SFL Analysis Of Expert Comments In Legal Report, A Program On CCTV

Legal Report is one of the most popular legal programs on TV in mainland China. Inthis program, the laws and regulations are explained on the presentation of particularcases, and the legal knowledge and information are vividly imparted to the public,which helps propel the legal construction in China. As a successful legal program,Legal Report is expected to share its experience of success. This thesis attempts tostudy the linguistic factors contributing to the program s success, aiming at figuringout the fixed linguistic pattern of professional law-popularization. The research heretakes the Systemic-Functional Linguistics as the theoretical framework, analyzing thegenre and Appraisal resources in the expert comments of Legal Report in attempt tofind out the linguistic strategies adopted by the experts in convincing certaininterpersonal meaning so as to realize the law-popularization.Genres, referring to text types, constitute a way of enacting interpersonal relationshipand construing ideology, which can reflect the functions of the discourse. To identifythe genre/s of guest experts comments parts of Legal Report makes it possible for usto see the meaning knitted within the experts comments. These meanings, in a broadsense, display how the experts interact with the audience and convey information.Hence, we can see how the laws are popularized. Then, to take a look at the Appraisalresources in these genres and to compare them can not only inform us of whatATTITUDE and ENGAGEMENT resources the experts adopt to make theircomments more convincing and influential but also show us the different distributionsof Appraisal resources in these genres due to their different focuses and thus giving usa more specific idea of these genres.Through analysis, we have found that the genre of the experts comments part isbasically exposition, observation and procedure. However, considering thedistinctions of global patterns and context, exposition is sub-categorized and the other two genres are renamed. Then five genres (sub-genres) are identified: caseexplanation, problem-solving, psychological analysis, promotion of authorities activities and legal instruction. These five genres (sub-genres) meet the demands oflaw-popularization, which thus makes the law-popularization possible. Besides,Appraisal resources showing the experts attitudes and quotation of others aredifferently distributed in these five genres (sub-genres), which in turn enhances ourunderstanding of the genres and their role in law-popularization.