Open AccessBranding China to the World: A Pilot Study on China in the 2009 UN Copenhagen Climate Change Conference
Author(s) -
Guangfeng Chen
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
multilingual discourses
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1929-1515
DOI - 10.29173/md24837
Subject(s) - china , appraisal theory , ideology , white paper , white (mutation) , climate change , political science , sociology , psychology , social psychology , law , ecology , politics , biochemistry , chemistry , biology , gene
This study pilots an appraisal analysis of news articles on environmental reports from China Daily, with its twofold purpose to 1) examine the ideological discursive construction of China’s image in China Daily, and 2) show how attitudes encoded in news articles can be unveiled through the use of linguistic tools provided by the appraisal theory of Martin and White. The results showed that the contrast of a positive China vs. a negative US constituted a dominant pattern in the analyzed article on Copenhagen conference, which coincided with the "otherization" strategy in Western press. It is also showed that the appraisal analysis conducted in this paper was very productive and strong in revealing the image of China constructed in the China Daily news article analyzed, as well as the detailed way of the image construction through lexicogrammatical items of affect, judgment and appreciation.