| Positive discourse analysis(PDA)originates from critical discourse analysis(CDA),which has been a very hot topic in recent years.As the supplement to CDA,PDA proposes to analyze discourse from a constructive angle,trying to promote the establishment and development of a harmonious society through discourse analysis.The notion “positive discourse analysis” was first put forward by Martin in 1999 in his paper “Positive Discourse Analysis: Solidarity and Change” at the International Conference of Critical Discourse Analysis in Britain.Through constructing the positive meaning behind language,positive discourse analysis leads people to face life with a more optimistic attitude.Nowadays,as a new angle to analyze discourse,positive discourse analysis has a great impact on the development of a harmonious society.At present,appraisal theory is the main analytical tool of positive discourse,which is a new development of systemic functional linguistics by Martin.Appraisal theory is a set of evaluative resource system employed to analyze and explain the positions,views and attitudes of language users.It is composed of three sub-systems: attitude system,engagement system and graduation system.Among them,attitude system is the core part,which can be subdivided into affect system,judgement system and appreciation system.Appraisal theory is very important for the study of discourse analysis.In the previous studies of appraisal theory and discourse analysis,most of them focus on the political discourse,news discourse or literary discourse.Currently,there is little research on documentary discourse.This thesis,based on the documentary Chinese New Year released by BBC in 2016,makes a positive discourse analysis from the perspective of attitude system within the framework of appraisal theory.The purpose of this study is to investigate how the foreign media employs positive discourse to express their attitudes toward China and popularize the image of China.This research has provided a new angle for the study of documentary and it is a new attempt to the positive discourse analysis.From the perspective of attitude system,and through the quantitative analysis,the distribution of the attitudinal resources has been summarized and the frequency of positive resources and negative resources under each sub-system has been concluded.Besides,through the qualitative analysis,this thesis has explained how each sub-system is employed to construct discourse,express feeling and convey a positive meaning.Via the analysis,this study attempts to answer the following questions:(1)How are positive resources and negative resources distributed in this documentary respectively?(2)How are attitudinal resources distributed in this documentary?(3)What kinds of attitudes and evaluations have been expressed in each sub-system?(4)What kind of Chinese image has been presented in this documentary?Firstly,it is found that positive resources take up a much larger proportion than negative resources.Secondly,among all the attitudinal resources,appreciation resources occupy the largest proportion,affect resources account for the second largest proportion and judgement resources take up the smallest proportion.Thirdly,in affect system,the evaluations of the emotions to the Chinese food and Chinese culture have been mainly expressed;In judgement system,the evaluations to the capacity and tenacity of Chinese people have been chiefly presented;And in appreciation system,the evaluations to the atmosphere and importance of the Chinese New Year have been basically stated.Finally,through positive discourse analysis,it can be known that this documentary has objectively recorded the real life of Chinese people and the traditional cultural atmosphere,which presents a harmonious and beautiful image of China.Via the positive discourse analysis of this documentary,it is significant to dig out the positive meaning behind language and present a real China,thereby helping the readers have a better understanding of Chinese culture. |
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