| University profiles are the product of the educational development of theeconomic society. It can provide a large amount of information for the potentialreaders which enables them to know thoroughly about the advantages of the appraiseduniversity in a short time thus shortening the distance between the advertiseduniversity and the potential readers. It is not only an important part of the propagandabut also helps the potential readers know about the university. University profileattracts the attention of researchers in recent years. A large amount of valuable studieshave been conducted on this genre from different perspectives of linguistics. However,few scholars study it from the perspective of Appraisal theory.Appraisal Theory was put forward in1990s as the supplement to interpersonalmeanings of Systemic Functional Linguistics. It is a system of semantic resources toexplore, describe and explain the way language is used to evaluate, to adopt stances,to construct textual persons, and to manage interpersonal relationships. It is acomplement to Halliday’s grammar-based model by focusing on the semantics ofevaluation for exploring interpersonal meaning. Since its birth, Appraisal theory hasbeen applied to the analysis of many different kinds of discourses. However, there arestill many discourses to which this theory has not been applied, university profilesbeing one of them.In this thesis, the top-20British university profiles are collected from theInternet to investigate from the perspective of Appraisal Theory in order to explorethe distribution of attitudinal resources in these texts and discover the interpersonalrelationship between the advertised university and the potential readers. Furthermore，the thorough analysis can promote complete comprehension of this kind of texts which help the readers to have a better understanding of these texts and give somesuggestions to the writers of the university profiles. The qualitative approach areadopted to analyze the samples. Through the research, two findings have beendiscovered in this thesis:(1) There are abundant attitudinal resources in the selected top-20Britishuniversity profiles and almost all these resources are allocated in terms of Affect,Judgment and Appreciation. However, the distribution of the three sub-categories ofAttitude resources in university profiles are varied. The frequency of Appreciation(66.9%) is the highest among the three; followed by Judgment resources whichaccount for22.2%; Affect only account for a small part of the total attitudinalresources (10.9%). Besides, there are unequal distributions within each sub-category.Within Appreciation, the frequency of valuation (62.4%) is higher than those ofreaction (23.4%) and composition (14.2%); within Judgment, the frequency ofcapacity (50.0%) is the highest, followed by Normality (35.6%); the other three kindsof Judgment resources only account for14.4%altogether; and within Affect type,Inclination (53.7%) resources outweigh the other three Affect resources—Satisfaction(17.9%), Security (15.8%) and Happiness (12.6%).(2) Through the study on attitudinal resources, we conclude that the writers ofuniversity profiles usually employ many seemingly “objective” Appreciationresources to negotiate solidarity with potential readers through sharing assessments ofthe teaching environment and equipment. The reason why the writers prefer to useAppreciation resources in university profiles is that, On one hand, most of theAppreciation resources make potential readers easily believe what is said on theprofiles because the appraised universities are always “objectively” evaluated bypraising the teaching environment and equipment; on the other hand, Appreciationresources can objectively address the potential readers’ concerns or doubts about the appraised universities, thus creating common ground with the potential readers.Besides, the writers of university profiles also employ many Judgment resources tojudge the ability of the teaching staff or the students of the appraised university tobuild interpersonal solidarity with the potential readers because the ability of theteaching staff is also a very important element when the students are consideringwhich university is the best choice. Finally, the writers of university profiles alsoemploy some Affect resources to express the emotion of students or the writers of theappraised university to negotiate interpersonal solidarity with potential readersthrough showing great confidence of the appraised university about its achievements,services or equipments which can give the potential readers a strong sense of safetyand satisfaction and increase the charming of the appraised university thus attractingpotential readers to choose it.The study on the attitudinal resources in the top-20British university profiles, onone hand, it is helpful in furthering the development of Appraisal Theory andbroadening the vision of its application in different texts; on the other hand, it cangive some instructions to the writing of university profiles and the potential readers’understanding of the university profiles. |
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