Analysis Of Chinese Weather Forecast Language From The Perspective Of Appraisal Theory

Weather forecast is a focus topic in our daily life, and we could see and hear them anywhere, like on TVs or radios, on newspapers or magazines, on the internet, etc. As a discourse pattern, weather forecast possesses the function of predicting the state of atmosphere for a future time and a given location, thus providing necessary information for the people to well arrange their living and production there. It has been acknowledged that with the rapid development of society, weather forecast has been playing an increasingly important role in people's life. People, however, have long habitually concentrated on the practical value of the weather forecast, and pay little attention to its linguistic value as a special discourse pattern. Through the linguistic analysis of Chinese weather forecast discourse, I think it could enable us to have a better understanding of its discourse model and language features, so as to get access to as much discourse information as possible from it.This thesis employs the Appraisal Systems Theory as its theoretical framework. Martin points out"what counts as appraisal depends on the field of discourse. Because of this, ideational meanings that do not use evaluative lexis can be used to evoke appreciation."Martin's framework of Appraisal Systems offers a'paradigm'of critical discourse analysis by using the lexis. Yet, up to now, and to my knowledge, there are few linguists or linguistic scholars at home or abroad who have applied this theory into the analysis of Chinese weather forecast discourse. Through the study, it is proved that the Appraisal Systems Theory can be applied to the analysis of Chinese weather forecast discourse. This, on the one hand, could definitely enrich Martin's Appraisal Systems Theory and enhance the practicability and universality of this theory, and on the other could make us gain a better comprehension of its language, especially its lexical features. The data for the analysis are from modern Chinese, whereas the theoretical framework is English-based. Thus, in the process of analysis, I also borrow some current research findings towards modern Chinese which are relevant to the study. Data for the research in this thesis come from the weather forecast programs at around 19:35 every evening on CCTV 1, shortly after the end of CCTV News at 19:00, which are from June 1st, 2010 to June 30th, 2010—one month.This paper consists of five chapters.Chapter one is an overall introduction, including the motivation, objectives, theoretical approach, methodology, data source, a brief introduction to the organization of the thesis and our research questions in the last part.Chapter two presents the literature review of major studies on present study from the perspectives of synoptic meteorology, weather program, communication theory and linguistics respectively.Chapter three concerns the theoretical framework of this thesis. In this chapter, the theory adopted is presented, namely the Appraisal Systems Theory by Martin. With the help of some examples both from English and Chinese, we make a brief introduction to the three subsystems of the theory. Besides this, in view of the particularity of our chosen data, we also put forward some revisions to the theory we adopt based on some other related studies. They, taken as a whole, function as the integrated theoretical framework for the thesis.Chapter four provides a practical analysis of Chinese weather forecast discourse firmly based on the theoretical framework. Engagement analysis is conducted first. Among the two sub-branches, heteroglossica is specifically analyzed. Among the top three, entertain type is used much more often than the other two, this shows that the main function of the weather forecast is to predict the possibility of future weather condition. The counter type and the endorse type altogether share 25 percent of the whole, taking the second and the third place respectively. A very small number of the concur type, the deny type and the pronounce type appear in this discourse pattern. Attitude analysis comes second. We conduct a general analysis from the perspectives of Affect, Judgment and Appreciation. From the analysis, we find that the speaker seldom takes their attitude or stance towards their statement. In terms of judgment, the modal words are widely used. Based on the different types of modal words in Chinese weather forecast discourse, the word"会"in the probability type is the typical embodiment. In addition, the weatherman seldom shows any appreciation, but mainly states the weather information to the audience. We finally move to Graduation analysis of the discourse. This aspect is studied from the angles of force and focus. Force is analyzed from the intensification and quantification perspectives. It is found that the use of quantification is obviously a bit more than that of intensification, which shows that the two types are extensively used in the weather forecast discourse. We studied focus from sharpening and softening. The soften pattern is widely used in this kind of discourse. The weatherman habitually uses the vague language, either effectively avoiding a variety of risks brought by inaccurate prediction, or smoothly realizing the communicative intention to meet the audience's emotional needs.Chapter five reaches the conclusion and points out the limitations still existing within, which in turn gives us a clue to what we will proceed in the direction in the future.