The Realization Of Interpersonal Functions Of Mood In Political News Reports

Based on the theoretical framework of Halliday's "Functional Grammar", this thesisventures to investigate functions of mood in political news reports. It also attempts to providesome explanations as to why mood appears the way as it is in two news resources. According to the statistical data, resemblance is found between the two news resourceswith declaratives being dominant in both, 97.97% in the Times and 96.52% in China Daily.China Daily's are 0.96 times of The Times' in relative value, which means no significancecan be found for the difference between the two news resources in terms of declaratives. Theexplanation is that the main communicative purpose of news is to convey information, whichis achieved mainly by declaratives. With interrogatives existing in both, 2.03% in The Timesand 3.07% in China Daily, China Daily's are 1.51 times of The Times' in relative value.Readers' thinking and curiosity can be aroused by interrogatives, so China Daily's interactionis stronger than The Times'. No imperatives are found in The Times, with only 0.41% inChina Daily. Mood realizations are strikingly different in the two news resources. The frequency ofmodal operators in China Daily is much higher than The Times', 0.77% in The Times and1.32% in China Daily, and the relative value of China Daily is 1.71 times of The Times'.Moreover, mood adjuncts also show divergence, 1.04% in The Times and 1.29% in ChinaDaily, China Daily's being 1.24 times of The Times'. Finally, no comment adjuncts are foundin The Times, while it occupies 0.046% in China Daily. The analysis of data suggests thatpolitical orientations, culture values, interpersonal factors and gatekeepers' manipulationmight be the reasons to cause the differences. As a whole, China Daily is more communicative and distinctive, while The Times seemsto be more objective. In terms of the result of the current research, the writer concludes thatmood system contributes to interpersonal functions of political news reports. The writerhopes that this tentative work will be able to make clear the point that mood is an efficient,valuable field where interpersonal functions in news can be explored.