A Comparative Analysis Of Attitude Resources In English And Chinese Internet Customer Reviews From The Perspective Of The Appraisal Theory

Internet customer reviews (ICRs) are reviews of a product commonly posted by customers on online-shopping websites. Areview of the literature shows that study of ICRs from the perspective of linguistics is rare. The present study is a comparative study of Attitude resources in English and Chinese ICRs. Attitude is one of the three systems of Appraisal Theory which aims at analysing evaluation systems of language. For the purpose of revealing similarities and differences of Attitude resources in English and Chinese ICRs, this thesis selects and analyses a total of 840 pieces of positive and critical customer reviews of,three,kinds of smartphones-from the American Amazon website and Chinese Amazon website. The research questions are as follows:(1) what are the features and similarities of the two types of English and Chinese ICRs in terms of their distributions of attitude resources? (2) Do English and Chines ICRs differ from each other in their distributions of Attitude resources? If they do, what are the differences?The analysis of data collected in this research involves both quantitative and qualitative approaches. First, four small scale corpora are established on the basis of selected reviews. Then, Attitude resources are identified and encoded in these corpora and occurrence of each resource is counted. Finally, results of occurrence and percentage of Attitude resources in English and Chinese ICRs are analysed along with specific examples.This study has obtained the following findings:(1) There are three features of English and Chinese ICRs and similarities between them in terms of their distributions of Attitude resources.First of all, both English and Chinese ICRs are loaded with a large number of Attitude resources. Appreciation resource which is focused on the evaluation of things ranks the first in terms of occurrence in all kinds of ICRs studied; Affect resource which is the manifestation of one’s feelings is the second important Attitude resource in both English and Chinese ICRs; Judgment resource as the evaluation of people and their behaviours is the least employed Attitude in English and Chinese ICRs, slightly surpasses Affect resource by amount only in negative Chinese ICRs.Second, the total number of positive Attitude resources and negative Attitude resources predominates in positive English and Chinese ICRs and negative English and Chinese ICRs respectively. However, negative resources of certain Attitude subtypes may exceed its positive resources in positive ICRs or be overtaken by them in negative ICRs.Third, indirect realisations are commonly adopted by writers of both English and Chinese ICR writers to provoke negative Attitudes such as Dissatisfaction, negative Propriety and negative Veracity.(2) There are differences identified between English and Chinese ICRs in their distribution of attitude resources.First, English and Chinese ICRs differ in their distribution of some subtypes of Attitude such as Un/happiness, Dis/satisfaction and In/security. In positive ICRs, English writers tend to adopt happiness resources to express their positive emotions while Chinese writers prefer to adopt satisfaction resources which are less fervent than happiness. Furthermore, positive Chinese ICRs possess a much larger share of insecurity resources than positive English ICRs do.Second, Attitude resources in English and Chinese ICRs which are statistically similar to each other or share similar realisations may have different concentrations of evaluation. Valuation, for instance, is commonly dedicated by Chinese writers to identification of authenticity of a product rather than evaluation of the worth which is the concentration of English writers. Capacity, when realized in the form of’negation word plus positive capacity’, is often employed by negative Chinese ICR writers for the negative judgment of abilities of sellers/manufacturers. Meanwhile, the same form of capacity is usually adopted by English writers for the judgment of ability of themselves. Tenacity, a subtype of Judgment, which is often a manifestation of support in both English and Chinese ICRs, is also repeatedly used in NCIC as judgment of the writer’s efforts to protect their consumer rights.This study, as an attempt to compare English and Chinese internet customer reviews in terms of their distribution of Attitude resources from a linguistics perspective, provides insights into both English and Chinese ICRs and Appraisal Theory.Our study indicates that Chinese customers have a strong appeal for improved services from the seller and other service providers and shows that security is a major concern for Chinese online-shopping customers.Appraisal Theory, on the other hand, has been proven in this study to be an efficient theory in the analysis of Attitude in both English and Chinese internet customer reviews.