China’s National Image Construction In English And Chinese Film Reviews Of The Wandering Earth Based On Appraisal Theory

The film The Wandering Earth integrates the consciousness of “a community of shared future for mankind,” as well as Chinese spirit and temperament into the image construction of the nation,providing important direction for domestic films in this regard.However,the construction of China’s national image still needs to be further explored based on the feedback of domestic and foreign audiences after watching the film.Appraisal Theory was put forward by Australian linguist Martin in the 1990 s.Attitude,Engagement and Graduation are the three subsystems that make up this theory.The core of the theory that serves as the theoretical framework for this study is Attitude system.This thesis selected 80 film reviews as the corpus,and built two sub-corpora.One for the 40 Chinese film reviews selected from Douban.com and the other for the40 English film reviews selected from foreign website IMDb.This study obtains the number and proportion of attitudinal resources in English and Chinese film reviews using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods,and then conducts a comparative analysis to further explore the use of these resources in the construction of China’s national image.The study aims to answer three questions:(1)What attitudinal resources are used in English and Chinese film reviews of The Wandering Earth?(2)What are the characteristics of English and Chinese film reviews of The Wandering Earth in terms of attitudinal resources?(3)By using these attitudinal resources,what China’s national images have been respectively constructed in English and Chinese film reviews of The Wandering Earth?The results show that in terms of overall distribution,English film reviews use slightly more attitudinal resources than Chinese film reviews.Among the three subsystems,Appreciation resources account for the largest proportion in English and Chinese film reviews.Judgement resources appear more frequently in English film reviews.The proportion of Affect resources in Chinese film reviews is larger than that in English film reviews.In terms of China’s national image construction,various positive attitudinal resources in Chinese film reviews are used with the purpose of projecting China as a responsible,hardworking,forgiving,confident,technologically advanced and culturally prosperous nation.In contrast,English film reviews adopt more negative attitudinal resources than Chinese film reviews,so as to weaken China’s cultural soft power and damage China’s national image.These negative attitudinal resources intend to construct China into an ambitious and unfriendly nation,and a nation lacking innovation.This study can enhance people’s awareness of constructing China’s national image.Furthermore,it can direct researchers’ attention to the discursive construction of national image in film reviews.In addition,a comparative study of China’s national image in English and Chinese film reviews can inspire China to better implement the culture “going out” strategy and continuously improve China’s national image in the world.Finally,this thesis is expected to be of some value and help to film critics in writing film reviews.