Appraisal Features Of Environment News Discourses

Nowadays,ecological problem has evolved into a global issue arousing intense concerns.An increasing number of journalists scramble to cover environment issues,which in turn promotes the maturity of environment news as one independent news branch.However,the relatively young news sub-genre still hasn't drawn much linguistic concerns.Just as indicated in the literature review,previous studies of environment news discourse primarily congregated on communication region,scarcely can we find it being explored from appraisal perspective.Henceforth,on the basis of the Appraisal Theory proposed by James R.Martin,the present paper delves into the appraisal features in environment news discourse.The paper selects forty pieces of environment news reports from the Guardian,the content of which is in the inclusion of four ecological issues,namely,climate change,wildlife,energy and pollution.In the assistance of UAM Corpus Tool 3.2j.the present paper combines quantitative and qualitative approaches in answering three questions.(1)What is the general layout of appraisal resources in the environment news discourse?(2)What are the salient appraisal features embodied in the environment news discourse?(3)Why do reporters foreground such appraisal features?Analysis shows that:(1)In environment news discourse,engagement takes the largest proportion.Concretely.attribute occupies 37.99%,disclaim 34.81%,entertain 15.57%and proclaim 11.63%.In the repertoire of attitude,affect occupies 37.48%,closely followed by appreciation(36.46%)and judgment(26.06%).Against the spectrum of graduation,force monopolies with a 96.64%proportion,with focus being alienated with a barely 3.36%share.(2)As for the salient appraisal features,it is found that in attitude system,in/security values under the option of affect and social sanction values under the option of judgment are remarkable.In engagement system,acknowledge values under the term of attribute and counter values under the term of disclaim are salient.In graduation system,intensification affiliated to force bears salience.(3)As for why reporters foreground such appraisal features,we find that,firstly,with in/security values,reporters poise to overestimate the alertness evoked by ecological problems.Secondly,with social sanction values in judging the implicated behaviors,reporters intend to stress the solemnity pertaining to environment issues.Thirdly,with acknowledge values,reporters are inclined to exhibit their deference to external voices and their compliance in negotiating with potential dialogic alternatives.Fourthly,with counter values,reporters tend to introduce their adversarial standpoints.Fifthly,with intensification values,reporters are positioned to highlight the severity of ecological degradation,as well as the urgency in tackling such environment crisis.