the internet users browse to seek information (news and computer) and entertainment as is shown in the following table: Table 5 Purpose for Accessing Internet News84.38%Info about computer software58.00%Info. about entertainment52.66%E-books45.99%Info about science & education.35.77%Finance & stocks22.88%Jobs29.12%Commerce & Trade15.66%Tourism12.55%Advertising13.51%Medi-care11.78%Matching9.30%(Source: January 30, 2001, Xinmin Evening News) Although Internet is becoming increasingly important, the new medium does not tend to replace the traditional media. Instead, a kind of symbiosis pattern of the new medium and the traditional media has emerged. Most of the English websites are affiliated to the major English and Chinese media, including People’s Daily, Xinhua News Agency, CCTV-4, Radio China International, and China Net affiliated to China Internet Information Office, as well as Dragon News Net supported by all the local news media in Beijing, Eastday Net supported by all the local media in Shanghai and Nanfang Net supported by Nanfang Daily in South China. It is said that six major national websites and three regional websites (all in English and Chinese) were launched in 2000 in an effort to enhance China’s international communication with the outside world (Zhang Ping, head of the China Daily website, personal communication, 2001). As these major English websites are supported by leading Chinese and English news organizations in China, they are becoming more influential and authoritative, particularly when the information about China is concerned. Two China Daily Language Style: Analysis To discuss the language style of the English-language media in China, the writers have selected China Daily as for their analysis of the language style. The selection is made because (1) newspaper samples are more easily accessible than other English-language media in China; (2) China Daily is the first English newspaper with a history of 20 years so far and has become the “most cited” English newspaper, and its language style may be the most representative of the English media in China. The analysis of the China Daily language style in this paper mainly focuses on its language treatment and news selection during a period from 1981 when China Daily was firstly launched to 1999. Methods: As the front page is the most important page of a newspaper and by-line stories by newspaper reporters form accurate evidence of its language style, the two writers have selected two by-line stories, each year, written by China Daily reporters from its front pages from 1981 to 1999 as our samples. In order to keep our samples random, the writers have decided to choose the dates of March 15th and August 15th of each year for our selection of samples, to avoid exceptionally big occasions like the traditional Chinese festivals or other significant events, for instance, the resumption of sovereignty of China over Hong Kong in July, 1997. If it so happened that the copies on the two dates were not available for a certain reason, the writers would choose the next immediate copy of the two dates. Because China Daily was first launched on June 1st, 1981, the sample copy on March 15th of that year was impossible to be included. Also as the two copies of the 1996 China Daily are somehow not available in the library, a total of 35 stories of China Daily during the past 18 years (81-95, 97-99) has been chosen for the analysis of its language style. The statistical work is all done by ZHAO Hong, one of the writers. 1. Language Treatment: In the discussions on language treatment of China Daily story samples, the writers concentrate on analyzing the following three sections, namely, headline, story structure and choice of wording. 1.1 Headline: To study the language style of the headlines of China Daily stories, the writers further divide their discussions into the following six sub-categories: length; use of omission; use of tense and voice; use of punctuation and headline layout . Based on the 35 headlines selected, the writers find that China Daily tends to take on brief headlines with an average length of 6.4 words. The longest headline is 9 words taking the eyebrows into account while the shortest headline is only 3 words. Omission is used in all the headlines of English newspapers nowadays. China Daily is no exception. About three quarters of the selected story headlines (74.3%) use omission. “We want to make our headlines as concise as possible, so that they can attract more readers,” said Huang Qing, the executive deputy editor-in-chief of China Daily (personal communication, 2000). As can be seen from Table 6, the frequently omitted parts of speech in China Daily are articles and auxiliary words, consisting of more than 55 percent of the omission. The link verb “be,” and pronoun are also omitted in the headlines. Table 6: Omission: Omitted Part of SpeechHeadline No. PercentageArticle1131.4Auxiliary925.7Link verb411.4Pronoun12.9Article & Pronoun12.9Total2674.3No omission925.7Total35100Table 7: Tense and Voice TenseHeadline No.PercentageSimple present3394.3Simple Future12.85Present Progressive12.85Total35100Voice  Active3394.3Passive25.7Total35100From Table 7, we can see China Daily obviously prefers to use simple present tense and active voice in headlines, with 94.3% (33) of the headlines selected using simple present tense and active voice. This makes sense as simple present tense gives a feeling of “now” to news and to readers as well while active voice emphasizes action. For instance, “Cash boost bid to ease power shortage” (March 16th, 1984) which is surely more effective than “Cash boost will ease the power shortage.” Besides, to play up actions, headlines (85.7%) tend to use short and active verbs, as in “Premier sees better Australian relations” (March 15th, 1983). To keep headlines short and active, China Daily also uses punctuation marks, though not so often, in the selected headlines. For example, c

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