| Appraisal Theory is not only used for Critical Discourse Analysis,but also for Positive Discourse Analysis to describe the attitude and position of the discourse speaker.News reports of major conferences are the main materials of Positive Discourse Analysis.The theme of the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference 2019 is Shared Future,Concerted Action,Common Development.This study takes Appraisal Theory as a framework to conduct a Positive Discourse Analysis on the appraisal resources in 32 pieces of news reports on the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference 2019.The research questions mainly include:(1)How are appraisal resources generally distributed in the BFA 2019 news reports?(2)What are the distribution features of the three subsystems of appraisal resources in the BFA 2019 news reports?(3)How do the BFA 2019 news reports convey the positive meaning through appraisal resources? This study adopts both quantitative method and qualitative method.Quantitative method is used to carry out statistics of appraisal resources firstly,and then qualitative method is used to analyze the statistical results and the text of these appraisal resources.The study finds that,firstly,engagement resources account for the largest proportion,followed by attitude resources,and finally graduation resources.At the same time,there are far more positive appraisal resources than negative appraisal resources.Secondly,dialogic expansion resources in engagement resources far exceed dialogic contraction resources.Affect resources account for the largest proportion of attitude resources,followed by judgement resources,and finally appreciation resources.Among graduation resources,the force resources are about 24 times more than the focus resources.Thirdly,news reports make effective use of dialogic expansion resources in engagement resources to show that China welcomes Asian countries to offer suggestions for Asian development jointly and encourages all parties to express their views actively.The large number of positive appraisal resources in the news reports demonstrate that China keeps positive and optimistic belief in the development of Asia.The use of large amounts of data in news reports objectively and fully clarifies that the Boao Forum for Asia has made tremendous contributions to the economic development of Asian countries and even the development of the world economy.This study not only enriches Positive Discourse Analysis and Appraisal Theory researches from the theoretical and practical perspective,but also provides suggestions for news media to convey China’s positive attitude and establish China’s image as a responsible power by using appraisal resources. |
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