| This study adopts Fairclough's Three-Dimensional Model for Critical Discourse Analysis and Martin's Appraisal Theory to study a series of reports on China's economy and environment by the American news media, with an objective to find out the characteristics of evaluative language, its application and distribution, so as to explore the underlying ideology in the language. Ten pieces of typical news reports concerning China's economic development and environmental pollution are selected from the New York Times. Detailed analyses of evaluative features are carried out based on the Appraisal Theory.Some findings of this study are as follows: Firstly, there are a large number of evaluative values in the news reports, among which negative values outnumber positive values. Secondly, in attitude system, a large number of judgment and appreciation evaluations are applied in the reports, while affect values are few. Thirdly, in engagement system, extra-vocalization and dialogic expansion resources showed higher frequency than the intra-vocalization. The engagement resources of the dialogic expansion and extra-vocalization are used as the rhetorical strategy to express the objectivity and solidarity. Resources of dialogic contraction and intra-vocalization are used to show authorial stance and to persuade the readers to accept the opinion. Fourthly, in graduation system, most of the negative attitudinal values are on the up-scaling end of the force and focus, while positive values are usually on the dowm-scaling end. Lastly, the ideological effect of evaluation is significant in the reports. The evaluative language reflects American authority's negative attitude toward China's economy and environment.By combining Fairclough's three-dimensional framework and Martin's Appraial Theory, this tentative study enriches the traditional CDA research method. Hopefully, this study can cultivate English news readers' awareness to detect the evaluative languages and its underlying ideology. |
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