Contrastive Analysis Of Appraisal Resources In English And Chinese Dating Advertisements

Appraisal Theory is a system of semantic resources to explore, describe and explain the way language is used to evaluate, to adopt stances, to construct textual personas and to manage interpersonal relationships. This theory has been applied to many different discourses analysis. However, there are many domains to which this theory has not been applied, dating advertisement (DA) being one of them.Based on the theoretical framework of Appraisal Theory, the author conducts a tentative contrastive appraisal analysis of English and Chinese dating advertisements (EDAs and CDAs), trying to explore the preference of appraisal resources and give the relevant and reasonable explanations. In this thesis, a corpus of 50 English dating advertisements and 50 Chinese dating advertisements is randomly chosen. Both qualitative and quantitative analytical approaches are adopted to ensure the reliability and validity of the research.The thesis is divided into five parts. They are sequentially the introduction, literature review, the theoretical framework for this thesis, the contrastive analysis of appraisal resources in EDAs and CDAs and the conclusion. Some tentative research findings have been discovered in this thesis:(1) There are abundant appraisal resources in DAs. However, the three subsystems of Appraisal in DAs are varied, among which the distribution and frequency of Attitude resources are the highest.(2) In the analysis of Attitude system, high frequency of Judgment and Appreciation resources are found. Positive Attitude resources are prevalent in DAs, which become the salient stylistic feature of DAs. Judgment resources in CDAs are more than that in EDAs and negative Judgment resources in EDAs are more than that in CDAs. Within Appreciation, the proportion of Valuation resources in EDAs is much higher than that in CDAs. This is related to the cultural differences and language habits.(3) In the analysis of Engagement system, few Heteroglossic options appear in these advertisements and most of the DAs are written in the Monoglossic way. This might be determined by the descriptive linguistic features of Das. High frequency of Disclaim and Entertain in DAs draw our attention. The Heterglossic resources in EDAs are more than that in CDAs. This is related to the flexible and varied expressions of English language and the descriptive expressions of CDAs language.(4) In the analysis of Graduation system, EDAs advertisers are fond of Force while CDAS advertisers prefer Focus. Within Grading Up and Grading Down, EDAs advertisers have a high preference of Grading Up, while CDAs advertisers have a high preference of Grading Down.It is revealed from the analysis that the contrastive study of appraisal resources in EDAs and CDAs is very significant. Theoretically, the findings can probably enrich the Appraisal Theory and broaden the research field of interpersonal meaning and the Appraisal Theory. Practically, using the Appraisal Theory to analyze the dating advertisements, we can understand DAs better. The contrast between English and Chinese dating advertisements will be helpful to the translation of them and cultural exchange.The focus of this research is the written language appeared in magazines, newspapers and network. Video and audio data are not discussed in this thesis. Therefore the limitation of this research can not be avoided and further studies of video and audio data from the perspective of Appraisal Theory are desired.