how
The Times uses language to spread ideologies. Based on the analytical model of Fairclough
from the perspective of critical discourse analysis, this study analyzed 50 news reports
concerning the issue of Brexit from The Times ( from 23 June 2016 to 31 Dec. 2020). Both
quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis are employed to explore the linguistic features.
The findings highlight how the Times represents Brexit in its reporting and how the
representations favor the interests of the party or particular groups. The findings of the study
are as follows: Firstly, language is not used randomly when it comes to news reporting.
Secondly, the different camps portrayed different images of the EU and the UK government.
The findings show how news language is laden with ideological meanings and orientations
and only a critical investigation can reveal that the news media use various discursive
strategies when reporting important issues and that these strategies are ideological biased.
Keywords: Critical Discourse Analysis, News Discourse, Brexit

Introduction
Brexit, that is, the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union, is a major event that
affects the European and global politics. The Brexit incident has affected the political relations
between European countries, setting off a wave of discussions on the direction of the
European economy and immigration issues. Its future impact can also be viewed from social,
economic, cultural, ethnic, religious and other perspective. The UK joined the EU in 1973,
when the EU was known as the “European Economic Community” or “Common Market”.
Nonetheless the UK has had a more or less pronounced Euroscepticism for the past 43 years,
culminating in a sociopolitical environment where British citizens voted for the UK to leave
the EU in a referendum held on 23 June 2016.
As the mass media grows, news disseminates faster and more widely. What is meant by news
is the use of a certain language system to narrate or reconstruct news facts. Newspeak has its

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own unique characteristics. It is a sentence in which a language journalist deliberately chooses

to report facts with the aim of expressing certain journalistic intentions and radiating the
intrinsic meaning of the news, which is why it is also known as attitudinal discourse (Liu,
2005:49). Therefore, news discourse not always be neutral, but biased. With Brexit as a
political event, the news media always has its own position and bias when reporting the
event. The objectives of this paper are to identify:
i.What language strategies are frequently used in Brexit news coverage?
ii.What is the hidden ideology behind these linguistic structures?

Literature Review
Critical discourse analysis views discourse as a social activity, analyses and interprets the
linguistic features of discourse and its cultural, social and historical contexts from a critical
perspective, investigates the ideology underlying discourse via the representational features
of linguistic structures, thereby revealing the multiple relationships between language,
society, power and ideology. There is a vernacular relationship between an event and the
specific context and social structures in which it takes place, which connotes that discourse
constructs knowledge, social identities and relationships between people. News discourse, as
a device of journalism, can be seen as the transmission of ideology. As such, news discourse
has always been an important area of critical discourse analysis.

For discourse analysis within linguistics, it focuses mainly on the analysis of discourse within
the framework of discourse linguistics, stylistics and rhetoric. For CDA, on the other hand, it
emphasises the relationship between language and social change and intervention. In other
words, critical analysis emphasises the nature of social interaction, particularly the social
structure of discourse. It can therefore be assumed that the subjectivity of any discourse may
be a relative concept, with those in power having the final word on the issue in question and
influencing others' perceptions of it.CDA is an analysis of language. By analyzing the specific
linguistic features of language, power and ideology are interconnected.

CDA as a term was first introduced by Fairclough (1989) in his Language and Power and is
regarded as a guidebook for CDA research. It not only interprets the relationship between
language, ideology and power, presents the key concepts, basic methods and theoretical
frameworks that are central to the idea of language as a social practice. In deed, this approach
to research was first proposed by Fowler in his book Language and Control as critical
linguistics. It has now evolved into three main research approaches: Fairclough's dialectical-
relational approach, Wodak's discourse-historical approach and Van Dijk's socio-cognitive
approach, which through the analysis of social practices establish the main research
components of discourse, power, criticism, ideology, socio-cultural context, socio-cognition
and lexico-grammatical analysis.

In general, CDA is a question-oriented, multidisciplinary research collective that encompasses

a number of approaches, each of which has a separate conceptual framework and research
methodology. Fairclough prefers the term 'semiotics' to 'discourse'. Fairclough (2006) argues
that understanding discourse and social structure. He states that neither the deterministic
role of society in discourse nor the construction of discourse should be overemphasised. The
previous pushes discourse to a state where psychological knowledge reflects social reality,
while the latter will lead to an ideationalised vision of discourse as a societal provenance.

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The Dialectical Relational Approach (DRA) addresses the linguistic manifestations of social
conflict, domination and resistance in discourse. Drawing on Han Liddell's (1989) systemic
functional grammar, he stresses the social function of linguistic, attending to social structures
and social practices and analysing the dialectical relationship between language and social
relations and identity.

The Discourse History Approach (DHA) is an interdisciplinary, issue-based approach that is

intended to analyse discursive practices and changes in various genres. The conceptual
structure of her discourse history methodology can be divided into two levels: text production
and text interpretation. She developed the theoretical approach of revealing speaker
intentions and extra-linguistic textual factors in the production of texts (Wodak, 2009). The
specific mode of analysis of the discourse-historical approach can be divided into three
dimensions : content, discrimination strategies and the linguistic representation of the text.
The content dimension involves establishing the particular content or subject matter of the
discourse to be studied. The discourse strategy dimension examines the various strategies
used in the text, including exemplary strategies, which apply to different levels of
communication and act as mediators. The Linguistic Expression of Texts dimension explores
the linguistic realisation and means of discriminating against 'stereotypes' at three levels:
discourse, sentence and vocabulary. These three dimensions are not separate, but rather are
intimately related to the whole contextual knowledge (Wodak, 2001).

Van Dijk has preferred to use the term Critical Discourse Studies (CDS) rather than Critical
Discourse Analysis as he believes that this approach is concerned with critical analysis, critical
theory and critical application. Under van Dijk (2009:62), CDS is a key perspective, standpoint
or attitude within the multi-disciplinary discipline of discourse research.CDS academics are
dedicated to social justice and equivalence, which can be reflected in their research
objectives, as well as their theories, methods and the use of such research in the investigation
of social and political issues. They address the ways in which discourses generate or reproduce
social domination, gender, racial or class injustice and inequality, and resistance to the abuse
of power, and thus CDS is issue-oriented.

Van Dijk places a strong emphasis on the role of personal and social literacy and beliefs in the
reading and perception of texts. He argues that people usually focus on the format and
significance of discourse, but usually overlook the importance of the cognitive schema of the
listener or reader. Cognitive schemas are intimately connected to social factors such as
gender, race, culture, age and class. Hence, he stresses the importance of explaining the social
nature of discourse from a cognitive perspective. He (1998) argues that a direct link between
social structures and discourse structures can only be made through the mental construction
and interpretation of social structures by members of society. What, then, is social cognition?
Van Dijk (1993) has defined social structures, community relations, as socially recognised
forms of reproduction of thinking activities, including knowledge, attitudes and ideas
recognised by society as a whole, representing society and culture as a whole. Put differently,
social cognition is ideology, belief structure or ideology.

Methodology
This study draws on Fairclough’s three-dimensional model as for analytic framework. In
Language and Power, Fairclough reveals the relationship between language and power. More

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precisely, the inequality between the use of language and power clarifies the intrinsic
relationship between language and society. Fairclough argues that language permeates
power and serves the struggle for power, and that language plays a subtle role in the process
of socialisation. For Fairclough, language in critical discourse analysis is both discourse, and
discourse as social practice is determined by social structures. These could be seen in Figure
1.

In the book Critical Discourse Analysis: the Critical Study of Language, he proposes the process
of CDA: description, interpretation and explanation. Fairclough sees topics as consisting of
"contexts", "interactions" and " text", with the text at the bottom, as a result of interaction.
Fairclough combines linguistically oriented discourse analysis with language-related socio-
political thought. Discourse analysis is conducted within a framework of three dimensions
(text, discursive practice and social practice). He argues that discourse is the product of a
communicative process or discourse time, a process that includes production, distribution
and consumption, all of which are determined by the conditions of a particular social practice,
and on this basis Fairclough proposes a three-step process for critical discourse analysis:
firstly, he describes the formal structural features of the discourse, from words The formal
structure of the discourse is analysed in terms of word, grammar and discourse structure.
Secondly, the relationship between the discourse and the communicative processes that
produce, transmit and receive it is described. Finally, the relationship between the
communicative process and its social context is explained.

Social Practice

Discursive Practice
(production, distribution, consumption)

text

Figure 1 Three-dimensional Model (Fairclough, 1989:76)

Critical discourse analysis is an interdisciplinary study that integrates sociology, linguistics,

philosophy and other disciplines, taking as its object the actual problems of society, treating
discourse as a social practice and analysing the social and cultural contexts in which discourse
is produced. process, while at the same time being conditioned by society. He sees discourse
as a discursive event that encompasses both discourse, discursive practice and social practice,
and is a symbolic component of the activities that constitute social practice. Based on the
above framework, this study focuses on the following three aspects to reveal the ideological
significance of the discourse.

The first step in the analytical model is description, which focuses on the structural features
of the text, i.e. vocabulary, grammar, coherence and structure. Vocabulary plays an important
role in the transmission of ideology because it emphasises the metaphors and meanings used
in the text. Grammar analyses sentences through relevance and theme. Coherence reveals

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how linguistic units are articulated. In the descriptive process, lexical categories, relevance
and mood are used to analyse and describe. Journalists have the right to choose which words
to use in the process of creating news discourse, and lexical categories can be seen as
expressed according to the needs of individual minds.Halliday emphasises the acceptability
and usefulness of language as a product of social activity in communication. Language he
(1994) classifies the functions of language in social communication into three meta-functions:
conceptual, interpersonal and discourse functions. In addition to process and participants,
and objectivity includes context. Halliday elaborates on the affective system under the
interpersonal function. He argues that polarity is thus a choice between yes and no, but it is
not the only possibility; there is an intermediate degree of uncertainty, a variety of in-
between, such as 'sometimes' or 'maybe'. These intermediate degrees between positive and
negative poles are called modalities (Halliday, 1994). We use language to express identity,
status and attitudes, to make judgements and evaluations of things in order to establish and
maintain relationships with those around us. In traditional grammar, the modals associated
with modal auxiliary verbs such as "must", "will", "can", "can't ", "should to", etc., are
important ways of analysing the modalities.

The second step in the analytical model is to examine the relationship between text,
communication, reception and how speakers and journalists use existing knowledge and
discourse to create texts, including how listeners or readers receive and process information
within the context of existing knowledge systems. The characteristics of the structure of
discourse reflect the social structure. Therefore, the socio-cultural context should also be
taken into account in the interpretation process. Intertextuality is a means of linking texts to
social practices, and it is a statement that is achieved through news sources and discursive
approaches. In this section, the data selected will be analysed in terms of news sources .

The third part of the analytical model is interpretation, which is the analysis of the relationship
between interpersonal processes and social contexts. Journalists are usually influenced by
their social situation, values and culture to form a discourse, i.e. their ideology is hidden
behind the context, therefore new consumers should decode the discourse and analyse it
independently. In this paper, this section will be elaborated in political, economic and
historical terms. The framework is based on Fairclough's three-dimensional view of discourse.

Data Analysis and Discussions

This study will use a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods to analyse
50 randomly selected news stories from The Times. It will explore how journalists hide their
ideology through news discourse, guided by the three-dimensional model proposed by
Fairclough. In the description stage, the analysis will focus on lexical classification. In the
interpretation stage, the analysis will concentrate on news sources. In the explanation phase,
the political, economic and historical aspects will be analysed in an integrated manner. The
framework is based on Fairclough's three-dimensional view of discourse and the steps of
discourse analysis involving Hanley's systematic grammatical analysis tools, which can be seen
in the Figure 2：

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Figure 2 The theoretical framework of this thesis

This study will analyse and discuss the Times Brexit news discourse, exploring how journalists
hide their ideology through news discourse, guided by the three-dimensional model proposed
by Fairclough, and this chapter will analyse the CDA Brexit news coverage, including the
analysis methods mentioned in the previous chapter.

Lexical classification
Description, also referred to as textual analysis, focuses on structural factors, including lexical
classification, relevance and mood. Vocabulary reflects the ideology of the journalist because
it is a fundamental element of the text and the choice of words used to construct the text is
influenced not only by the journalist's own level of cognition but also by the socio-cultural
context and rights. It is clear from this that vocabulary can also reflect the power relations
between the objects of discourse. Word frequency is the most common statistical method
used to analyse texts. It analyses texts at the most basic lexical level. The usage of high-
frequency words can reflect the author's hidden attitudes behind the discourse. With the help
of Text Mechanic and by using Count Characters, Words, Sentences, Lines, the word
frequency could be get. The high-frequency words list is shown as Table 1.

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Table 1
Word-Frequency
Rank Word Percent(%)

1 Brexit 5.21
2 That 3.07
3 EU 2.78
4 he 1.55
5 we 1.47
6 deal 1.44
7 Britain 1.42
8 UK 1.41
9 immigration 1.35
10 European 1.32
11 this 1.30
12 there 1.29
13 vote 0.87
14 government 0.65
15 our 0.65
16 economy 0.51
17 trade 0.32
18 up 0.32
19 one 0.29
20 uncertainty 0.26
21 hard 0.26
22 she 0.24
23 economic 0.23
24 they 0.2
25 British 0.2
26 us 0.17
27 their 0.14
28 people 0.12

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29 leave 0.12
30 growth 0.1
Total No. of Sentences: 728
Total No. of Characters: 89776

High-frequency words can identify the key elements in a news discourse and to some extent
reflect certain characteristics of the discourse. However, collocation is more helpful in
revealing the meanings and hidden ideologies of high-frequency words. That is, if a number
of words are often used together, then the collocation or combination may have meaning. If
a particular collocation is mentioned and discussed several times, it may influence the way
people think. As an example, the top 30 collocations for the indicator word 'Brexit' can be
listed and divided into three sections, as shown in Table 2 below.

Table 2
List of Frequent Collocations of “Brexit”
Categoty Percentage(%) High-frequency Collocation

uncertainty, vote,
referendum, negotiation,
Nominal collocations of
50.24 challenge, deal, impact, war,
“Brexit”
outcome,difficulty,prospect,
process, disaster, reality
war, is, warn, cause, trigger,
Verbal collocations of
21.67 delay, try, affect, change,
“Brexit”
harm, worsen
Adjective collocations of hard, soft, broken, tough,
12.54
“Brexit” harmful

In the case of the "Brexit" pairings, the table above indicates that many negative words are
often used in the noun pairings, such as "uncertainty", "difficulty", "shortage" and "war".
"shortage" and "war"; the verbs "warn", "delay", "hard", and "hard", "hard", "tough" and
"haple" in adjective collocations. ". It can be found that "uncertainty" is often used to modify
"Brexit". Uncertainty is a cognitive situation involving imperfect or unknown information. It
applies to predictions of future events, physical measurements that have been made or
unknown measurements. Uncertainty arises in partially observable and/or random
environments, as well as due to ignorance, laziness or a combination of both. It occurs in many
fields, including insurance, philosophy, physics, statistics, economics, finance, psychology,
sociology, engineering, ecology and information science. A warning is often used to inform,
advise or suggest danger, imminent evil, possible harm or anything else unfavourable to a
person (or group of people, etc.).
Over-lexicalisation can be found to be employed by journalists. According to Fowler (1991),
over-lexicalisation, which refers to the extensive use of words with the same or similar
meaning in order to emphasise and highlight certain features of the modifying object in the

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course of describing the same thing, has attracted widespread attention. Over-lexicalisation
usually reflects a strong sense of subjectivity on the part of the producer of the discourse. Its
importance for critical linguistics is to demonstrate that the field of experience and values of
journalists and their group or class is of particular concern in order to help discourse analysts
to detect or identify the ideological characteristics of the group.

In summary, the above analysis reveals that journalists used over-categorisation strategies
when reporting on Brexit and describing the nature of Brexit. Brexit is a political event in line
with public opinion. Since the EU referendum, the process of leaving the EU has taken twists
and turns and shown a great deal of uncertainty: the resignation of two Prime Ministers; two
previous elections and three postponements of Brexit. The Brexit deal has been repeatedly
rejected by Parliament and the Prime Minister's request for Parliament to be adjourned was
ruled illegal by the Supreme Court. As a result, British politics was once deadlocked, revealing
comprehensive, deep-seated and systemic problems. Through the analysis, the above-
mentioned discursive meanings were reinterpreted into the text and integrated with the
socio-cultural context; the study found that this over-categorisation exposed the attitudes of
journalists, who used negative expressions to influence the ideology of their readers.

Interpretation
Interpretation is the second stage of Fairclough's three-dimensional model. In this section,
news sources will be elaborated from the perspective of intertextuality.
Journalism is a social practice and news discourse is a product of this practice. Like any other
discourse, it contains and reflects the writer's position and point of view. Intertextuality, a
distinctive feature of news discourse, also reflects the positions and perspectives of news
producers. Michael (2020) asserts that intertextuality is a social practice that news producers
use to construct meaning, design activities and pursue outcomes. Therefore, the analysis of
intertextuality in news discourse helps to explore the hidden ideologies in news reporting.
The study of intertextuality in news discourse examines how journalists report the discourse
of others into news discourse. With a wide range of information sources representing
different interests and ideologies, news discourse is a unique form of discourse that is both
ambiguous and explicitly embedded in news discourse.

The news sources that journalists depend on when writing and reporting news are the sources
or expressors associated with the reported discourse. Bell (1991:191) states that the choice
of news sources largely reflects the beliefs and power of the journalist. In news reporting, in
addition to intervening through reporting, journalists can manipulate sources to express their
views. Sources refer to the origin of the reported discourse. Zhang Jian (2004) classifies news
sources into three categories: 1. specific news sources: the journalist gives the exact source
of the speaker's quotation; 2. semi-designated news sources: the journalist does not directly
indicate the quoted speaker, but only uses some implicit words; 3. unknown sources: the
journalist is either unaware of the source, does not feel it is important, or deliberately
conceals it. Table 3 shows the distribution of the three sources in each text. The percentages
in the table indicate the proportion of specific sources, semi-specific news sources and
unknown sources out of the total number of sources.

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Table 3
Distribution of News Source Used by Remainers
Specific Semi-specified Unidentified

Number 193 54 17
Percent(%) 73.11 20.45 6.4

It is evident from Table 3 that the Times uses a large number of specified sources in its news
stories. Semi-designated sources make up the second largest proportion. Unspecified
accounts for the smallest proportion. Specified sources do enhance the authority and
credibility of the content of the reports. However, more than half of these specific sources
come from the government. On the one hand, the reason for this is that the government
usually occupies the bulk of the newspaper, publishing and disseminating social information.
On the other hand, The Times expresses its views and attitudes clearly. Here are some
examples.

John Bennett, the manager of Henderson European Selected Opportunities fund, says his
biggest concern is that the Brexit vote may trigger a European recession.
(The Times, 16 July 2016-Goodbye Europe, hello opportunity. By Mark Atherton)
Theresa May, the prime minister, has promised that there will be more scrutiny of foreign
takeovers when post-Brexit uncertainty and the fall in the value of sterling could leave British
companies vulnerable to opportunistic takeover bids.
(The Times, 19 July 2016-Can foreign buyers be trusted to keep their word? By Deirdre Hipwell
and Nic Fildes)

The term "John Bennett, the manager of the Henderson European Select Opportunities Fund"
can be interpreted as a social organization and "Theresa May" as representing the
government, indicating that journalists are trying to maintain objectivity in their reporting
and are trying to convince readers that the negative effects of Brexit do exist.

If the source is unclear, reporting on the authenticity of the speech may have a negative
impact, as it may leave readers with an ambiguous impression. The choice of semi-
determined sources is therefore of great ideological importance, for example:

The Brexiteers are willing to risk everything to shake off the shackles of Brussels: “They see
Brexit as the equivalent of the Big Bang [the deregulation of financial markets] in the 1980s,”
one Downing Street adviser says.
(The Times, 21 Nov 2017-The Tories can’t afford to let ‘Fiscal Phil’ fail. By Rachel Sylvester)
Analysis of news sources assists the reader to identify the speaker and to get a general idea
of who the speaker is. The most significant right of the media is that it can decide what to say
and how to say it, and decide what issues and whose voice it is expressing.

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Table 4
Types of News Resource Used by Remainers
Journalists Experts
Social Common
Government and mess and Enterprise
organization people
media elites

Number 179 21 16 13 8 47

Percent(%) 64.71 7.02 4.72 7.28 3.56 7.14

From Table 4, sources from the UK government are quoted to present the reader with the
Brexit policy, process and outcome. This may deepen readers' understanding of Brexit and
prepare them for the upcoming and existing outcomes. In addition, The Times hears more
often from experts and elites. The speeches of ordinary people gave readers the impression
that many ordinary people were looking forward to a better future for the UK, that they were
about to leave the EU and did not want to suffer the uncertainty of Brexit. The journalists
aimed to emphasise that Brexit was the choice of the British people and to deny the
exaggerated hopes and bright predictions of British experts.

Explanation
The final strand of Fairclough's three-dimensional model is interpretation, which illustrates
the relationship between discourse and social context. On the one hand, journalists
influenced by their own values may portray the same issue in different ways; on the other
hand, different reports on the same issue may influence the reader's understanding of events.
It is hence necessary to take this into account when reporting news from a CDA perspective.
In this section, social factors such as political, economic and institutional factors are fully
explained.

Political Factors
In June 2016, the UK held a referendum on whether to leave the European Union, known as
the EU referendum. Since the EU referendum, the UK's process of leaving the EU has taken
twists and turns and shown great uncertainty: two Prime Ministers have resigned, two
elections have been held early, and Brexit has been postponed three times. The Brexit deal
has been repeatedly rejected by Parliament, leading to an impasse in British politics. In the
context of Brexit, traditional British political parties have abandoned their original views in
order to accommodate public opinion, leading to a structural confrontation between
traditional political views and the diverse needs of the public. As a result, the function of
traditional political parties has declined, providing room for new parties to develop. For
example, the newly formed "Leave" party is in the midst of this confrontation. As the two
traditional parties, the Conservative Party and the Labour Party, were in decline, they seized
the opportunity to grow rapidly, with different views on the issue of Brexit.

The Conservatives have made it clear that their priority after the election is to complete Brexit
quickly, oppose more negotiations with the EU and hold a second referendum. The Labour
Party is neither explicitly pro-Brexit nor anti-Brexit. The Independence Party, which holds
strong Brexit views, advocates withdrawal from the EU. The Liberal Democrats, the Scottish
National Party and other parties represent remaining in Europe. One party is increasingly

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divided over its position on Brexit. This is mainly manifested by some party members
challenging the party's authority, quitting the party or even working with other party
members. in September 2019, Conservative leader Boris Johnson sacked 21 members for
voting against Brexit. The Labour Party also has this problem. in February 2019, eight Labour
members quit the party because they opposed leader Jeremy Corbyn's Brexit attitude, which
led to a split within the Labour Party.

Economic Factors
The impact of the 2016 EU referendum on the UK economy is becoming clear. "The outcome
of the referendum did not provide a clear path for the UK to leave the EU, but it has created
a great deal of uncertainty in domestic politics and in the UK's relationship with the EU, with
increasing implications for the UK economy. Overall, the UK economy, which has a prominent
position in the developed world, will be reversed

Labour shortages in manufacturing, agriculture and other sectors of the economy will become
more pronounced as the level of ageing and labour supply deficits increase with the decline
in immigration and the phasing out of the labour market. EU migrants generally have higher
job skills and employment rates, and the decline in immigration will limit the increase in
labour productivity in the UK. Since the EU referendum, the UK is now facing challenges to
job stability and trade growth as uncertainty over Brexit grows, which has increased the risk
of recession

Journalism is the quintessential product of the mass media, which carries the specific ideology
of journalists. As an important public institution, the mass media has the responsibility of
disseminating information and promoting social communication. To gain a deeper
understanding of the news discourse, it is first necessary to understand the nature of the new
media. The basic requirements are objectivity, truthfulness and timeliness.

There is no doubt that The Times belongs to the mass media. In order to project an impartial
and good public image, the British media operates with care. At the textual level, it uses a
large number of material and verbal processes to report on Brexit, making the news coverage
more objective. In addition, there is a large number of medial modal verbs in the news
coverage, which play a role in predicting the consequences of events and expressing the
attitude towards Brexit. At the level of interpretation, journalists mainly chose specific
sources to describe what was happening and often used direct and indirect speech to express
different comments on Brexit, which added to the authenticity and reliability of the new
reports.

However, the news reports in the newspapers were not absolutely objective. Journalists
subtly injected their own values and attitudes into the news reports, which had an impact on
the readers' understanding. The descriptions and opinions of the news media can be
attributed to institutional systems. The Times is an institution with a right to privacy, in which
news reports can reflect ideologies and attitudes towards important events.

Historical Factors
The UK signed the agreement to join the European Community and acknowledged that this
was in line with its position and interests. However, Britain joined only in a formal way,

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without taking part in European affairs and without fully changing its diplomatic tradition of
independence from Europe. For example, the UK emphasises as much as possible that it was
once the largest country in the world, refuses to have the EC central bank at the heart of the
common monetary system and refuses to join the Eurozone.

In addition, the UK fears that large numbers of European migrants will take on the work of
British workers as EU members. It is these concerns of some working class voters who support
Brexit. From the UK's own perspective, the widespread spread of Euroscepticism since the
2008 financial crisis has increased the pressure on the UK government and the UK's attitude
to EU affairs is based on self-interest. Since the outbreak of the European debt crisis in 2012,
the EU economy has been severely damaged and this has increased Euroscepticism in the UK.
Euroscepticism has always existed in the UK and was therefore very evident when the UK
faced a financial crisis and Europe was caught up in the European debt crisis, especially in the
face of the outbreak of the European debt crisis, and the UK was glad it did not join the
Eurozone.

Results
This section presents the findings based on the analysis of 50 news discourse from The Times.
The objective is to identify the language strategies are frequently used in Brexit news
coverage and the hidden ideology behind these linguistic structures. The two main findings
of this study are as follows.

Firstly, an analysis of the structural features of these news discourses from the perspective
of lexical classification reveals that language is not used randomly during news reporting.
Lexical categorisation contributes to the representation of Britain's exit from the EU. It
provides Remainers and Brexiteers with the opportunity to define this political event.
Specifically, Remainers used negative terms such as 'difficulties' and 'uncertainty' to describe
it, while Leavers used 'rights', 'advantages " and "benefits". Direct speech, specific and semi-
specific news sources are important tools for maintaining neutrality and objectivity in
reporting. Journalists tend to use these tools to increase the objectivity and credibility of their
news stories.

Secondly, addressing the reasons behind Remainer's different ideologies, the author explores
three aspects: the political context, the economic context and the institutional context. In the
case of the Brexiteers, the historical and political backgrounds are circulated. The reason for
the Remainers' negative attitude towards Brexit is that the decline in the separation of politics
and economics brought about by Brexit has left the UK with uncertainty and worries. Those
in power only represent the interests of their political parties and interest groups. The
relationship between the EU is unstable for those leaving. There is Euroscepticism about
issues such as immigration and full border rights. This reason they want to leave the EU is
because they hold the principle of isolation from EU affairs.

Conclusion
In this paper, we set out to investigate what language strategies are frequently used in Brexit
news coverage and what is the hidden ideology behind these linguistic structures. Our
findings showed that what emerges from the analysis of the structural features of these news
discourses, in regard to lexical classification, is that language is not used randomly when it

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comes to news reporting. The lexical classification contributes to the representation of

Britain's departure from the EU. It provides Remainers and Brexiteers with the opportunity
to define this political event. Remainers are in denial about Britain leaving the EU because the
political separation and economic recession brought about by Brexit has left Britons feeling
uncertain and worried. Those in power only represent the interests of their political parties
and interest groups. For the Brexiteers, the UK has an unstable diplomatic relationship with
the EU.

Using Fairclough's three-dimensional model as a theoretical basis, this study analysed 50

randomly selected news discourses from The Times and came to two conclusions.
Firstly, journalists are not objective enough when reporting on political events. They
manipulate language to convey ideology. By analysing the tactics used by journalists, the
ideologies of different political parties are different, but the one common denominator is that
they all represent the interests of the party or group to which they belong. The language of
journalism is therefore full of ideological meanings and directions that need to be critically
examined.

Secondly, readers should consider carefully when receiving information, particularly political
stories. News stories are rewritten by journalists to reflect attitudes or ideologies that are
more or less, obvious or indirect. If readers receive information without thinking about it, they
may be misled by journalists.

This study examines and reveals the ideology in the language of news discourse and how The
Times uses language to reinforce itsideology, with theoretical and practical implications.
Theoretically, this study helps to broaden the scope of CDA research. The main findings
suggest that a critical analysis of news stories using Fairclough's three-dimensional model as
a guide can be effective in geographically understanding the underlying ideological
significance of decontextualisation.

Indeed, the revelation of ideology in news discourse helps motivate readers to be aware of
ideological infiltration when reading news stories. It provides readers with insights into how
to raise critical awareness and construct their own standards of deeming.

Limitations and Future Studies

This study is directed by Fairclough's three-dimensional framework. Despite the fact that the
authors have answered two research questions in their paper, there are limitations to this
paper. This section presents the limitations of this study and suggestions for further research.

Firstly, only 50 news stories from The Times were collected for this study. The sample size
could have been larger. For further research, researchers could collect more news stories from
a variety of media to build a larger sample size, which may help enrich the findings.

Secondly, the authors only focused on the British media to reveal the hidden ideologies in the
news discourse. It is recommended that future researchers conduct comparative studies of
news coverage in other national news media to identify more graphic positions in the media.

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