Luận án A study of attitude and graduation in english and Vietnamese economic newspaper articles: An appraisal approach

THE UNIVERSITY OF DA NANG UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE STUDIES VÕ NGUYỄN THÙY TRANG A STUDY OF ATTITUDE AND GRADUATION IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE ECONOMIC NEWSPAPER ARTICLES: AN APPRAISAL APPROACH DOCTORAL THESIS IN SOCIAL SCIENCE AND HUMANITIES Da Nang - 2023 THE UNIVERSITY OF DA NANG UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE STUDIES VÕ NGUYỄN THÙY TRANG A STUDY OF ATTITUDE AND GRADUATION IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE ECONOMIC NEWSPAPER ARTICLES: AN APPRAISAL APPROACH DOCTORAL THESIS IN SOCIAL SCIENCE AND HUMANITIES Major: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS Code: 92.20.201 Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. NGUYEN VAN LONG Da Nang - 2023 i STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP Except where reference is made in the text of the thesis, this thesis contains no material published elsewhere or extracted in whole or in part from a thesis by which I have qualified for or been awarded another degree or diploma. No other person‘s work has been used without due acknowledgements in the thesis. This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other tertiary institution. Da Nang, November 2023 ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The journey to the doctorate has not been as seamless as one might anticipate. There have been twists and turns as well as unforeseen obstacles. This journey has left me sweating, and at times, it has brought me to the brink of despair. However, with the greatest support, I have completed my doctoral thesis, and had a unique and enjoyable experience in its substance. To those who supported me completing this thesis, I would like to send my heartfelt thanks and appreciation. The mission would not have been accomplished without their encouragement, orientation, and support. First, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Van Long, for he is really patient, knowledgeable, and supportive during my entire research process. His informative comments, constructive critiques, and strong encouragement have been crucial in molding this thesis. Furthermore, I sincerely thank the members of my thesis committees. There were several periodic committees to evaluate the progress and quality of my thesis, even the seminar section was held online due to the social distancing during the Covid-19. Despite unexpected difficulties, the committee members spent hours giving suggestions for the improvement of the thesis. Therefore, I would like to thank them for their thoughtful suggestions, and constructive comments. Their insights and scholarly advice have greatly enhanced the level of scholarship and accuracy of this thesis. In addition, I would like to express my sincere appreciation to my peers and colleagues for their support, encouragement, and provocative discussions during the production of this thesis. This academic adventure has been more memorable and pleasurable because of their friendship and shared experiences. Last, I must give special thanks to my family for their assistance, encouragement, and unconditional support. Their belief in my abilities, and their tolerance for my mood swings have motivated throughout my academic pursuits. iii ABSTRACT The study aims at investigating and analyzing the use of evaluative language – Attitude and Graduation in English economic opinion articles (EEOAs) and Vietnamese ones (VEOAs) in the light of Appraisal Theory by Martin and White (2005). To conduct the study, from the discourse semantics approach, the descriptive research was adopted, seeking the qualitative and quantitative information to the three research questions on examining semantic features and lexicogrammatical realizations of Attitude and Graduation in EEOAs and VEOAs as well as comparing the similarities and differences in terms of semantic features and lexicogrammatical realizations of Attitude and Graduation between EEOAs and VEOAs. The data collection included 50 EEOAs and 50 VEOAs. Semantically, based on the Appraisal framework (Martin & White, 2005), the findings revealed that all subtypes of Attitude including Appreciation, Judgement and Affect were realized in EEOAs and VEOAs. In both EEOAs and VEOAs, Judgement resources accounted for the highest proportion, followed by Appreciation resources while Affect just made up a relatively small percentage. There was a tendency that writers deployed a little bit more implicit Attitude resources than explicit ones in both EEOAs and VEOAs despite the different proportions in the subtypes of Attitude in two languages and this reflected the nature of economic opinion articles. In terms of polarity of Attitude, most Attitude resources referred to more positive meanings than negative meanings due to the qualities of evaluated entities and the communicating purposes of the writers. Regarding Graduation, a semantic system of Force including Intensification and Quantification was realized, and the finding showed that more Quantification resources were used properly to up-grade or down-grade the appraised categories. In terms of lexicogrammatical realizations, explicit Attitude was grammatically realized in different functions via main forms of lexico like Verb phrases, and Adjectives while implicit Attitude was realized via Afford and Flagged. Isolated-lexemes, semantic- infusion and repetition are key means of Graduation realizations. On the basis of the findings, several implications and suggestions on related fields were put forward. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP ................................................................ i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................ ii ABSTRACT .................................................................................................... iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................... iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS ......................................... ix LIST OF FIGURES ....................................................................................... xi LIST OF TABLES ....................................................................................... xiii CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION .................................................................. 1 1.1. RATIONALE ............................................................................................. 1 1.2. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES ....................................................................... 3 1.2.1. Aims .................................................................................................... 3 1.2.2. Objectives ............................................................................................ 3 1.3. RESEARCH QUESTIONS ........................................................................ 4 1.4. SCOPE OF THE STUDY .......................................................................... 4 1.5. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY ........................................................... 5 1.6. WORKING DEFINITIONS ...................................................................... 7 1.7. ORGANIZATION OF THE DISSERTATION......................................... 7 1.8. CHAPTER SUMMARY ............................................................................ 9 CHAPTER 2. 10LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND ........................................................................................... 10 2.1. REVIEW OF PREVIOUS STUDIES ...................................................... 10 2.1.1. Appraisal ........................................................................................... 10 2.1.2. Appraisal on Media texts .................................................................. 14 2.1.3. Research gaps .................................................................................... 24 2.2. SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS .......................................... 25 v 2.3. APPRAISAL IN DISCOURSE SEMANTICS ........................................ 28 2.4. APPRAISAL FRAMEWORK ................................................................. 29 2.4.1. Attitude system ................................................................................. 30 2.4.2. Graduation system ............................................................................. 39 2.4.3. Explicitness of Attitude ..................................................................... 42 2.4.4. Lexicogrammatical realizations of Attitude and Graduation ............ 43 2.5. SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS DESCRIPTION OF VIETNAMESE ............................................................................................... 49 2.6. APPRAISAL RESOURCES IN VIETNAMESE .................................... 52 2.6.1. Resources for expressing Attitude .................................................... 52 2.6.2. Resources for expressing Graduation ............................................... 54 2.7. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ........................................................... 57 2.8. AN OVERVIEW OF ECONOMIC DISCOURSES ............................... 58 2.8.1. Economics as discourse .................................................................... 58 2.8.2. Language of economic discourses .................................................... 59 2.9. ECONOMIC OPINION ARTICLES AND LANGUAGE OF OPINION ARTICLES ...................................................................................................... 59 2.9.1. Opinion articles and economic opinion articles ................................ 59 2.9.2. Language of opinion articles ............................................................. 62 2.9.3. Journalistic voice ............................................................................... 62 2.10. CHAPTER SUMMARY ........................................................................ 63 CHAPTER 3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ........................................ 64 3.1. RESEARCH DESIGN ............................................................................. 64 3.2. RESEARCH METHODS ........................................................................ 67 3.2.1. Descriptive qualitative method ......................................................... 67 3.2.2. Comparative method ......................................................................... 69 3.3. SAMPLING ............................................................................................. 69 vi 3.3.1. Sampling method .............................................................................. 69 3.3.2. Description of Sampling ................................................................... 70 3.3.3. Annotating Attitude and Graduation ................................................. 71 3.3.4. Agreement between annotations ....................................................... 73 3.4. DATA COLLECTION............................................................................. 73 3.4.1. Source of data .................................................................................... 74 3.4.2. Time frame ........................................................................................ 75 3.5. DATA ANALYSIS .................................................................................. 75 3.5.1. Procedures of data analysis ............................................................... 75 3.5.2. Analytical framework ....................................................................... 76 3.5.3. Data coding ....................................................................................... 78 3.5.4. Qualitative analysis ........................................................................... 79 3.5.5. Quantitative analysis ......................................................................... 80 3.5.6. Comparative analysis ........................................................................ 81 3.6. RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY ........................................................... 81 3.6.1. Reliability .......................................................................................... 82 3.6.2. Validity .............................................................................................. 82 3.7. CHAPTER SUMMARY .......................................................................... 83 CHAPTER 4. ATTITUDE AND GRADUATION IN ENGLISH ECONOMIC OPINION ARTICLES .......................................................... 84 4.1. THE DEPLOYMENT OF ATTITUDE RESOURCES IN ENGLISH ECONOMIC OPINION ARTICLES .............................................................. 84 4.1.1. The proportions of Attitude resources in EEOAs ............................. 84 4.1.2. Semantic features of Attitude in EEOAs .......................................... 87 4.1.3. Realizations of Attitude in EEOAs ................................................. 109 4.1.4. Discussion on the deployment of Attitude in EEOAs .................... 126 4.1.5. Summary of the deployment of Attitude in EEOAs ....................... 129 vii 4.2. THE DEPLOYMENT OF GRADUATION IN ENGLISH ECONOMIC OPINION ARTICLES .................................................................................... 129 4.2.1. Semantic features of Graduation in EEOAs ................................... 130 4.2.2. The realizations of Graduation in EEOAs ...................................... 137 4.2.3. Discussion on the deployment of Force as Graduation in EEOAs . 149 4.2.4. Summary of the deployment of Force in EEOAs ........................... 151 4.3. CHAPTER SUMMARY ........................................................................ 151 CHAPTER 5. ATTITUDE AND GRADUATION IN VIETNAMESE ECONOMIC OPINION ARTICLES ........................................................ 152 5.1. THE DEPLOYMENT OF ATTITUDE RESOURCES IN VIETNAMESE ECONOMIC OPINION ARTICLES ................................. 152 5.1.1. The proportions of Attitude types in VEOAs ................................. 152 5.1.2. Semantic features of Attitude in VEOAs ........................................ 155 5.1.3. Realizations of Attitude in VEOAs ................................................. 174 5.1.4. Discussion on the the deployment of Attitude in VEOAs .............. 191 5.1.5. Summary of the deployment of Attitude in VEOAs....................... 193 5.2. THE DEPLOYMENT OF GRADUATION IN VIETNAMESE ECONOMIC OPINION ARTICLES ............................................................ 193 5.2.1. Semantic features of Graduation in VEOAs ................................... 193 5.2.2. The realizations of Graduation in VEOAs ...................................... 200 5.2.3. Discussion on the deployment of Force as Graduation in EEOAs . 211 5.3. SUMMARY ........................................................................................... 212 CHAPTER 6. SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES OF ATTITUDE AND GRADUATION BETWEEN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE ECONOMIC OPINION ARTICLES ........................................................ 213 6.1. SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES OF ATTITUDE DEPLOYMENT IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE ECONOMIC OPINION ARTICLES ............. 213 viii 6.1.1. A comparison of semantic features of Attitude in EEOAs and VEOAs .......................................................................................................... 213 6.1.2. A comparison of realizations of Attitude in EEOAs and VEOAs .. 218 6.2. SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES OF GRADUATION DEPLOYMENT IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE ECONOMIC OPINION ARTICLES ......... 224 6.3. CHAPTER SUMMARY ........................................................................ 226 CHAPTER 7. CONCLUSIONS ................................................................. 227 7.1. CONCLUSIONS .................................................................................... 227 7.1.1. Summary of the subject matter under research ............................... 227 7.1.2. Summary of key findings ................................................................ 228 7.2. IMPLICATIONS .................................................................................... 231 7.3. LIMITATIONS ...................................................................................... 232 7.4. SUGGESTION FOR FURTHER RESEARCH..................................... 233 REFERENCES ............................................................................................ 234 APPENDIX ix LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS Adj ................................................................................................................ Adjective Adj.P ................................................................................................... Adjective phrase Adv ................................................................................................................... Adverb Aff ......................................................................................................................Affect App .......................................................................................................... Appreciation Att .................................................................................................................... Attitude Attrib ............................................................................................................. Attribute Auxi .............................................................................................................. Auxiliary EEOAs .................................................................... English economic opinion articles E.g. .................................................................................................................Example Ex. ................................................................................................................... Explicit Gen. .................................................................................................................. General Gra. .............................................................................................................. Graduation Inten ........................................................................................................ Intensification Im. ................................................................................................................... Implicit Jud .............................................................................................................. Judgement N .......................................................................................................................... Noun N.P ............................................................................................................ Noun phrase No. ................................................................................................................... Number Par ............................................................................................................... Participant Pre.P ................................................................................................ Preposition phrase Pro .....................................................................................................................Process Quant ...................................................................................................... Quantification RQ ................................................................................................... Research Question SFL ............................................................................ Syste