1。2 Purpose and Significance of the Study

As the product of human activity, one of the most fundamental features of news is to convey information。 Therefore, many readers hold the idea that the function of news is just to inform。 This thesis aims to make readers understand that news reports perform not only the informative function but also the persuasive function。 Rhetorical devices in news reports have persuasive power in nature, which exert influence on people’s values imperceptibly。

Western media always claim that they uphold the principles of “objectivity”, “fairness” and “independence” (Hu Caixia, 2009), but in the 2016 American presidential election nearly all American mainstream media tended to support Hillary, who imperceptibly persuade readers to stand on Hillary’s side。 This thesis tends to use rhetorical devices to analyze one hundred news reports about the 2016 American Presidential Election in The Washington Post to point out the persuasive nature of rhetoric and discuss possible functions that these rhetorical devices may have。 

In a word, this thesis aims to analyze news reports about the 2016 American presidential election in The Washington Post from the perspective of rhetorical devices and answer three questions as follows: 

(1) What rhetorical devices are used in these news reports? 来自优Y尔L论W文Q网wWw.YouERw.com 加QQ7520~18766

(2) Why are these rhetorical devices used in these news reports?

(3) What are the ideologies of using rhetorical devices in news reports?

Based on the above questions, the author hopes that this thesis can be meaningful in the following aspects:

Firstly, the use of rhetorical devices in the area of text analysis has received great attention, but the use of rhetorical devices in the news reports is still a neglected part。 The author hopes the analysis of news reports about the 2016 American presidential election can make a little contribution to the persuasive nature of rhetorical devices。 

Secondly, this thesis is beneficial to news reports readers’ critical thinking。 Readers learn to reinterpret the news reports they have read and comprehend the profound meaning, which helps them to realize the purpose of persuasion and then make their own judgments to take a firm stance。

1。3 Research Data and Methodology

    About 2016 American presidential election, the American media gave lots of news reports, such as The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and so on。 In order to insure the quality and quantity of data, the news reports of this thesis are all chosen from The Washington Post from the official website (www。washingtonpost。com) during the time from the February 1st, 2016 to November 15th, 2016。 This thesis randomly selects 100 news reports and after analyzing these 100 news reports the author obtains 300 samples of the use of rhetorical devices。 

The method adopted in this thesis is quantitative analysis, which is applied to estimate the frequency of statistics。 These 300 samples can be pided into 11 categories (simile, metaphor, rhetorical question, allusion, sarcasm, antithesis, parallelism, hyperbole, pun, parody, understatement) and get the statistics of each one in the form of tables。 These 300 samples can also be pided into 2 categories (how many rhetorical devices are used to describe Hillary, how many rhetorical devices are used to describe Trump) and get the statistics of each one in the form of figures。

2。 Analysis of News Reports about the 2016 American Presidential Election in The Washington Post

2。1 A Brief Introduction of the 2016 American Presidential Election

In the United States, one of the most important political movements is the presidential elections which are held every four years。 The American Constitution provides that the President and Vice President must be natural-born citizens of the America, at least 35 years old, and residents for a period of at least 14 years (Schroedel and Bligh, 2013)。 Election process mainly includes six parts: the primary elections, each party holds a national congress to determine its presidential candidate, the presidential campaign, the general election, the Electoral College and the presidential inauguration。