Evidentiality in News Discourse: A Study of Western Mainstream Media

The "Xinjiang-related issues" have drawn substantial attention from the international community in recent years. Western media have persistently manipulated these "issues", exerting a notable impact on China's international reputation. This study is designed to analyze the distribution characteristics and pragmatic functions of evidentials. Its objective is to deduce the discourse features of evidentiality within the context of news reporting by Western mainstream media. Furthermore, it seeks to scrutinize the authenticity of the discourse construction employed in Western news reports pertaining to Xinjiang. This research adopts the evidential classification proposed by Hu Zhuanglin and focuses on three mainstream Western media. The research findings disclose variations in the frequency and lexicogrammatical manifestations among the seven types of evidentials. Moreover, the use of evidentiality in these news reports demonstrates three major discursive characteristics: (a) Written Reliability, (b) Subjective Speculation, and (c) Implicit Persuasion. This study enriches the research on evidentiality related to Xinjiang and provides potential references for future research in this field.