本文是新闻媒体论文，In this thesis, based on the Appraisal Theory, it mainly analyzes the engagementresources in the selected news discourse with a mixed-method approach to explore howthe interpersonal meanings are realized and discover the way how the media constructsvalue stance and aligns with the readers in the news discourse. The major findings areconcluded in the following.Firstly, there are various engagement resources in selected news discourse,accounting for 1221 resources in total according to the statistics. On the whole, theresources of Dialogic Contraction (56.84%) are higher than Dialogic Expansion(43.16%), in a degree, clearly demonstrates that American media tends to showauthorial stance to China’s initiative by contracting space of dialogic rather thanexpanding the dialogic space. To be more specific, in Dialogic Contraction, Disclaimtakes up 47.09%, which is five times more than the resources of Proclaim (9.75%).Moreover, Counter resources (29.81%) are the most frequently used in the wholeengagement resources. As for the subsystems of Dialogic Expansion, the resources ofAttribute (24.90%) occupies a little more than these of Entertain (18.26%). Moreover,the resources of Acknowledge take up 24.32% in the whole engagement resources,which ranks secondly after Counter resources.Secondly, different engagement resources play different role in the realization ofinterpersonal meanings. Findings show that different engagement resources areemployed in the different part to realize the interpersonal function, which are used toproduce the dialogism of the discourse and present the attitude of American media.Moreover, the Counter and Deny resources are frequently employed to contract thedialogic space to express the opposite viewpoint with the counter-expectation of theformer proposition, which shows that American media prefers to emphasize thenegative aspects of B&R. Besides, Entertain resources are also mostly used in theexpression of China’s achievements with the uses of modality and subjectiveformulation to express one possibility, which implicitly shows the unreliable attitude toB&R initiative. In addition, results show that Acknowledge resources are various usedin the news discourse to show the tendency of objectivity. Although the resources areemployed to show the external voice to invite alternative viewpoints into the discourse,it can also show the media’s alignment with the external voices with the similarexpression or the attitudinal reported verbs, which can show the negative expression tothe events of B&R initiative.
......
Chapter One Introduction
This study attempts to adopt quantitative and qualitative methods to study andanalyze engagement resources in the American media on China’s Belt and RoadInitiative to investigate how interpersonal meanings are realized in the news discoursesand to explore how American media constructs the value stance on the Belt and RoadInitiative and realizes persuasion through engagement strategies. To put it in otherwords, the present research intends, from the perspective of Appraisal Theory, toexplore the distribution of the engagement resources in the news discourses trying toreveal how American mainstream media uses these resources to realize the interpersonalmeanings.This study will take both theoretical value and practical value into consideration.Theoretically, the findings of the study might contribute a bit in the construction andfurther development of Appraisal Theory in news discourse, especially in the aspect ofengagement since fewer people have done research on Engagement sub-system toexplore the evaluation modes in news discourse. In addition, the study may help todemonstrate how to utilize Appraisal Theory to broaden the study of news discourse.Practically, this study may offer some information for reference on what theAmerican stance is on B&R in that the study of engagement resources in the American media is expected to provide a room for people to realize and understand Americanmedia’s stance to our nation’s Belt and Road Initiative, and in some way, to help to raiseour people or even governments’ awareness and high attention to foreign media’sresponse to Chinese initiative. Besides, the study would expand the research onEngagement, a subsystem of Appraisal Theory, to explore the evaluation modes in newsdiscourse. Furthermore, it would provide a good way for readers to realize and invoketheir critical thinking to their interpersonal meanings by the application of engagementresources in discourse.
......
Chapter Two Literature Review
2.1 Overview of News Discourse
What is usually referred to the related studies is the third specific of newsdiscourse that is processed information reported on the mass media or new spaper.Actually, the classifications of news discourse are from different perspectives, such asthe news styles, news carriers, the locations of news and especially the news contents.According to Van Dijk (1988a), news discourse is generally divided into two types: hardnews and soft news. The former one is generally defined as the news reports whichreflect the fact or the truth of events without any comments or opinions. Conversely,soft news reports are filled with entertainment or background information. As for thenews contents, news discourse can also be divided into political news, economic news,sports news, cultural news and so on. According to the classification of news contents,this study selected the economic news reports on the Belt and Road as its researchsamples to explore the interpersonal meanings in the news reports in Engagementresources.
2.2 Previous Studies of News
DiscourseIn the west, from the early 20th century, news discourse has been a heated researchtopic. In the previous studies, Crystal and Davy (1969) focused on the stylistic featuresof news discourse, but did not have a detailed classification of the function of newsdiscourse. Later, from the perspective of sociolinguistics, scholars began to explore thecharacteristics or the structure of news discourse with different theoretical framework(e.g. Van Dijk 1985; Bell 1991; Fairclough 1995). Moreover, Van Dijk (1988a) definedthree different news styles: news information, news on TV and news reports in his bookNews as Discourse. Subsequently, Van Dijk (1985; 1988b) focused on the study oflanguage features of news discourse. Besides, Bell (1991) also converged on the studyof news discourse in his book The Language of News Media. He employed the theoriesof sociolinguistics and discourse analysis to study news discourse, at the same time,related analysis can be adopted in the study of mass communication, which broadensthe research in news discourse.With the development of linguistics, there emerge various analyses on newsdiscourse from different perspectives (e.g. Fowler 1991; White 1998). Critical discourseanalysis (CDA) was firstly conducted in the 1970s, which is useful to analyze theideology or to evaluate the implications in the news discourse. Fowler (1991), whofound the approach of CDA, as well as explored the news discourse from CDA. Heinvestigated how the language in the news discourse presents the ideologies in his book,from which he concluded that news is not a real reflection of real world but a highconstructive mediator. In addition, he also focused on the study of how the news isproduced and how the discourse is constructed by values or ideologies. From theperspective of SFL, White (1998) concentrated on the study of the structure of newsdiscourse and the value orientation of the author in the news discourse by means of thetheoretical framework of Appraisal Theory. Besides, it is also investigated in his bookthat the journalistic voice in the media discourse operates the evaluative keys ofdiscourse with the three different voices “reporter voice”, “correspondent voice” and “commentator voice” in different types of news discourse. Martin (2000) postulated thatthe appraisal resources can be used to the area of analyzing discourse, which can beconsidered as the framework of investigating how the writers are engaged into thediscourses or exploring of the issue of objectivity in media or other discourses. Birot(2008) explored evaluation patterns with the application of Martin’s Appraisal modalwhich consists three subsystems: affect, appreciation and judgement, which may bepresented in different degrees of concurrence in different news reports.
......
Chapter Three Theoretical Framework............... 12
3.1 Overview of Appraisal Theory....................... 12
3.2 Engagement System....................................... 14
Chapter Four Methodology................................... 20
4.1 Research Questions.........................................20
4.2 Data Collection...............................................20
4.3 Research Procedures.......................................21
4.4 Research Method............................................ 22
Chapter Five Results and Discussion....................23
5.1 Statistical Results of Engagement Resources.23
5.2 Realization of Interpersonal Meanings in News Reports on B&R.....................30
5.3 Construction of Value Stance and Realization of Persuasion in News Reports onB&R..................53
.....
Chapter Five Results and Discussion
5.1 Statistical Results of Engagement Resources
This part mainly describes the statistical results of engagement resources in total,which presents the number of engagement resources in the system of DialogicContraction and Dialogic Expansion, then according to the statistics of Table 5.1, theauthor will make a detailed analysis and explanation to the distribution of thoseengagement resources presented in the selected news discourse. The number ofengagement resources in both subsystems is presented in the following Table.From Table 5.1, it is clearly seen that the total number of engagement resources is1221. Of them, the resources of Dialogic Contraction are 694, which accounts for56.84% in the overall resources while these of Dialogic Expansion are 527, which takesup 43.16%, nearly 14 % less than these of Dialogic Contraction. According to thestatistics in Table 5.1, there are lots of engagement resources in the selected news reports, and the distribution of Dialogic Contraction and Dialogic Expansion shows thedisparity of the different engagement strategies.In a degree, the distribution of these two systems may reveal that American mediatends to employ Dialogic Contraction more than Dialogic Expansion to express authorial stance by contracting dialogic space in the selected news reports, whichimplies that the reports in American media about China’s initiative are not absolutelyobjective but reflect authorial viewpoints. As White (2003) explained, ‘dialogiccontraction’ of heteroglossic engagement shows that it allows an alternative positionthat the author holds attempting to fend off, reject it to contract the dialogic space,which emphasizes the authorial stance in the discourse. That is to say, engagementresources in the discourse not only present authorial value stance, but also reflect thenegotiation among different social semiotics. Through those resources, the author of themedia can admit, challenge, or deny others to show self-stance in the discourse (WangZhenhua & Lu Yang 2010). Thus, the larger percentage of Dialogic Contractiondemonstrates that the American media prefers to contract dialogic space in which themedia can reflect its own stance by the employment of Contraction resources. Besides,the employment of Dialogic Contraction also presents the alignment with the readers bycontracting dialogic space, so as to achieve the effect of persuasion. In section two ofthis chapter, resource distributions in Dialogic Contraction and Dialogic Expansion willbe further described and analyzed with specific examples to explore how Americanmedia realizes the interpersonal meaning, constructs values and stance with theresources.
5.2 Realization of Interpersonal Meanings in News Reports on B&R
The above section has showed the statistics of engagement resources presented inthe selected news discourse. Combined with the above statistics, this section willanalyze the specific samples to explore how American media realizes the interpersonalfunction. As Martin and White (2005) has demonstrated, the analysis of discourse is notmerely propped up by an isolated value but operates with the integrated complex ofappraisal meaning. Thus, the analysis of the following instances is primarily with thetheoretical framework Engagement system but invariably with the lexical explanationand the other two systems of Appraisal Theory.The resources of Dialogic Contraction are highly used in the selected news reports,by which the media highlights the personal stance to China’s initiative in the selectednews discourse to win over the readers’ alignment. Accordingly, the specific eng agement strategies are separately discussed in the following parts with severalinstances of Proclaim and Disclaim resources.As Martin and White (2005) mentioned, the formulation of ‘pronounce’ isconcerned with the expression by which writers or speakers intervene themselvesdirectly into the discourse, so that it can explicitly show the personal view into theformer proposition in the discourse. In the selected discourse, although it does not useadequate resources of Pronounce, it can present American media’s stance on B&R viathe use of Pronounce. In the news discourse, it includes the formulations withintensifying adjuncts (really, indeed, absolutely, particularly), the stress on the auxiliary(did) and the clause structure of showing personal view (It is clear that...). The specificexamples of pronounce resources are analyzed in the following.(1) Critics of the plan tend to view the Belt and Road as merely a trade routefor oil and minerals. Indeed [Proclaim: pronounce], the top 10 Chinese importsfrom Africa are raw materials. (The Washington Post, July 24th, 2017)This is the sample selected from the news discourse of The Washington Post whichreports the China’s initiative to Africa. In this part, it shows the contribution of the Beltand Road Initiative to the infrastructure business in Africa. When referring the China’sinvestment on railroad, airport and others, it does not focus on the reports ofachievements of the related investment, instead, it prefers to the reports of China’s imports from Africa. Just as Xin Bin’s (1998) explanation to new discourse, thestrategies of reporting the event in the news discourse are decided on the selection of thefragments about the event in the media. Here, it emphasizes the beneficiary of China’sinitiative as China itself but ignores the assistance to Africa. In the discourse, “indeed”is used to clarify the view of the media to the China’s initiative by the emphasis of onepoint. It shows the personal view that China’s initiative is merely a trade route servicedfor China’s imports. The latter clause in this instance are monogloss resources withoutthe intervene of personal stance, however, aligned with the former Pronounce resource,it subsequently emphasizes the improvement of China through obtaining naturalresources from Africa rather than the supports to Africa. From this point, ‘indeed’ inthis sample presents the authorial stance to the initiative by the personal investment. Byway of intervening authorial view, it can evoke the alignment with the implied readerswith the use of pronounce resources by contracting the dialogic space, which inclines towin over the agreement of readers.
....
Chapter Six Conclusion
With the above analysis and results, some implications are as follows.Firstly, this study concerns the news reports on the Belt and Road Initiative, which mainly explores the way to realize interpersonal meanings with the application ofEngagement system. Thus, it contributes a bit in the application of Appraisal Theory andmay broaden the views of the analysis of news discourse.Secondly, this thesis is an applied research concerning American media’s newsreports on Belt and Road Initiative. It demonstrates that the media intends to contractthe dialogic space to show more authorial stance on B&R. Thus, in a degree, this studycan raise people or even governments’ awareness to the foreign medias’ reports to theBelt and Road Initiative and realize foreign media’s stance or attitude to China.At last, this study involves the study on the construction of the alignment withreaders, so that it can provide a good way for people to comprehend the stance or theattitude of the media so as to invoke their critical thinking to the interpersonal meaningsin the news discourse.This study makes a deep study on the engagement resources in the news discourseof American media. However, there are also some limitations for the study.This study only analyzes engagement resources in news reports. Besides, the othertwo subsystems of Attitude and Graduation can also influence the realization ofinterpersonal meanings, but they are not analyzed in details in this study. Secondly, theAttitude resources or reported speech in this study does not be discussed in details,which can be further discussed in details. Thirdly, the author builds the corpus byselecting the news discourse by self and then annotates the engagement resources bymanual. Although the author annotates and examines the engagement resources one byone, it cannot ensure the complete rightness of the annotation, it may cause small deviation statistics.Therefore, there are some suggestions for thefurther studies. The study of news discourse should be adequately analyzed with the Appraisal Theory, which can have a deeper exploration to the attitude or the stance ofAmerican media. Besides, as for the subsystem of Attribute, or the reported speech inthe news discourse should be proceeded and studied in details. Last, to insure thereliability and validity of the statistics, the appraisal resources should be more carefullyannotated and cautiously examined.
参考文献（略）
参考文献（略）
