Chapter One Introduction
1.1Research Background
The twenty-first century is an information-enamored age, in which the importance ofnews in people’s life increases by leaps and bounds. As a means of mass communication,news not only reports society in a unique fashion, but also dramatically impacts people’s life.Just like a mentor, it guides public’s opinion and educates the community. Therefore, newslanguage arouses linguists’ interest and it is studied from different perspectives, such ascritical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 1989; Fowler, 1991; van Dijk, 1988), sociolinguistics(Hartly, 1982; Bell, 1991) and pragmatics (Dor, 2003). All of them examine the complexstructures and strategies employed by reporters and reveal the social reality embedded innews, which pave the way for later studies. Moreover, economic news, as a subgenre of news,is also touched upon by scholars in different approaches, such as stylistics (Zhang Jian, 2003)and systemic function grammar (Chen Zhongzhu, 1995; Tian Fen, 2011). Especially, with theemergence of cognitive linguistics, scholars become increasingly interested in conceptualmetaphors in economic news. Until now, they’ve not only investigated the cognitive,socio-cultural, persuasive and textual cohesive functions of conceptual metaphors ineconomic news, but also disclosed the underlying ideologies embodied in them. However,currently few researches are conducted on the evaluative function of conceptual metaphors ineconomic news.In addition, with the surging growth of Chinese economy, China is put under thespotlight of the world. It attracts more and more western media’s attention, but few studiesprobe into conceptual metaphors in China-related economic news which is reported bywestern media, let alone closely examine the attitudes embedded in them. Therefore, in thispaper, under the paradigms of Conceptual Metaphor Theory and attitude system in AppraisalTheory, the evaluative function of conceptual metaphors in China-related economic news isexplored to observe how reporters facilitate potential readers comprehending abstracteconomic phenomena by resorting to conceptual metaphors, and simultaneously achievetheir communicative purpose and show their stances.
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1.2Research Questions
The major goal of the study is to investigate the evaluative function of conceptualmetaphors in China-related economic news by utilizing a corpus-based analysis. To this end,the author collects fifty pieces of China-related economic news from the famous Americanmagazine TIME, identifies, classifies and figures out the metaphorical expressions concernedwith Chinese economic phenomena in line with Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980) ConceptualMetaphor Theory. Afterwards, conceptual metaphors as different attitudinal resources arelabeled, counted and analyzed in accordance with Martin and White’s (2005) attitude systemin Appraisal Theory. Correspondingly, the following three questions are addressed:(1) What kinds of conceptual metaphors are used in China-related economic news?(2) How do conceptual metaphors as attitudinal resources realize their evaluativefunction in China-related economic news?(3) How do conceptual metaphors as different attitudinal resources distribute inChina-related economic news?
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Chapter Two Literature Review
2.1 A Brief Introduction to Economic News
Economic news, as a subgenre of news, plays a significant role in guiding people’sopinion. From the literal meaning, it is related to the news about business, economy, trade andso on. As to the definition of economic news, so far there isn’t an accurate one. Differentscholars have different opinions. For example, Dong Yuqin (1997: 7) maintains that“economic news reports the latest economic relation, economic activities and latest naturaleconomic phenomena.” Yu Zhengbang and Huang Qizhuang (1997: 28) hold the view that“economic news is valuable information reported by various media which is based on theeconomic activities happening in reality.” Wang Huaqing
