A Comparative Study Of Reports On Hangzhou G20 Summit By People's Daily And New York Times From The Perspective Of Appraisal Theory

As one of the most significant linguistic theories,the Appraisal Theory developed on the basis of Systemic Functional Linguistics for the purpose to supplement the theory of interpersonal meaning so that phenomena like attitudes,stances,social relations,etc.can be explained semantically.Nowadays,news discourse has influenced people's lives greatly.It has been studied from the perspective of CDA,SFL,stylistics,social linguistics,etc.However,few studies,especially comparative analysis of Chinese and US news,have been conducted from the perspectives of attitudes,stances and social relations.Therefore,the present study tries to conduct a comparative study of the reports on Hangzhou G20 Summit by one Chinese newspaper and one US newspaper from the perspectives of Attitude,Engagement and Graduation.The research samples are 20 news reports on Hangzhou G20 Summit,10 from People's Daily and 10 from New York Times respectively.By adopting both quantitative and qualitative approach,the author applies Appraisal Theory to reveal the distribution features of appraisal resources in the US and Chinese news and the similarities and differences between them are explored.It is found that there are both similarities and differences in the use of appraisal resources between them.Findings show that Appraisal resources in both the US and Chinese news articles abound.However,appraisal resources in them are distributed in different ways.Broadly speaking,in the Chinese news,Attitude is used most frequently,followed by Engagement and Graduation while in the US news,Engagement is used most frequently,followed by Graduation and Attitude.Concerning attitude system,to some extent similarly,both the US and Chinese journalists avoid the usage of Affect resources in their reports so that the news reports appear more objective and neutral.As to the differences,the Chinese journalists incline to employ more Appreciation resources to appraise things while the US journalists incline to employ more Judgment resources to appraise people.That implies that theChinese journalists made much more efforts to guarantee the objectivity of their reports than the US ones.The Chinese and US journalists are quite consistent in selecting Engagement resources,in which Dialogic Expansion is used more frequently than Dialogic Contraction.More precisely,Attribute is used more frequently than Attribute,and Disclaim more frequently than Proclaim.Apparently,with rigorous attitudes,both the US and Chinese newspapers quote opinions of others to keep their words objective and neutral.The use of Deny resources demonstrates that the US and Chinese journalists incline to solve problems rather than create ones.In the selection of Graduation system,both the US and Chinese journalists tend to employ more Force resources,in which Intensification is obviously used more often than Quantification.This reveals that the US and Chinese journalists made considerable efforts in evaluating processes and qualities of relevant things.Focus resources occupy a relatively small proportion in both types of news.The Chinese journalists used more Sharpening resources while the US journalists more Softening ones.In contrast,viewpoints put forward by the Chinese journalists are mostly clear,but those by the US journalists relatively vague.The present research may help to verify and broaden the application of Appraisal Theory,which might be suggestive for the future studies.