Towards A Systemic-Functional Rhetoric Of Semogenesis In And Through News Discourse

Over the threshold of the 21^st century, the mass media genre colony, with news discourse as the representative, has permeated every social institution with an unprecedented breadth and depth. News discourse has become the most influential discursive type in a cultural entity, as well as the primary motivating force of the evolution of the socio-semiotic semantic field. An adequate probe into the semogenesis of news discourse, as an interdisciplinary research, necessarily spans the two major fields of discourse analysis and communication studies, both of which can be traced back to the Aristotelian rhetoric. In the 20th century, rhetoric, once disparaged as a relic of the outmoded classical curriculum, comes into its own as intertwined with a language philosophy strongly influenced by social constructionism and intersubjective epistemology, and assumes a central position in all discursive actions in a cultural entity as the basic principle that all informative and persuasive genres—with news discourse as the epitome—abide by. Language is no longer held as an autonomous sign system but as a meaning-making activity vibrantly engaging in the construction of the socio-political cultural scenario. In particular, Kenneth Burke, the standard-bearer of American new rhetoric, adopts a thorough Wittgensteinian attitude towards language, acknowledges the contingency of the language we use, and contends that meaning lies not in the signified but in versioning a reality which in turn prescribes a dominant paradigm of rhetoric in our discursive universe.Set against the above disciplinary landscapes and motivated by a keen interest in the contemporary operation of news discourse, this ongoing research synthesizes and develops language philosophy, the Burkean new rhetoric, the Hallidayan Systemic Functional Linguistics as well as the APPRAISAL Theory as its latest development, and communication studies, so as to unravel how semogenesis in and through news discourse, on the one hand, is enabled and constrained by a systemic-functional rhetoric in the socio-semiotic semantic field, and on the other hand, promotes the construal and development of dynamic, negotiable logogenesis, ontogenesis and phylogenesis through motivated and orientated symbolic discourse act. This dissertation is organized into eight chapters. Chapter One begins by outlining the background in which this study is set against, i.e., the relationship between rhetoric and mass-mediated reality, as well as the contemporary adjustment in probes into meaning. It then proceeds to specify the research objectives and to introduce our data collection as well as the layout of this study. Chapter Two surveys literature on news discourse analysis both at home and abroad, and proposes the future research orientation after a critical analysis of present research findings. We specify this study as an attempt to fulfill the mission to develop an affirmative research agenda in the productive use of discourse and power, through a systemic-functional study of the intersubjective semogenesis of news discourse rhetoric. Chapter Three locates this study on the assumption of language as symbolic action, and proceeds to list our research hypotheses on the systemic-functional rhetoric of semogenesis in and through news discourse. We then sketch the chief theoretic sources this study draws upon as well as the methodology to be employed.The next four chapters, from Chapter Four to Seven, unfold our research scheme and testify our research hypotheses.Chapter Four starts by explicating the relationship between context, rhetoric and truth, and investigates how news discourse interacts and develops a nexus with the socio-semiotic context. On the one hand, we investigate how news discourse adapts—in terms of negotiability, adaptability and variability—to socio-cultural context characterized by"pseudo-interaction"and"monologicality"to facilitate its semogenesis. On the other hand, we explore how the process and product of semogenesis constitute an organic interdiscursive and intertextual universe so as to propel the framing of ideology and the generation of the knowledge-value complex.Chapter Five is devoted to the rhetorical realization of ideational meaning. With the Burkean dramatistic pentad, we analyze how the foregrounded ratios between scene, act, agent, agency and purpose in news discourse develop into different terministic screens, and confine with particular motive and orientation the objectiveness of news discourse to specific socio-cultural context. Taking into account the heterogeneity of discursive motives under divergent rhetorical paradigms, we proceed to probe into polysemy and logomachy in news discourse, so as to study how the intersubjectively constructed meanings develop into stable conceptual frameworks in the form of information which vie for legitimacy of semogenesis and space of circulation in the discursive universe.Chapter Six connects the rhetorical construction of interpersonal meaning in news discourse with the contemporary research trend in linguistics to emphasize the interpersonal, variable and negotiable meaning, and explores how news discourse pursues objectivity in order to defend its institutional ethos, so that it can maintain and develop ideological identification and consubstantiality through the logogenesis, ontogenesis and phylogenesis of meaning. In particular, we employ the"attribution"concept in the ENGAGEMENT subsystem of the APPRAISAL Theory, with an aim to shed light on how the myth of direct speech is exploited to appraise, take stance, construct textual persona, coordinate interpersonal stances and relations, and establish discursive alliance or division.Chapter Seven, with informational coherence as the binding concept, is contributed to the rhetorical realization of textual meaning in news discourse from respectively the dimensions of"communication-cognition"and"epistemology-axiology". On the"communication-cognition"dimension, with informativeness, redundancy and accessibility as major parameters, this chapter studies how news discourse facilitates communicators'swift dissemination of the selected information together with the appraisal meaning attached, while enabling audiences to acquire maximum new information with minimum cognitive efforts. On the"epistemology-axiology"dimension, this chapter challenges linear coherence by contending that the perceived coherence is underpinned with cultural-specific value system, and hence is virtually an"epistemological-axiological"information gestalt. Furthermore, we contend informational coherence as metaphorical, with informational coherence on the"communication-cognition"dimension functioning as a vehicle to identify with the informational coherence on the"epistemology-axiology"dimension as a tenor, so as to establish the myth of coherence in ideological consubstantiation.Chapter Eight briefly concludes major research findings in this dissertation, and points out the pressing strategic significance for journalistic practitioners, as well as the profound importance for the design and development of future theoretical framework on meaning. Especially, for Chinese journalists and editors alike, this study helps to prepare them for the challenges and opportunities brought by foreign media's newly-emerging presence in China, enabling them to effectively construct and maintain the ideology of socio-semiotic semantic field. Besides, this study provides feasible theoretical guidance for core curricula in the English-journalism major. Theoretically, the systemic-functional rhetoric presented in this study explicates the intersubjective and rhetorical realization of semogenesis, shedding light on the dialectics between mass-mediated discourse and dominant rhetorical paradigm.The research creativity in this dissertation is manifest in the following four aspects. To begin with, we explicate how news discourse evaluates through information, and persuades while shaping ideation and epistemology. News discourse is fundamentally a symbolic drama that structures and releases information, serving the dual function of both information-offering and persuasion. The persuasion without argumentation in news discourse constitutes the ultimate rhetoric. Therefore, news discourse, as the"structuring structured structure", propels the maintenance and updating of the socio-semiotic meaning potential, constructing the cornerstone for dominant rhetorical paradigm while being constrained by the dominant mode of rhetoric.Furthermore, we construct a"rhetoric-appraisal"semantic-pragmatic model of the intertextual semogenesis in news discourse. Through a detailed analysis of the"rhetoric-appraisal"mechanism in direct speech in news discourse, we not only elevate the present research on appraisal meaning from lexico-grammatical level to textual level, but prove how the dialogue and heteroglossic negotiation in news discourse are relegated to an orchestrated performance in multi-voice-parts with particular appraisal meaning functioning as the conducting baton, so as to realize pragmatic control while enabling semantic cognition.Besides, we contend that the informational coherence, as the rhetorical realization of textual meaning in news discourse, is metaphorically constructed with coherence on the"communication-cognition"dimension as the vehicle and coherence on the"epistemology-axiology"dimension as the tenor, Moreover, we argue that coherence from the two dimensions are identified to enable news discourse to metaphorically construct the non-linear reality with linear strings of linguistic signs so as to serve the motive of establishing a myth of coherent ideological consubstantiality.Last but not least, we attempt to develop a systemic-functional rhetoric of semogenesis in and through news discourse. By marrying the Burkean grammar of motives, rhetoric of motives and logology into the Hallidayan systemic-functional framework, our systemic-functional rhetoric emphasizes both ontologically language-as-action and epistemologically language-as-symbolic-system, recognizing both language-in-use and language-as-system. We proceed to stratify this systemic-functional rhetoric by positioning the motive of symbolic identification at its core, which spurs action and powers the permutation and combination of the dramatistic elements in the second layer of dramatistic action, where scene, act, agent, agency and purpose are motivated to develop into ratios shaping the subsequent discursive and semantic configuration. When ratios in action and circulation develop into terministic screens to organize subsequent epistemology, we enter the third layer of the systemic-functional rhetoric, i.e., that of logology, beyond which lies the fourth layer of the unknown, which opens up to a yet-to-be-acquainted universe of possibilities, discoveries and dialogues. In this way, our systemic-functional rhetoric is a nexus of ontology and epistemology, individual cognition and social scenario, discursive acts and linguistic signs, as well as the known and the unknown. As a theoretical framework for the semogenesis across a variety of genres, our systemic-functional rhetoric serves to explicate how semogenesis is enabled through symbolic action, which in turn is actively engaged in the construction of social discursive order and the evolution of cultural scenario.