Attitudinal Meaning In CNN News Reports On Tibet Riots

Under the umbrella of Appraisal theory, this thesis explores Attitudinal meaning inCNN news reports on Tibet riots. The present study has three aims: to gain a fullunderstanding of attitudinal meanings in hard news discourses; to reveal the concreterepresentation of Attitudes are expressed and the effect the reporter tries to cast onthe readers through attitude; and to discuss whether attitudinal meaning isover-expressed in the should-be-objective hard news.Theoretically speaking, news reports should be the most objective description ofwhat things and events really are. However, any words convey the writer's feelingsand emotions—Attitude, especially in news reports related to political issues. Itcannot be avoided that the incompatible sides of one thing have to exist at the sametime. That is the interesting and meaningful starting point of this study.This thesis mainly adopts qualitative research method. The author categories theattitudinal resources under Attitude system, and then evaluates each Attitude. Then,the statistical data are shown in tables and pie charts. By closely analyzing the tenpieces of sample news reports and the data, the study reveals that CNN reporters showpartiality for protesters, Dalai Lama, Tibetan government-in-exile, Dalai's followersand supporters through attitudinal expressions, but the scale of attitudinal expressionsin the reporters is not high (2.13 Attitude per 100 words in average). Any discoursescarry different attitudes based on the different ideology and cultural background ofwriters. As a result, the author does not agree with some public opinions thatattitudinal meaning is over-expressed in the should-be-objective hard news.This thesis is divided into five chapters. Chapter one is a general introduction tothe background and the motivation of this study. Chapter two is a review of preciousstudies on Appraisal Theory and news discourse aboard and home as well. In chapterthree, three sub-systems of Appraisal Theory are introduced: Attitude, Engagementand Graduation. For the purpose of this study, the focus is Attitude system. The authorbrings out the theoretical bases of the whole study in details. Chapter four is a close analysis of attitudinal resources in the selected discourse samples by Appraisal Theory.Both qualitative and quantitative analyses are presented in this chapter. Chapter five isa conclusion, including the limitations of this study and suggestions for futureresearch.