Chinese And Western Media Reports On Diaoyu Islands

Political editorial is the main branch of news reports. Political news reports tend tobe viewed as objective and unbiased. However, due to the different considerations ofideology, absolutely impersonal news reports seldom exist. The new reports reflect thestandpoint and attitude of the reporter more or less.The news reports are specifically selected from the New York Times and ChinaDaily with purpose based on the Diaoyu Islands issues between China and Japan. Thetwo reports are about the same event and the reporting date is also similar. In order tounderstand the subtle differences between the tendencies of their reportage, and revealthe attitudes held by Chinese and American media, the present study collects therelevant reports to conduct a comparison under the guidance of J. R. Martin’s AppraisalTheory. The present study tries to identify the different ideologies put forward by Chinaand the US on their news reporting through analyzing the relevant reports on the DiaoyuIslands issues.Based on the theoretical framework of Appraisal Theory，this paper investigates itsthree sub-categories covering Attitude, Engagement and Graduation to find out theevaluative resources and the occurrence frequency of the two news reports. Thus, wecan explore the reporters’ implied attitudes through the evaluative devices applied bythe reporters. The research is supported by the following main conclusions:(1) In the Attitude subsystem, the judgmental expressions account for the largestproportion, which may lead to the conclusion that, Judgmental appraisal resources aremore frequently applied by the reporters to present their stance indirectly in the newsreports. Another distinctive feature of the attitudinal resources applied by the two massmedia’s is that more negative evaluative expressions are expressed. But we can still feelthe inclination of these two media. China Daily tends to put “us” in a positive light bychoosing those words carrying positive connotations. On the contrary, it invariablyportrays “them” in a negative light. The opposite is true of the New York Times, thus,Ametican media stands with Japan.(2) Within Engagement system, Heteroglossia, especially Attribute is mainly realized to help the reporters avoid being too absolute and subjective. Therefore, we getthe conclusion that reporters would rather express their own attitudes through someoneelse’s mouth in order to evade responsibility.(3) Within Graduation system, the reporters tend to increase rather reduce thevolume of voice, by applying comparative and superlative adjectives and adverbials.In addition, this thesis can help the public reader understand news reports better,including the objectivity of the report and the implied attitudes of the reporters throughanalyzing the Appraisal resources employed in the news reports.