Chapter1 Introduction ········································································11.1 Background of the research ···················································11.2 Purpose and significance of the research ····································31.3 Data and methodology ·························································61.4 Organization of the book ······················································9Chapter 2 Literature Review ·······························································112.1 The study of tense in narrative ···············································112.2 Studies of tense in media discourse and in corpus linguistics ···········222.3 Reflections on previous studies ··············································24Chapter 3 Theoretical Framework ························································273.1 Fleischman’s theory of tense-aspect in narrative ·························273.2 Labov and Waletzky’s narrative model and Bell’s model structurefor news text ·········313.3 A three-dimensional framework for tense analysis ·······················34Chapter 4 Tense Use on the Three Planes ···············································414.1 Tense-position plane—Textual distribution of the tenses ················424.2 Tense-verb plane—Verbs associated with the three tenses ···············474.3 Verb-position plane—Textual distribution of verb categories ···········624.4 Tense, position and verb categories ·········································67Chapter 5 Tense Patterns ····································································925.1 Patterns of the present tense—Distribution and functions ················925.2 Present perfect patterns—Distribution and functions ··················1075.3 Consecutive use of present perfect and its functions in news report·········120Chapter 6 Textual, Expressive and Metalinguistic Functions of Tense ···········1326.1 Properties of tense-verb construction ·····································1326.2 Textual function of tenses ··················································1376.3 Expressive function of tenses ··············································1416.4 Metalinguistic function of tenses ··········································1436.5 The functions of tense and modern journalism ·························145Chapter 7 Conclusion ·······································································1477.1 Summary of the findings ···················································1477.2 Conclusion ···································································1507.3 Limitations and suggestions for further study ···························153Bibliography ·····················································································156Appendix A Verbs associated with the present tense ·································169Appendix B Verbs associated with the past tense ·····································177Appendix C Verbs associated with the present perfect ·······························185Appendix D Analysis of News Samples ··················································1931 Analysis of Sample News 1 ················································1942 Analysis of Sample News 2 ················································198Appendix E Sample News Text 1 ·························································204Appendix F Sample News Text 2 ·························································208Appendix G Sample News Text 3 ·························································211