【Abstract】In the East Asia， the dispute since early 1970s between China and Japan over Diaoyu Islands in Chinese or Senkaku Islands in Japanese has become a typical example of this irredentist arguments between nations. Viewers were bombarded with considerable continuous news report in different types of media worldwide. By critically analysing and making contrast with media coverages from the United States and Korea， this study serves to explore in depth the different attitudes and ways of American and Korean media coverages when reporting controversy dispute between states.
　　【Key words】media coverage； CDA discourse； language
　　1. Introduction
　　The debates over nations’ claims to territory have always been contentious and are supposed to be among the most prominent sources of conflict between states （Suganuma， 2000）. In the East Asia， the dispute since early 1970s between China and Japan over a tiny group of islands， known as the Diaoyu Islands in Chinese or Senkaku Islands in Japanese has become a typical example of this irredentist arguments between nations. Viewers were bombarded with considerable continuous news report in different types of media worldwide， for example， American media and Korean media. By critically analyzing and making contrast with media coverages from the United States and Korea， with the principle of two approaches of media analysis—critical discourse analysis and myth， this study serves to explore in depth the different attitudes and ways of American and Korean media coverages when reporting controversy dispute between states.
　　2. Methodology
　　Three different sources of different genres—news stories and columns concerning this dispute including the American and Korean will be analyzed using theoretical framework critical discourse analysis and myth. According to Fairclough （1995， 1989）， “critical discourse analysis” （CDA） is a way of defining discourse as “a form of social practice”. He also argued that all linguistic usage encodes ideological inclinations （Fairclough， 1992）. Besides， another contributor of CDA approach Van Dijk（1998） asserted that ideologies moulded the basis of the social representations and practices of group members， their discourse in turn serve as the means of ideological production， reproduction and challenge. Additionally， the approach Myth will be used to analyze pictures. In Roland Barthes’s book Mythologies， he gives a definition： “myth is a system of communication， that it is a message. It is a mode of signification， a form”（Barthes， 1972， p.109）. He also suggests that as a type of communication， mythology can be served as the study of semiology.