A study of attitude and graduation in english and vietnamese economic newspaper articles an appraisal approach

A study of attitude and graduation in english and vietnamese economic newspaper articles an appraisal approach A study of attitude and graduation in english and vietnamese economic newspaper articles an appraisal approach A study of attitude and graduation in english and vietnamese economic newspaper articles an appraisal approach 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, semanticinfusion 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 INTRODUCTION 1.1 RATIONALE 1.2 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES 1.2.1 Aims 1.2.2 Objectives 1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS 1.4 SCOPE OF THE STUDY 1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY 1.6 WORKING DEFINITIONS 1.7 ORGANIZATION OF THE DISSERTATION 1.8 CHAPTER SUMMARY CHAPTER 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 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 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 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 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 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