| Disputes between China and Japan were reignited when Japanese Government announcing the “nationalization” of the Diaoyu Islands in September 2012. The announcement aroused an outcry from China. Chinese government took a series of counter measures to assert its sovereignty of the Diaoyu Islands. The tensions between China and Japan continued to escalate. Under the consideration of national security and stability, China announced the first air defense identification zone(ADIZ) which covers the Diaoyu Islands and the surrounding water. At the end of 2013, the relationship between China and Japan took another heavy toll from Japan‘s negation of its war crimes and Abe‘s visit to the Yasukuni shrine. Non-stopped disputes between China and Japan attracted lots of attention, especially the United States who is always treating the rise of China as a potential threat to it. Major American media also made a series of reports on the disputes. As an essential carrier of information and propaganda platform, major media not only reflect but also affect the public opinions. Therefore, a systematical research on the attitude features in major American media‘s reports is necessary.In order to do a valid research, proper theories were required for theoretical foundation. In this research, Appraisal Theory was adopted to study the attitudes in American news reports. Theory was developed by Martin and his colleagues, which aims at studying evaluations in language use on a lexical level. Theory presents an evaluative system consisting three sub-systems which are Attitude, Judgment and Appreciation. Attitude is the heart of the appraisal system. The research was mainly conducted under this system.In the research, 53 news reports were collected from four major American news media in a time range from September 2012 to February 2014. The collected reports were classified into three groups considering the contents, including the reports of “islands disputes” “disputes of the ADIZ” and “historical issues”. The major findings of the analysis are as follows: firstly, major American media paid uneven attention on three disputes. They obviously put more efforts on the reports of the ADIZ and the concerning attitudes were all negative. Secondly, the attitudes of major American media towards China and Japan were generally negative; however, the media were still in favor of Japan while reporting. On the other hand, media paid more attention on evaluating China‘s behaviors. Thirdly, four major American media were not categorically consistent while reporting the three hot issues between China and Japan. The uniting feature of their reports was that all of them were showing more interests on the disputes of the ADIZ and their evaluations towards China were basically negative. The number of attitudinal resources concerning Japan is much smaller but most of the resources are positive. The difference was that the USA Today and the Huffington Post didn‘t pay much attention about historical issues between China and Japan. And in the reports of islands disputes, the CNN and the Washington Post were explicitly partial to Japan and expressed categorical negative attitudes towards China.This research reveals attitudinal features in the reports of hot issues between China from major American news media. It shows a clearer view and a better way to interpret and explore the reporting strategies and attitudinal tendencies of American media and provides references for positive coping strategies. |
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