Analysing media discourse on NEAT(National English Ability Test)

The purpose of this study is to investigate the dominant discourses of National English Ability Test (hereafter, NEAT) thorough discourse analysis reflected from media. Two major newspapers of Korea are selected and 245 articles from 2007 to 2015 that include ‘NEAT' are collected. The analysis focuses firstly on the frequency analysis of articles, and secondly identifies major agents of constructing and disseminating discourses of NEAT. It is found that the major agents who participate in the construction of discourse are those who works for private sector education. The dominant topic is to foster private sector education and its consumerism that shape roles of test-takers and their parents. To overcome newspapers's lack of professionalism in English education, an active role of researcher is suggested: As researcher of English as a foreign language we might need another mode of critical discourse analysis.