A Study Of Attitude Resources In English Economic News Based On Appraisal Theory

The thesis intends to reveal how the attitudinal meanings can be realized by linguistic resources in these news discourses, how these resources take effect, and particularly, what kinds of subtle messages are given to the readers. Meanwhile, the appraisal analysis of these news discourses can reveal different reporters’ stances towards this event, and even help to probe into the ideology that affects the reporters’ thoughts and attitudes.According to the attitude system, the author picks some examples from the 20 pieces of news reports, collects data and analyzes these examples from the perspective of three categories. Both qualitative and quantitative methods are adopted. From the analysis, we can find that resources in the news reports embody affect, judgement and appreciation resources. Through the study, it is evident that Appraisal Theory is applicable to the analysis of English economic news reports. Moreover, this could enrich Appraisal Theory and also enable us to have better understanding of the news reports and the language features of the news. With the data analysis and discussion, we can find out that:(1) when we look at the news discourses, we can see that affect takes larger proportion. Attitude resources are strategically deployed in the news reports to reflect the writers’ conscious manipulation of interpersonal interactions with the potential readers. In these selected discourses, the reporters strategically deploy these resources in different stages to express the uncertainty and lack of commitment. The writers intend to be more objective, and in the meantime, to reduce the risks that the words may bring to him. News writers/reporters tend to apply affect more rather than judgement and appreciation. It is because people are more concerned about the comment to the Cyprus banking crisis. News writers/reporters tend to convey the attitudes and viewpoints of authorities and other related organizations to the readers and the measures they adopt.(2) The main approaches to realizations of attitudinal resources in economic news are realized through adjectives, adverbs, verbs and nouns(or nominalizations), because these words are more flexible to use for expressing the reporter’s viewpoints.(3) There are several main kinds of stances in the selected reports, namely, the Cypriot government’s stance, the people of Cyprus’ stance, affected countries’ stance, the other European countries’ stance and unaffected countries’ stance like China. Their stances are different from each other because of different positions, and most of the stances are negative.