A Contrastive Study On The Evaluative Resources Between The English And The Chinese Editorials

The editorial,as a special kind of news,not only needs to describe the objective facts,but also needs to express its own stances towards the issues.Therefore,it performs an important role in the orientation of the social value.While,most of the researches are prone to studying it from the perspective of Critical Discourse Analysis and the studies which are operated under the framework of Appraisal Theory put much emphases on the Attitude system.So far,a few of the researches are concerned about the comprehensive distributions of the appraisal resources in the editorials and fewer touch the contrastive analysis between the different language systems.Considering the above reasons,the main purpose of this thesis is to discuss how the English and the Chinese editorial writers employ different distribution strategies of the appraisal resources to evaluate and remodel the social facts and construct the interpersonal relationships with potential readers.Considering the purpose of this research,the author tries to focus on the following questions:(1)What types of appraisal resources are employed in English editorials and Chinese editorials?(2)How do the writers take advantage of these resources?(3)What are the similarities and differences toward the distribution of these resources in English editorials and Chinese editorials?(4)What are the reasons that cause these similarities and differences?This study is conducted with the help of 30 editorials collected from Washington Post and People’s Daily,which represent the English and the Chinese editorials respectively.Through the qualitative analysis on the specific examples,the author discusses the question that how editorial writers use different types of evaluative resources to establish the appropriate interpersonal relationship with potential readers under various conditions.According to the framework of the Appraisal Theory and through the quantitative analysis,the author explores the distribution characteristics of various evaluative resources and further discusses the reasons that cause these different characteristics.The results show that in order to achieve the function of editorials,both Chinese and English editorials will use all types of appraisal resources.Within Attitude,the Appreciation is used the most frequently,and the Effect is the least.Within Engagement,there are more Disclaim resources than Proclaim resources,and within Expand,there are more Entertain resources than Attribute resources.There are less Graduation resources compared with Attitude and Engagement.In terms of the difference,the English and the Chinese editorials show different characteristics with the different distributions of the appraisal resources.There is a clear distinction between the objective description and the writer’s stand point in Chinese editorials.While,in English,writers prefer to adopt a more subtle approach to express their positions and tend to influence the readers’ views unconsciously.