An Instantiation Analysis of English News Reports of Chinese Legal Cases

English news reports are one of the most important approaches to publicize Chinese legal ideology and progress globally. Based on the framework of instantiation in Systemic Functional Linguistics, the discourse analyses of ‘coupling’ along the process of instantiation lead to a deeper understanding of how Chinese media use linguistic strategies to report those important legal events in China. This paper takes the examples of redressing several wrongly convicted cases that symbolize the legal progresses in China as an object of the research. The results find out that under the context of legal news, China Daily employs the coupling of interpersonal and ideational meaning along the cline of instantiation to express attitudes and take the position. When it comes to the concrete analysis of ‘court’ and ‘wrongly convicted people and their family’, firstly, the discourse establishes the action and credibility of the judicial authority through the coupling of relational process or material process in transitivity system and judgment or appreciation in the appraisal system. Secondly, the wrongly convicted people and their family’s living conditions and emotional changes are demonstrated by coupling of behavioral process or mental process and affect. The use of the coupling model in instantiation intends to make the media discourse more convincing, in order to strengthen the ability of overseas publicity of Chinese media and to construct a better understanding of the legal ideology and judicial progress in China.