Abstract: We begin to know something in its reference. How to refer to controversial geographical areas in journalistic language-for example, “Dokdo,” “Takeshima,” “Dokdo (Takeshima in Japanese)” or “Takeshima (Dokdo in Korea)”-concerns many issues such as how to keep objectivity in journalistic language, how to express precisely and appropriately the standpoint and use discourse power in journalism, and also how to protect national interests. According to the analysis of the corpus in People’s Daily from 1936 to 2012, the reference of controversial areas should follow three major principles of pragmatics, namely, journalism objectivity, national interests, order of pragmatics, and four sub-principles, namely, difference between the original statement and quotation, match between subjects and their behaviors, difference between direct and indirect quotations, and difference between title and text.

Key words: People’s Daily, reference of geographical areas, controversial areas, national interests, principles of pragmatics