Chapter 1 Introduction ········································································1 1.1 Background of the research ···················································1 1.2 Purpose and significance of the research ····································3 1.3 Data and methodology ·························································6 1.4 Organization of the book ······················································9 Chapter 2 Literature Review ·······························································11 2.1 The study of tense in narrative ···············································11 2.2 Studies of tense in media discourse and in corpus linguistics ···········22 2.3 Reflections on previous studies ··············································24 Chapter 3 Theoretical Framework ························································27 3.1 Fleischman’s theory of tense-aspect in narrative ·························27 3.2 Labov and Waletzky’s narrative model and Bell’s model structurefor news text ·········31 3.3 A three-dimensional framework for tense analysis ·······················34 Chapter 4 Tense Use on the Three Planes ···············································41 4.1 Tense-position plane—Textual distribution of the tenses ················42 4.2 Tense-verb plane—Verbs associated with the three tenses ···············47 4.3 Verb-position plane—Textual distribution of verb categories ···········62 4.4 Tense, position and verb categories ·········································67 Chapter 5 Tense Patterns ····································································92 5.1 Patterns of the present tense—Distribution and functions ················92 5.2 Present perfect patterns—Distribution and functions ··················107 5.3 Consecutive use of present perfect and its functions in news report·········120 Chapter 6 Textual, Expressive and Metalinguistic Functions of Tense ···········132 6.1 Properties of tense-verb construction ·····································132 6.2 Textual function of tenses ··················································137 6.3 Expressive function of tenses ··············································141 6.4 Metalinguistic function of tenses ··········································143 6.5 The functions of tense and modern journalism ·························145 Chapter 7 Conclusion ·······································································147 7.1 Summary of the findings ···················································147 7.2 Conclusion ···································································150 7.3 Limitations and suggestions for further study ···························153 Bibliography ·····················································································156 Appendix A Verbs associated with the present tense ·································169 Appendix B Verbs associated with the past tense ·····································177 Appendix C Verbs associated with the present perfect ·······························185 Appendix D Analysis of News Samples ··················································193 1 Analysis of Sample News 1 ················································194 2 Analysis of Sample News 2 ················································198 Appendix E Sample News Text 1 ·························································204 Appendix F Sample News Text 2 ·························································208 Appendix G Sample News Text 3 ·························································211