A Study Of Appraisal Resources In English Version Of Chinese University Profiles

Education is an integral part of the progress of social civilization and is critical to the development of society,hence drawing extensive attention worldwide.What‘s more,a growing number of universities in different parts of the world have sought international exchanges and cooperation in education so as to promote mutual learning and to further common development.Therefore,the English version of university profiles on the official homepage is vitally important.An increasing number of researchers,under the theoretical basis of Appraisal Theory,have studied diverse types of discourse.However,few of them have applied the complete Appraisal Theory to the study of English version of Chinese university profiles,which can be seen as the breakthrough point of the current study.University profiles,as the channels for communication between universities and readers,have ample evaluative and interpersonal resources.In order to better and scientifically interpret university profiles,it is required to draw support from the interpersonal theoretical framework.Appraisal Theory advanced by J.R.Martin mainly deals with interpersonal meaning at the lexical level.The burgeoning interpersonal theory complements the traditional study of interpersonal meaning in that it underlines speakers or writers convey evaluation by means of language and construct their own identities in the hope that they can achieve alignment with audience or readers in terms of proposed proposition.It is found that university profiles which are identified as a type of mixing genre with certain communicative purposes bear closely on the application of Appraisal Theory.Therefore,it is essential to find out the appraisal resources in English version of Chinese university profiles so as to understand how the writers of university profiles make use of linguistic resources to convey interpersonal meaning and realize persuasion.This thesis,based on the theoretical foundation of Appraisal Theory,is intended to make an investigation into the types,distribution and frequency of appraisal resources in English version of 36 Chinese university profiles.The descriptive statistics concerning Attitude resources,Engagement resources and Graduation resources are obtained with the aid of AntConc3.3.5w.Both Quantitative and Qualitative methods are employed in the present study.The findings of the current study are summarized as follows:(1)The three different kinds of appraisal resources are applied in English version of Chinese university profiles.There are altogether 3274 occurrences of appraisal resources,which not only proves that it is feasible to carry out a study of appraisal resources in English version of Chinese university profiles,but also shows that seemingly impersonal university profiles permeate attitudes.(2)The proportion of Attitude resources,Graduation resources and Engagement resources is 53.42%,44.29% and 2.29% respectively.Attitude resources are a set of resources which are available to make different types of evaluation according to different appraised objects.The writers of university profiles need to evaluate many aspects associated with universities.Therefore,various evaluative targets are involved.In addition,attitudes can easily exert influence on readers‘ cognition.Therefore,Attitude resources have the highest proportion.Graduation resources which are employed to adjust the degree of attitude help the writers of university profiles to better claim their stances as well as assist readers to evaluate the advantages of universities easily.Graduation can evoke attitudes implicitly,which makes university profiles objective seemingly.Although Engagement resources account for small proportion,they help to realize the interaction between writers and readers.The strategic employment of appraisal resources in university profiles can promote universities.(3)In the subcategories of Attitude,Appreciation(52.37%)takes a major proportion while Affect(10.58%)makes up a small part.Judgement occupies 37.05%.The reason for such distribution is that the evaluative targets in university profiles are concerned with the university itself,achievements and awards of the university and people‘s behavior rather than people‘s feelings.Another reason is that Appreciation and Judgement are more impersonal compared with Affect.Appreciation is most objective.Within Appreciation,Valuation(58.52%)is the most important resources.Within Judgement,the percentage of Social Esteem(82.10%)is higher than that of Social Sanction(17.90%)in that the judgement of people ‘s behavior in university profiles is seldom related to regulation and laws.With regard to university profiles,people‘s capacity is the primary concern.Therefore,Capacity plays a dominant role in Judgement resources.Within Affect,Satisfaction resources(42.16%)are the primary resources,which are used to evoke sympathy and attract readers.(4)In the Graduation subcategories,Focus(6.76%)is surpassed by Force(93.24%)in that attitudes in university profiles are mostly gradable.Force is more direct and overt in adjusting the degree of attitudes.The majority of Force resources are Quantification,taking up 90.31%.(5)In Engagement system,the current study only concentrates on Heterogloss in that the writers of English version of Chinese university profiles leave dialogic space for readers to realize negotiation in a sense.The proportion of Dialogic Expansion(78.67%)overwhelms that of Dialogic Contraction(21.33%)in that the writers of university profiles tend to actively engage in a dialogue with readers and establish friendly relationships with readers.In terms of Dialogic Expansion,Acknowledge resources(57.63%)are the chief resources.All the appraisal resources employed in English version of Chinese university profiles are performing the functions of establishing sound images of universities and leaving a favorable impression on readers.The strategic utilization of appraisal resources in university profiles help to publicize universities.Research into appraisal resources in university profiles deepens our understanding of Appraisal Theory and raises our consciousness of interpreting and using university introductions.More specifically,it is helpful to understand how the writers of university profiles impart information,interact with readers,take a stand,and align readers into their value position to realize communicative function of persuasion by appraisal resources.