A Positive Discourse Analysis Of Chinese And American Economic News Texts From The Perspective Of Appraisal Theory

With the continuous development of global economy and society,economic news plays an important role in people’s daily life.Based on Martin’s Appraisal Theory,this paper conducts a comparative study of positive discourse analysis in 30 economic reports about "the influence of the Reform and Opening Up on China’s economic development in the past 40 years" covered by mainstream media which are China Daily and The New York Times in China and America.The similarities and differences in the distribution of appraisal resources in the economic news reports are explored with the help of the linguistic analysis software UAM Corpus Tool and quantitative and qualitative analysis,and further to reveal the hidden attitudes and stances.Through the analysis,the author discovers similarities and differences of appraisal resources in the economic reports from the two newspapers.Three similarities are discovered: 1)Regarding attitude resources,both newspapers tend to use appreciation,judgment and positive attitude resources.2)Of the engagement resources,expansion resources are preferred by the two news media.Deny and distance account for a small proportion.3)Of the graduation resources,force is more preferred than focus.The purpose is to avoid conflicts with readers who hold opposite views,to make economic news more objective and to build a harmonious interpersonal relationship.As for the differences in appraisal resources,1)in the attitude system,appreciation and positive attitude resources are more frequently used in China Daily,while judgment and negative attitude resources are employed more often in The New York Times.2)Regarding engagement resources,within dialogue expansion,American reporters frequently use the word “may,” while Chinese reporters employ “should” numerous times in the entertain.Attribute resources in China Daily outweigh those in The New York Times.Regarding dialogic contraction,The New York Times use more disclaim resources,while China Daily use more proclaim resources.3)In the graduation system,Chinese reporters prefer to employ force,especially number resources.Therefore,the American reports tend to use more negative resources not to deny substantial results through reform and opening up but to evaluate the pros and cons of reform and opening-up to China’s economic development from the objective perspective,so as to develop the China’s economy in sound and rapid way.In contrast,China’s reports tend to use more positive resources to convey that reform and opening up is the most fundamental driving force for China’s sustained and rapid economic development.The fundamental causes of such differences may stem from different cultural backgrounds,thinking modes,and media Properties.This study enriches the application scope of positive discourse analysis and appraisal theory.Meanwhile,it provides a certain linguistic basis for the academic research of reform and opening up on China’s economic development,which has practical significance inpromoting further exchange and cooperation between China and America.