| With communication between people becoming increasingly frequent and the media tool developing increasingly prosperous, all kinds of newspapers cover different types of events more frequently. Nowadays, sports news has gradually arisen as one of people’s focus of attention. Through various sports news reports, people can learn about the sports scenes. Sports news has become one of the most important contents which draw public attention. However, the previous studies about sport news are mostly conducted in the aspect of traditional stylistics. This paper analyzes30news reports selected from two very influential newspapers China Daily and the New York Times according to the theory framework of systemic functional grammar and appraisal theory. Some statistics are obtained to help further study.The research questions of this paper are:(1) In the chosen data of the two newspapers, what are the general features in terms of the distribution of every device of showing interpersonal meanings?(2) Among all the realizing devices, what kinds of devices are the most preferred and important ones that were applied by reporters?(3) What are the differences and similarities of the two newspapers and what do these differences and similarities denote?The methodology of this paper is to combine qualitative analysis with quantitative analysis. The author applies the theory of the functional grammar and appraisal theory to analyzing sports news discourse. Through the detailed and systematic analysis of the data, such conclusions can be made:(1) The two newspapers share great resemblance in the distribution of devices that express interpersonal meanings. There are three major devices that were used in the data of the two newspapers:mood, modality, and evaluation. Firstly, as for the mood device, declaratives take up the largest part in the data from the two papers, followed by interrogatives and imperatives. Secondly, the distributions of the two aspects of modality:modality and modulation have the same characteristic that is modality is more frequently employed than modulation in the two selected newspapers. Regarding the evaluation device, only attitude and engagement are obvious in the chosen data, with attitude taking up a little less than engagement in the data of both China Daily and the New York Times.(2) Most of the interpersonal meanings in the data are embodied through the following devices:the declarative mood in the mood system, the modalization and modulation in the modality system and the affect and hetero-gloss resources in the appraisal system.(3) The two newspapers selected by the author have almost the same distribution of the devices realizing interpersonal meanings. The only one difference is that the interpersonal meanings in the attitude system in China Daily are a little more than that in the New York Times. This shows that whether English papers in China or in foreign countries share same characteristics in the interpersonal meaning realizing devices. The theories mentioned in this paper are all suitable for analyzing the data. |
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