1. Literature review and background information

This paper mainly focuseson comparing the two different versions: English and Chinese versions of People’s Daily, which is one of themainstream presses in China. Discourse Analysis theory is used as the basingtheory.

After the collection andorganization of the relevant information, previous studies and outcomes, it isnot difficult to find that many similar domestic and overseas researches have beendone before, but People’s Daily hasbeen seldom studied. Also, among the papers and essays that could be found, fewaims at comparing the Chinese version and English version news media specially,not to mention the People’s Daily.

Quantities of referencebooks about the theory of Discourse Analysis facilitate this study. Also thispaper can enrich the possible usage field of this series (in field of newsmedia discourse analysis).

2018 is a big year forChina and Chinese people. It is the 40^th anniversary of China’sReform and Opening-up. As a significant time frame, both government and mediaare passionate about it. People’s Daily,a representative of Chinese media as well as Party newspaper, is responsible toportray today’s China to the world and tell Chinese story.

2. Purpose of the paper

Generally, this paper aimsat observing the characteristics of both Chinese and English versions in fieldof communication and discovering the possible reasons in aspects of economics,politics, culture or even society hid behind People’s Daily among those similarities and differences. This paperis a combination of linguistics and journalism.

Firstly, thecharacteristics of each version can be grasped vividly by picking up the seriesreports on 40-year Chinese reform and opening-up as the research discourse and comparingfrom various aspects including numbers, subjects, titles, fields etc.

Secondly, the reasons oftwo version’s differences and similarities could be figured out no matter inwhich perspective via those information given by the first step, and combinedwith the purpose, function and influence of People’sDaily.