A Comparative Analysis Of Reports On China's Anti-corruption In Chinese And British Mainstream Media Based On Appraisal Theory

Appraisal Theory was formulated in the 1990 s by James Martin from the University of Sydney.Appraisal Theory is widely used to evaluate language users' opinions and attitudes toward events through analysis of language.In other words,evaluation not only deals with surface meaning of language,but also studies the underlying meaning orientation through the surface meaning(Wang,2001: 15).This theory has been well recognized by many scholars at home and abroad,and has found wide application in the analysis of various discourses,such as political news discourse,academic discourse,etc.As one of the main ways for audience to obtain information,news reports can have enormous influence on attitudes and positions on news events and the audience's perception and judgment of events.And news reports have become the main research subjects of Appraisal Theory.Anti-corruption is a worldwide problem,and it directly determines the rise and fall of a nation and the success or failure of government.Since the 18 th Congress of the Communist Party of China,the Party Central Committee under the leadership of Xi Jinping has paid much attention to various types of corruption.After the 19 th National Congress of the Communist Party of China,General Secretary Xi Jinping proposes new requirements on anti-corruption,he demands that the Party must be disciplined strictly,address both the corrupt phenomena and root causes,and develop an institutional mechanism which can guarantee officials dare not corrupt,can not corrupt,and do not want to corrupt.All these substantial measures are proved to be effective.The Chinese government's anti-corruption campaign and achievement have attracted worldwide attention.Chinese and British scholars have done a lot of studies on China's anticorruption issues.Different from previous studies,the present research is intended to conduct a comparative analysis of anti-corruption news reports from Chinese newspaper and British newspaper.This research collected 120 news reports with 60 from Overseas Edition of China Daily and People's Daily and 60 from British newspaper Daily Mail.Through examination the frequency and distribution of Attitude resources and Engagement resources in the news reports on China's anti-corruption in Chinese Corpus and British corpus,this research is aimed to answer the following three questions:1.What is the difference in the distribution of Attitude and Engagement resources in Chinese and British anti-corruption reports?2.What differences in terms of attitudes and positions are revealed by Chinese and British mainstream media concerning China's anti-corruption?3.What impact is likely to be produced by the construction and international communication of China's national image by anti-corruption reports from Chinese and British Media?The research reveals the following findings:Firstly,both Chinese and British media used a large number of Attitude resources and Engagement resources with Chinese media using slightly more than British media.These resources are used to express their respective evaluation about China's anti-corruption campaign.Secondly,Chinese media used more positive Attitude resources than British media to convey China's willing and determination on anti-corruption.British media used more negative Attitude resources than Chinese media to show the gravity and rampancy of China's corruption.Through the use of negative Attitude resources,British media attempted to undermine the regional and global influence and damaged the China's national image as a responsible power.As for Engagement resources,Chinese media quoted from more official sources to increase credibility and authority of news reports.At the same time,news sources from aboard were also used to convey the comments on China's anti-corruption,and demonstrated that China's anti-corruption has received support and praise from international community.Different from China's media,British media quoted from unspecified sources which mainly made negative comments expressing doubts about the credibility of China's reports on anti-corruption from China's government,and the doubts about China's anticorruption measures and goal.Thirdly,Chinese media's reports of anti-corruption show China's achievements on anticorruption and Chinese government's determination and tenacity against corruption.It helps to promote the construction and communication of national image of China as a clean,honest and responsible power.British media's untrue report on China's anti-corruption will be prejudicial to the China's national image on anti-corruption.