| The present study has made an attempt to compare the distributional features of the Appraisal Resources to achieve interpersonal meanings of China Daily and Washington Post on the reports of the event of PRISM or Edward Snowden. Appraisal Resources as linguistic strategies were used by the writers of two newspapers to reveal the truth of the event, convey their communicative intentions and needs including their attitudes, standpoints, and values towards the event, and at the same time to construct the interpersonal meaning with their intended readers through evoking the resonance of them on the event and persuade them to accept their viewpoints and attitudes. The present study has also sought the underlying reasons for the salient differences and similarities of the Appraisal Resources to achieve interpersonal meanings from the perspective of pragmatics.Both quantitative and qualitative methods were adopted in the study. The present study chose30news report articles on the event of PRISM from China Daily and Washington Post respectively, and made an identification of the Appraisal Resources in them by manual work based on the Appraisal Theory and then compared the same category and subcategories of the system. It should be noted that the authors of30China Daily news reports were all Chinese journalists and the authors of30Washington Post news reports were all native speakers of English. In this study the Appraisal Theory served as the analytical framework, while the Linguistic Adaptation Theory served as the interpreting theory.The results and conclusions of the study are as follows:(1) on the reports of the event of PRISM or Edward Snowden, both China Daily and Washington Post have employed great amounts of Appraisal Resources to achieve their interpersonal meanings and Washington Post took a little larger proportion of Appraisal Resources than China Daily took, and Engagement Resources were most frequently used by two newspapers. This linguistic strategy served to make the reporting more objective. (2) Sharp differences exist in the subcategories of Attitude Resources. Judgment Resources were most frequently used by the writers of China Daily to make judgments on the behavior of the US government and the participants involved in the event, whereas Washington Post tended to apply Affect Resources to express their-own attitudes towards the event and the participants involved in the event.(3) In Affect Resources Unhappiness Resources were most frequently employed by the writers of China Daily adapting to the common unhappy and depressed emotion of the writers and the readers on the event, while in Washington Post Insecurity Resources were most frequently used by the writers adapting to the common insecure and frightened emotion reaction of both the writers and the readers on the event.(4) In Judgement Resources China Daily has employed more Social Esteem Resources than Social Sanction Resources. Social Esteem was applied by the writers of China Daily to adapt to the social convention of heroic worship complex, the social convention of justice and fairness, and the social convention of legal institution. However, Washington Post has employed the overwhelming Social Sanction Resources to adapt to the common social norms of morality pursuits of American people, the social norm of pursuing democracy and the social norm of legislation.(5) In Appreciation Resources Valuation Resources were most frequently used by China Daily and Washington Post. The choice of this kind of linguistic strategy by the writers of China Daily adapts to the common psychological motivation of the writers and the readers, the psychological motivation of pursuing truth, goodness and beauty, while this kind of linguistic strategy by the writers of Washington Post adapts to the common psychological motivation of the writers and the readers for pursuing freedom and democracy.(6) In Engagement Resources Heterogloss Resources were mainly talked about in the present study. China Daily has applied a little more Dialogic Expansion Resources, while Washington Post has employed a little more Dialogic Contraction Resources. Among the Dialogic Expansion Resources, China Daily has applied more Attribute Resources adapting to the mental culture of China, to be specific, the auger-type thinking pattern (Ishii S.,1994), because implicit expression and quoting others’ viewpoint to convey the writers’own viewpoint is one kind of auger-type thinking pattern. However, Washington Post preferred to use Entertain Resources to entertain different positions, and the writers shouldered more responsibility of the proposition, directly and explicitly conveyed their viewpoints and emotions. This linguistic strategy adapts to the mental culture of America, to be specific, American direct thinking pattern (Ishii S.,1994).(7) In Focus subcategory of Graduation Resources, Sharpen Resources and Soften Resources took sharply different proportions in China Daily and Washington Post. China Daily has applied the overwhelming Soften Resources to evade responsibility of making definite judgment on certain behaviors and certain things, and further evade direct confrontation with the subjects of these behaviors, which adapts to the mental culture, the medium and implied way of thinking, whereas Washington Post has adopted more Sharpen Resources. The American people tend to use more concrete and exact words to convey their communicative intention, and this kind of linguistic strategy adapts to American mental culture, to be specific, the logical thinking pattern. |
