An Appraisal Analysis Of Bullet Screen Language:A Case Of The TV Series Ode To Joy

This thesis explores the bullet screen language on the first season of Ode to Joy,a popular TV series that has been played since 2016,by means of the Appraisal Theory.The researcher builds a database,including about 50,000 Chinese characters,for the bullet screen items on the 25th episode of Ode to Joy.The researcher has several main findings in this research.First,the analysis of the attitude resources reveals that bullet screen language is rich in the affect resources and the judgment resources.In the language of bullet screen on Ode to Joy,the negative affect resources outnumber positive affect resources.Compared to the positive affect resources,such as happiness,security,and satisfaction,the viewers use more affect resources to express unhappiness,insecurity,and dissatisfaction.Meanwhile,the judgment resources in the bullet screen language revealed that the viewers pay attention to moral and ethical issues,since a number of appraisal resources belong to the category of social sanction.The frequently occurring words and phrases include "honest","vanity",and "the third person in a dating/marital relationship",indicating that the moral and ethical issues represented by these words and phrases have drawn the viewers' attention and roused discussion among the viewers.Second,the analysis of the engagement resources shows that the viewers frequently apply dialogistic contraction resources,particularly,the resources of denial,to present their point of views.Third,the analysis of the appraisal resources within the graduation framework shows that bullet screen users strengthen positive evaluations and soften negative expressions by means of words and phrases.Both the engagement and the graduation system reveal the interaction among the bullet screen users and their influence on each other.The novelty of this research is revealed by the following three aspects.First,this research is a breakthrough to the application of the Appraisal Theory.In previous studies,the appraisal theory has mostly been applied to the analysis of news discourse,students' English writings,or translation studies,but has not been applied to the study of the bullet screen language.Second,the analysis of bullet screen language provides an instance for an appraisal analysis of informal language.Bullet screen language has been studied from the youth sub-cultural perspective and social perspective,but has not been found to be studied from the perspective of Appraisal Theory.Third,this research is enrichment to the study of the Chinese language from the perspective of Appraisal Theory.In previous studies,the Appraisal Theory is mostly applied to the English language,and is less applied to other languages.The applications of the Appraisal Theory usually occur in translation studies,but few research projects apply the theory to the Chinese language itself.The limitation of this research lies in the problem of coding new words and phrases that occur in the online network.Today,new words and phrases,such as"Laonv" and "Mimei",occur quickly in online language.Every day sees the change in the meanings,prosodic features,and even grammatical categories of these new-occurring words and phrases.Therefore,there are difficulties in analyzing these data by means of the Appraisal Theory.