Analysis Of English Internet Customer Reviews From The Perspective Of Apparisal Theory

Currently, more and more people are apt to online shopping. ICR, whichinvolves much information about the products, becomes a significant resource forpotential customers to refer to. This indicates that ICR is of great research value fromlinguistic perspective. Meanwhile, AT provides a favorable theoretical framework toexplore the features as well as the interpersonal meanings of ICRs. This thesis, taking1050pieces of EICRs from Amazon.cn as the analytical data, aims at revealing thesimilarities and differences among three types of EICRs (commentaries for the good,for the medium and for the bad) in the framework of AT. The research questions of thethesis are presented as follows.1. What are the similarities and differences amongthree types of EICRs in terms of the distributions of Appraisal resources?2. How arethe Appraisal resources employed in EICRs conducive to the realization ofinterpersonal meanings?The thesis is composed of five chapters.Chapter One consists of four sections. It first of all introduces the researchbackground of the current study, then presents the objectives and significance of thestudy, and at last states the organization of the thesis.Chapter Two includes three parts. First it introduces the knowledge of ICR andprevious studies of ICR overseas and in China. Then it introduces the subsystems ofAT and previous studies of AT both at home and abroad. At last it explains the reasonswhy AT is taken as the operating theoretical framework in this study.Chapter Three introduces the data collected, the research questions and how thedata is categorized and coded as well as the analytical method and procedures adoptedin the current study.Chapter Four is the body part of the thesis. It mainly focuses on presenting thestatistical results concerning the frequency and distribution of the subcategories andtheir subtypes of Appraisal resources with the purpose of finding out the similarities and differences among three types of EICRs in terms of their distributions.Furthermore, examples are adopted to indicate how Appraisal resources of differenttypes are employed in EICRs to realize interpersonal meanings.Chapter Five is the last chapter of the thesis. In this chapter the findings of thecurrent study are summarized. Main findings are presented as below.Firstly, generally, the distributions of Attitude all rank first in three types ofEICRs, followed by Engagement, with Graduation ranking last. In addition, thedistribution of Engagement resources in commentaries for the bad ranks first, for themedium ranks second, and for the good ranks last.Secondly, in the light of the subsystems of Attitude, the distributions ofAppreciation are dramatically higher than those of the other two subsystems in allthree types of EICRs. Besides, it is also found that the distribution of Affect resourcesin commentaries for the good is the highest one among three types of EICRs; while itis the lowest one in for the bad. Contrarily, the distribution of Judgment incommentaries for the bad ranks first; while in for the good ranks last. No matter whatkind of Attitudinal resources the reviewers employ in EICRs, the purpose is toindicate their attitude so as to influence the potential customers’ judgment about theproducts as well as their decision to purchase or not.Thirdly, with regard to Engagement, Dialogic Contraction takes up a relativelyhigher share than Dialogic Expansion in three types of EICRs. Besides, thedistribution of Disclaim is the highest one in commentaries for the bad and lowest onein for the good. On the contrary, the distributions of Entertain and Proclaim are thehighest one in commentaries for the good and lowest one in for the bad. By dint ofEngagement resources, reviewers intend to express their positions and establish aharmonious relationship with the potential customers so as to realize the persuasivefunction.Fourthly, in terms of Graduation, the distributions of Force and Focus in all threetypes of EICRs are considerably unbalanced, with the distributions of Forcedramatically higher than those of Focus. Besides, the Up-scaling Graduation resourcesappear more frequently than the Down-scaling Graduation resources in EICRs. Two possible reasons lead to such statistical results. One is that in English, people appearto have more resources for turning the volume up than turning it down; another is thatby means of Up-scaling resources reviewers indicate their maximal confidence in therelevant proposition so that they can form an alliance with the potential customers.Lastly, apart from the linguistic resources studied under AT, this thesis also findssome other means also play the role of Appraisal resources in EICRs to expressinterpersonal meanings, including punctuation marks, misspellings, capitalizationsand emoticons.Furthermore, the implications as well as the limitations of the current study arepointed out and the suggestions for further study are also provided.