作为语篇修辞手段的评价理论——介入系统的分析

上个世纪90年代马丁等在功能语言学框架下发展起来的评价理论旨在分析语篇构建者在把语篇作为信息传递的符号的同时表达了自身怎样的态度立场,它既是一个分析语言评价潜势意义的系统,又是一种语篇分析的方法。我们认为除了这两个视角和功能,评价理论还是一种语篇修辞策略。正是基于这个视角,文章借助来自New York Times和China Daily的两篇社论就评价理论中的一个子系统———介入系统来阐述该系统的语篇修辞效果,以说明评价理论在新闻语篇中的修辞重要性。

The Appraisal Theory as a Rhetoric Approach: Take Engagement System as an Example

Under the framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics,the Appraisal Theory developed by Martin et al.in 1990s originally tries to tackle the problems like what stance does the author hold,how does the author express his/her stance,and to what degree does the author express the stance.In this perspective,the Appraisal Theory is both a meaning potential system as well as a discourse analysis approach,namely,the Appraisal Discourse Analysis(ADA).What Martin et al.didn’t manifest is that the theory also shows great power in the discourse rhetoric strategies,especially protruding in news media discourses.Based on such an assumption,this paper tries to analyze the system of Engagement,one of the three subsystems in Appraisal Theories,unfolding its rhetorical effects.By analyzing two editorials from New York Times and China Daily,we exemplify to illustrate the rhetorical power possessed by the Appraisal Theory.