| Appraisal Theory is firstly proposed by Martin in the 1990 s.It contains three subsystems: Attitude,Engagement and Graduation.Wang Zhenhua(2001)points out that Appraisal Theory mainly evaluates the ideologies of language users through evaluative lexis.The choices of different evaluation resources reflect different appraisers' ideologies and their attitudinal stances.According to Li Zhanzi(2002):Compared with the transitivity system,Appraisal Theory seems to be more in line with the ‘critical' sense,which is a new analytical tool that can be used in CDA.Critical Discourse Analysis(short for CDA)is a linguistic approach that aims at revealing the ideologies and power relations embedded in discourse.The news reports have always been its focus.Of all the news media,People's Daily and Guangming Daily are considered as the authoritative newspapers of our country,which are the most firm representatives of the Chinese government.Based on these,this thesis adopts the attitude system within Appraisal Theory as the analytical framework,and combines the qualitative and quantitative methods to conduct a critical analysis on 65 reports on the empty nesters in People's Daily and Guangming Daily,which are ranged from 2004 to the fifth month of 2018.By carrying out such critical analysis,it aims to reveal the governmental stances and attitudes toward the empty nesters,thus in a further way to explore the government images constructed in the news reports.This thesis intends to solve the following research questions:(1)What kind of government image is constructed by the affective meanings in the news reports?(2)What kind of government image is constructed by the judgmental meanings in the news reports?(3)What kind of government image is constructed by the appreciative meanings in the news reports?In order to reflect the constructional process of the government image,this thesis divides the time into three periods: 2004-2009,2010-2012 and 2013-2018.Through a detailed analysis of the above three questions,this thesis draws the following conclusions:Firstly,affective resources include meanings of ‘dis/inclination',‘un/happiness',‘in/security' and ‘dis/satisfaction'.Of all the four sets of affective meanings,‘un/happiness' accounts for the highest proportion(with 66.5%),and resources of‘un/happiness' and ‘in/security' are mainly expressed as negative meanings.Besides,77% of the attitudes are expressed explicitly.Such distributions are ideologically embedded.Through a detailed critical analysis of the affective values,studies show that our government has paid more and more concern to the inner needs of the empty nesters.The government can not only show consideration for the empty nesters' feelings of happiness and bitterness,but also is sympathized with their inner insecurity.What's more,the government has made every effort to improve their satisfaction values.In terms of power relations,70.1% of the affective resources are expressed by the authoritative news editors and government officials.They not only highlighted the government's concern for the empty nesters' emotional states,but also established a solidarity between the official and the public.In a word,the affective meanings gradually construct the government as a“considered emotional carer”as well as a“sympathizer”in an explicit way.Secondly,among the five subcategories of judgment resources(‘normality',‘capacity',‘tenacity',‘veracity',‘propriety'),66% of the meanings are invoked.And all the five subcategories of judgmental meanings are more positive than negative,which suggest that these reports tend to make positive judgments in implicit ways.To be more specific,‘propriety' values ideologically reflect that our government has provided lots of valuable services for the empty nesters,which highlight the appropriateness and legitimacy of the governmental behavior;‘capacity' values denote that the government staffs are competent enough;values of ‘normality',‘tenacity' and ‘veracity' show ideologically that the relevant government departments are reliable enough for the empty nesters to depend on.The degrees of positive judgments manifest an increasing tendency across the three periods.Therefore,the positive images of government also improved gradually.On the embodiment of power relations: 86.5% of the judgment resources are sourced to the news editors,government officials and prominent people.In addition,the government departments(communities,counties,towns,village committees,etc)are mainly appraised positively,while the empty nesters and their children are mostly related to negative meanings.Especially the empty nesters,they are mainly embodied as frail and sick.In view of this,the judgmental meanings mainly construct a “service-oriented”,competent and dependable government image.At last,appreciative meanings are sub-categorized into ‘reaction',‘composition'and ‘valuation'.According to the statistics,the ‘composition' resources that signifying the number and proportion of the empty nesters occur the most frequently,which indicate that there are too many empty nesters in our country.The large number of specific figures not only reflect the large quantity and rapid growth of the empty nesters,but also suggest that the relevant government departments have already conducted many surveys to get the overall information.Therefore,the government is intentionally constructed as a “manager”.The resources of ‘reaction' are mostly negative,which distributed the most frequently in 2013-2018.They ideologically reflect that the government has attached great importance to the empty nesters in recent years.The ‘valuation' resources are ideological acknowledgments of the government's commitment to the improving of the life quality of the empty nesters.In terms of power relations,authoritative appreciation accounts for 99.1%.By way of the authoritative appreciation,the news reports construct the government as a“manager” and embody it as “people-oriented” in implicit ways.Since the judgmental meanings are the most significant in the attitudinal resources,the most prominent government images in the news reports on empty nesters are mainly embodied as “service-oriented”,competent and dependable.This thesis provides a new perspective for the study of construction of government image.At the same time,it also contributes to raising reader's critical awareness of news reports,and helps to stimulate the public to think about how to care for the empty nesters. |
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