Journalism education in China began early this century.
However, the drastic changes in the Chinese society since the First
World War have greatly hindered the development of journalism
education. With the fall of the "gang of four" in 1976, China entered
a new period in its history which is marked by a strong desire of the
CPC and the people to modernize their country in the shortest possible
time. This situation has produced an ever-increasing need for better
journalists, especially international journalists who are able to use
foreign language to promote mutual understanding and exchange between
China and other countries. To meet this demand, the speciality of
international journalism, a combination of journalism training and
foreign language learning, has come into existence in many
institutions.
However, to teach Chinese students English journalism,
particularly the skill of news writing in English, is not easy.
Students constantly encounter difficulties in writing English news
articles. They have problems in both language use and organisations.
Their writing is very often unnatural and sometimes hard to comprehend
for English-speaking readers. The reasons are mainly as follows.
First, news writing, unlike any other form of writing,
involves particular requirements which need to be carefully studied
and analysed, such as the criteria for news value, the special
structure of the article and the special choice of words.
Secondly, as China's policy towards journalism is very
different from that of the west, its approach towards news is also
different. Therefore, what is included in a Chinese news article is
not always of news value to western readers.
Thirdly, Chinese and English are two very different
languages. Many dissimilarities exist in all aspects of the two
languages, linguistic and rhetorical. Chinese students often find it
difficult to free themselves of mother tongue interference.
To solve these problems, a comparative study of the news
writing styles in both languages should be made by the teachers and
students so that they can realise the similarities and dissimilarities
between the two languages and their relative strengths and weaknesses
in news writing.
In addition, practice is also essential in the training of
journalists. Extensive exposure to good English news writing styles
and practices in producing them will surely benefit the students in
their study of journalism.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/219491 |
| Date | January 1984 |
| Creators | Yueming, Yu, n/a |
| Publisher | University of Canberra. Liberal Studies |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | ), Copyright Yu Yueming |
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