A Comparative Study On Semantic And Stance Features Of Shell Nouns In Political And Economic Discourse

Shell nouns,as a kind of abstract nouns,have received great attention in the past 20 years due to their rich conceptual connotations in different contexts.Many studies have investigated shell nouns in a wide range of registers.However,previous research on semantic features of shell nouns mainly focused on Factual,Eventive and Linguistic shell nouns,while less on Mental,Modal and Circumstantial shell nouns.Meanwhile,previous studies on the stance characteristics of shell nouns mainly studied epistemic stance,with less attention paid to attitudinal stance.In addition,previous research investigated primarily shell nouns in academic discourse,while shell nouns in political and economic discourse have been explored briefly.Based on Schmid's(2000)theory on shell nouns and Martin & White's(2005)appraisal theory,this thesis aims to explore the similarities and differences in terms of semantic and stance features of shell nouns in political and economic discourse.This study uses two self-built corpora of the White House Press secretaries' China-related political and economic discourse.The corpus is selected from the discourse of two White House Press secretaries in the second term of the 44 th President of the United States,with a time span from January 2011 to January 2017.126 and 131 high frequency shell nouns are extracted respectively from the corpora of political and economic discourse.Then,these shell nouns are classified into semantic and stance categories,and comparisons are made between them in political and economic discourse.The major findings are listed as follows:1)The distributions of semantic categories of shell nouns in political and economic discourse are similar.Factual shell nouns are mainly expressed through Neutral uses to enhance the authority of discourse.Linguistic shell nouns are mainly expressed through Illocutionary uses to present the facts and inspire the audience.Mental shell nouns are mainly expressed through Psychological uses to look back on the past and look into the future.Modal and Circumstantial shell nouns are rarely used.In political discourse,speakers apply more Causal uses of Factual shell nouns in order to highlight the relation of the United States and South China Sea disputes;apply Epistemic uses of Modal shell nouns to express judgements on economic interests in the Asia-Pacific region and apply Specific uses of Circumstantial shell nouns to highlight the importance of North Korean nuclear issues.In economic discourse,speakers mainly use Deontic uses of Modal shell nouns and General uses of Circumstantial shell nouns.2)Both political and economic discourse are dominated by shell nouns in epistemic stance,and shell nouns that express attitudinal stance are used less.Shell nouns in epistemic stance are realized by Factual,Eventive,Modal,Circumstantial and by most Linguistic shell nouns.Shell nouns in attitudinal stance are realized by Mental shell nouns and by less Linguistic shell nouns.In political discourse,shell nouns in attitudinal stance distributed evenly in the Affect system,the Judgment system and the Appreciation system,which mainly express positive attitudes.In economic discourse,shell nouns in attitudinal stance are mainly embodied in the Affect system and the Appreciation system,which mainly express negative attitudes.Theoretically,this study finds out that the semantic categories of shell nouns in political and economic genres have their own characteristics.For example,the six semantic classes each contain different sub-classes,and each sub-class has different proportions and usages in political and economic discourse.Thus,this thesis complements Schmid's(2000)semantic classification systems of shell nouns.Methodologically,based on a large number of corpus data,this study conducts quantitative and qualitative analysis,and comprehensively presents important information such as the frequency distribution and functional characteristics of shell nouns.Practically,current study can be used as a reference for Political Linguistics.