A Comparative Study Of Stance Markers In Chinese And American News Reports On COVID-19

Stance markers can be used to express personal emotions,attitudes,and value judgments.Writers or speakers often use stance markers to convey their own stance in discourse.Therefore,stance markers are also often used by news writers in news discourse.At the beginning of 2020,as COVID-19 broke out worldwide,mainstream media at home and abroad scrambled to report on the pandemic.Those media actively guided public opinion by using various stance markers in their news reports.In order to understand the use of stance markers in news reports,this study explores the similarities and differences in the use of stance markers in news reports on COVID-19 by mainstream media in China and America based on the establishment of two corpora.Based on the theoretical framework of stance markers proposed by Hyland(2005),this study selects 144 English news reports on COVID-19 from six authoritative media in China and America,builds two small corpora with word count of 55908 and 57719 respectively,and explores the use of stance markers among them.The following three questions will be explored:(1)What is the distribution of stance markers in Chinese and American news reports on COVID-19?(2)What are the differences and similarities between the four sub-types of stance markers used in Chinese and American news reports on COVID-19?(3)What are underlying reasons for the similarities and differences between Chinese and American news reports on COVID-19 in terms of the usage of stance markers?By contrasting and analyzing the results of two corpora,the following conclusions can be drawn:First of all,regarding the overall distribution of stance markers,stance markers are used more frequently in news reports on COVID-19 in America than in China.The Chi-square test shows that there is a significant difference in the overall use of stance markers between the two corpora.Meanwhile,hedges are the most frequently used stance markers in the two corpora,and the frequency of boosters is high,while attitude markers and self-mentions are rarely used in the two corpora.The Chi square test finds that the use of the same category of stance markers in the two corpora also has a significant difference.Secondly,there are similarities and differences in the use of the four types of stance markers.(1)Hedges: there are similarities in the words usage such as may,possible,like,actually,around between the two corpora.But words would,could,might,suggest,etc.,America uses more frequently than China;(2)Boosters: the use of words such as will,show,never,truly between the two corpora has similarities;China uses words must,believe,demonstrate etc.more frequently than America,while America uses words sincerely,always,sure more frequently than China;(3)Attitude markers:the use of words such as event,reasonable,significant between the two corpora is similar;words such as important,expect,critical are used more by China,while America uses words such as agree and difficult more frequently than China;(4)Selfmentions: we,us,our account for a large proportion in both two corpora,and the frequency of use of these three words is more frequent in America than in China.Finally,the persuasive characteristics of news genres account for the similar use of stance markers in Chinese and American reports on COVID-19.In fact,writing a news report is an interactive process in which the news writer is expected to present the news objectively and truthfully,while expressing his or her own opinions clearly to encourage readers to accept their views on the news.Therefore,persuasion is inevitably a very challenging method.By properly using stance markers,news writers can realize the function of persuasion so that they can convey their viewpoints to readers.Meanwhile,it can also be explained by the “face theory” proposed by Brown and Levinson.The differences in the use of stance markers in Chinese and American reports on COVID-19 may lie in three reasons.Firstly,it is a result of the cultural differences between China and America.Americans advocate individualism,and they are used to supporting their own opinions to enhance the persuasiveness of news.Chinese traditional culture draws heavily on Confucianism.So,Chinese news writers have a tendency to minimize author engagement in their works and they are against disclosing themselves in great detail.Secondly,writing modes in China and America are distinct.English is the writer-responsible type,which means that in the communication process,the author usually needs to clearly express information with the reader as the target audience.Chinese is the reader-responsible language,which enhances readers’ responsibilities in the discourse comprehension.Because of this,under the influence of their mother tongue,Chinese news writers’ English texts are also responsible to their readers.Lastly,China and America use different modes of rhetorical persuasion.The pathos model is used more by American authors in their news reports,which is able to evoke readers’ empathy,while Chinese authors emphasize the attractiveness of the ethos model and fully utilize the power of this rhetorical persuasion mode to sway the audience’s judgment when writing English news reports.This study contributes to research on stance markers in news discourse and assists news writers in strengthening their understanding of the use of stance markers,thereby improving the emotional interaction with their readers.It also helps news readers understand the use of stance markers and the linguistic characteristics of news reports.