This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Liu Lihua Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Discourse construction of social power: interpersonal rhetoric in editorials of the China Daily

BEIJING FOREIGN STUDIES UNIVERSITY, UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, BEIJING, CHINA, llihua08{at}yahoo.com.cn

Based on systemic functional linguistics, and especially newly developed appraisal theory, this study uses editorials from the China Daily to investigate patterns of interpersonal rhetoric devised to construct and shape public opinion. Attitudinal lexis and modal expressions are examined separately with the object of discovering how editorials communicate their evaluation of their subject matter. This article contends that the author of an editorial is more likely to be explicit in evaluating events and implicit in evaluating behaviour and that he/she seldom attributes attitudes to other sources. Modality occurs frequently in editorial discourse. Modal expressions of certainty, necessity and obligation (as realized by will, should, need to, have to, must) are particularly common and indicate the authority and power nature of the discourse. Modal expressions of obligation/necessity normally occur at the end of the text in order to make the most powerful possible appeal to the reader.

Key Words: China Daily • construction • editorial • evaluation • interpersonal rhetoric

Discourse Studies, Vol. 11, No. 1, 59-78 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/1461445608098498


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?