The Study Of Evaluation In Problem-solution Pattern

The Problem-Solution Pattern has been explored by many researchers. Winter studied the pattern from the perspective of clause relations. Hoey then put forward the idea of the minimum discourse pattern and claimed that the pattern can be applied for text analysis in different genres. Mc Carthy summarized the typical words of each element in the Problem-Solution Pattern. There are five elements in the Problem-Solution Pattern: Problem, Situation, Response, Evaluation and Result.Hard news is in the opposite side of soft news. There are different types of content of hard news, such as disaster, terrorist event, political event and so on. Hard news as a particular genre has been investigated from various perspectives. This paper conducts the Evaluation element in the Problem-Solution Pattern in English hard news about disasters from three perspectives: the macro perspective, the micro perspective and the relation with the Appraisal Theory.Fifty pieces of English hard news samples about disasters reported in 2013 and 2014 were collected from authoritative papers abroad, such as New York Times, Guardians. The general structures about the hard news about disaster are studied from the macro perspective, especially the Evaluation element. The pragmatic functions of the Evaluation element are also analyzed. Then from the micro perspective, the lexical signals, clause relations and grammatical features about the Evaluation element are also summarized. After that, the Evaluation element is discussed in light of the Appraisal Theory in order to illustrate the relation between some parts of Appraisal Theory and the Evaluation element.Findings from the macro perspectives in terms of the distribution of the Evaluation element are, firstly, the Evaluation element ranks the second to the Problem element in the hard news. Secondly, the Evaluation element not only appears at the end of the text, but also in other situations with other elements, such as after the Problem element, with the Problem element, etc. In addition, the Evaluation has the informative function and the emotional function. Findings from the micro perspectives are the lexical signals in the Evaluation element have the descriptive function and there are more adjectives in the Evaluation element. Contrast-relation is the most important form to realize the Evaluation element. The grammatical features are obvious, such as the Evaluation element tends to occur in 1) object clause; 2) flexible tense; 3) passive voice; 4) direct speech; and 5) extended simple sentences, etc. From the Appraisal Theory, there are more heterogloss in the Evaluation element, less force more focus, and Appreciation as a sub-system of Attitude is the important part of the Evaluation element. All the findings extend the study of the Problem-Solution Pattern, especially the study of the Evaluation element.