Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1 Background of the research 1.2 Purpose and significance of the research 1.3 Data and methodology 1.4 Organization of the book Chapter 2 Literature Review 2.1 The study of tense in narrative 2.2 Studies of tense in media discourse and in corpus linguistics 2.3 Reflections on previous studies Chapter 3 Theoretical Framework 3.1 Fleischman's theory of tense—aspect in narrative 3.2 Labov and Waletzky's narrative model and Bell's model structure for news text 3.3 A three—dimensional framework for tense analysis Chapter 4 Tense Use on the Three Planes 4.1 Tense—position plane—Textual distribution of the tenses 4.2 Tense—verb plane—Verbs associated with the three tenses 4.3 Verb—position plane—Textual distribution of verb categories 4.4 Tense， position and verb categories Chapter 5 Tense Patterns 5.1 Patterns of the present tense—Distribution and functions 5.2 Present perfect patterns—Distribution and functions 5.3 Consecutive use of present perfect and its functions in news report Chapter 6 Textual， Expressive and Metalinguistic Functions of Tense 6.1 Properties of tense—verb construction 6.2 Textual function of tenses 6.3 Expressive function of tenses 6.4 Metalinguistic function of tenses 6.5 The functions of tense and modern journalism Chapter 7 Conclusion 7.1 Summary of the findings 7.2 Conclusion 7.3 Limitations and suggestions for further study Bibliography Appendix A Verbs associated with the present tense Appendix B Verbs associated with the past tense Appendix C Verbs associated with the present perfect Appendix D Analysis of News Samples 1 Analysis of Sample News 1 2 Analysis of Sample News 2 Appendix E Sample News Text 1 Appendix F Sample News Text 2 Appendix G Sample News Text 3
