A Study On The Attitude Resources In The Olympic Coverage Of China Based On The New York Times From The Perspective Of Adjective Patterns

Sports reporting is an important channel to display the national image.With the help of the online corpus analysis tool Sketch Engine,the research tries to explore how the New York Times constructs the Chinese Olympic Image through other-shaping based on the Attitude Resources in Martin’s appraisal theory.This thesis aims to answer the following three questions.（1）What’s the distribution of the attitude resources in the Olympic Coverage of China in NYT?（2）What are the adjective patterns for distinguishing each Attitude type?（3）Are the explicit and implicit attitudinal meanings consistent?If not,what is the potential function?The findings are as follows.（1）Attitude resources are relatively abundant after the20^th century when China successfully bid for the 2008 Games,and reach its peak during the Beijing Olympics.（2）The New York Times pays the most attention to Appreciation while less to Affect and Judgement.The aesthetic evaluation of China is expressed by the New York Times,instead of the direct expression of feelings,or the attitude to Chinese people and their behavior.Forms and meanings are associated with each other bi-directionally in a particular theme or genre,forming a pattern map.On one hand,adjective patterns tend to express attitudinal meaning.On the other hand,each Attitude category has its main adjective patterns.The map can be used as a“diagnostic”to distinguish the three types of Attitudes.（3）When language meaning is expressed by conceptual meaning,there is no significant difference between the frequency of positive and negative explicit attitudinal meanings;when language meaning is expressed by interpersonal meaning in the context,they express negative implicit attitudinal meaning.Positive adjectives occur in a reasonable form whose implicit attitude is to express dissatisfaction with China.In the Olympic coverage of China,the New York Times allocates attitudinal meaning through“Appreciation>Affect>Judgement”.In an era of the New York Times stigmatizing the Chinese Olympic Image,the Chinese press can employ the communication strategy of“Destigmatization”,that is to tell the story of Chinese Olympians and break the setting of false issues;strengthen the transmission of empathy and innovate media discourse;improve the influence on international public opinions and build a community with a shared future for mankind.