| Interpersonal function is one of the three meta-functions defined by Halliday, which means that language has the function of explaining the speakers’ status, identity, attitude and motivation in addition to transmitting information. Through this function, the speaker is placed in a particular context to express his attitude and attempt to influence others’ attitude and behavior.As a commonly seen and complicated language phenomenon, passive voice has always been one of the research hotspots within linguistics. There are increasing numbers of well-known scholars both at home and abroad conducting professional researches, which mainly focus on the ideational function and textual function of passive voice and rarely on the interpersonal function. In the news report, there is relatively little research on the interpersonal meaning of the passive voice in Chinese news texts. Therefore, Halliday’s systemic-functional grammar based comparative analysis on the interpersonal meaning of passive voice in English and Chinese social disaster news texts is a new tentative study in this research field.The present research pays attention to the following three questions: 1. What interpersonal function does passive voice embody? 2. The frequency and distribution of the passive voice in English and Chinese social disaster news texts. 3. The similarities and differences on the interpersonal meaning of the passive voice in English and Chinese social disaster news texts.30 pieces of social disaster news texts are collected from The New York Times, BBC News, People’s Daily, China Daily and other major Domestic and foreign news media, with 15 pieces for each language respectively, in order to get a quantitative and qualitative analysis. By comparison, it is found that 1) The frequency of passive voice in English and Chinese news texts is different,and English passive shares higher frequency than Chinese passive. 2) In mood system, there are similarities between two languages in the distribution of the primary tenses.The statistics show that in English and Chinese news texts, the past tense occupies the great length, the present tense in the next place, and the future tense the least proportion. The use of the past tense and present tense not only creates a sense of objectivity, but also helps the news reporters avoid responsibilities, so as to realize the interpersonal meaning. 3) In modality system, "will" in English and“会”in Chinese takes the highest frequency. The two modal verbs of median value symbolize the certainty attitude of journalists, thereby reflecting the authenticity of news reporting. 4) The passive voice of two languages is tremendously alike in showing objectivity, avoiding responsibilities, highlighting and arousing the readers’ attention.There are differences in the expression of negative emotions and showing objectivity.This research provides more effective thread and method for readers, enabling them to understand the intention of the reports and the true information delivered to them in addition to knowing about the time, place and actual situation of the disasters. Meanwhile, it also has some reference significance for EFL teaching. |
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