A Comparative Study Of Engagement Resources In News Reports On The Disappearance Of MH370

With the development of Internet and globalization,the news websites from different countries play an important role in the news reports,especially in the news reports concerning the consequential events of the breaking events,and they gradually become one of the main resources of news dissemination.How to align with readers and construe a solid relationship with them and how to build objectivity and authority of news websites are becoming extremely important.In the present study,the author chooses 43 and 23 pieces of news from the two news websites China Daily and the Washington Post on the disappearance of MH370.The present study makes use of UAM Corpus Tools,and by recognition,classification and annotation,the author compares the distribution of engagement resources between the two news websites.Then,the realization of engagement resources in the two websites and the interpersonal function are analyzed.Based on the results of the corpus,a further discussion about the differences in the use of engagement resources is presented.There are both similarities and differences in the use of engagement resources between China Daily and the Washington Post.This research focuses on the differences.By analysis,there are mainly four differences;they are monoglossic,counter,entertain and acknowledge.The differences can be analyzed from two aspects:realization and engagement degree to see how the reporter aligns with the readers and builds authority and objectivity of the news websites.The two news websites have different ways in maintaining solidarity with readers.The Washington Post uses more contractive resources and the degree of engagement is higher while China Daily tends to use more expansive resources and the degree of engagement is lower than the Washington Post.As two influential news websites,China Daily and the Washington Post both emphasize the construction of objectivity and authority of news reports,but there still exist differences.The Washington Post engages more in the reports than China Daily;its objectivity is less than China Daily;it aims to present its view in the news reports to show authority of its websites.This paper does a research on the differences in the use of engagement resources from different news websites concerning the same breaking events,hoping that it will provide some reference for the application of Appraisal Theory and the research on news discourse.By comparing the different ways in the use of engagement resources,the author hopes it will be useful for the improvement and adaptation of the news websites.