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Chapter One Introduction

Chapter one will first give a brief introduction of the thesis’ research backgroundbased on which the research objective and research questions are proposed. Then theresearch significance of the present study will be elaborated. In the end, the generalstructure of the thesis will be briefly introduced.

1.1 Research Background
Evaluation, as a major function of language, has been marginalized by linguists fora long time. Until recent years, the situation has begun to change as an increasingnumber of literatures concerning evaluation emerge although they are undertaken underdifferent terms, such as connotation (Lyons, 1977), point of view (Simpson, 1993),hedging (Hyland, 1998), attitude (Halliday, 1994), metadiscourse (Hyland, 2005), stance(Conrad & Biber, 2000), evaluation (Thompson & Hunston, 2000), appraisal (Martin &White, 2005), with different perspectives and focuses but almost the same point that“whenever speakers (or writers) say anything, they encode their attitude towards it”(Stubbs, 1996: 197). In this process, diverse approaches or models have emerged andfurther developed. For example, the appraisal system, proposed by Professor Martin, is acomprehensive and well-developed framework for the study of evaluation in discourse,and has been expanded considerably since its birth in 1990s.The Appraisal Theory is an extension of the Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL)account of the interpersonal. It moves beyond the limitations of mood and modality andhas developed a lexico-grammatical framework of evaluation at the discourse semanticlevel. White (2001: 1) has defined it as “ a particular approach to exploring, describingand explaining the way languages is used to evaluate, to adopt stances, or to constructtextual personas and to manage interpersonal positioning and relationships”. The theoryprovides us with a new perspective towards discourse analysis. The appraisal systemconsists of three domains – Attitude, Engagement and Graduation. All of them can befurther divided into smaller sub-categories. Since its birth in 1990s, the Appraisal Theoryhas been applied in various kinds of discourse analysis, including school discourses,media discourses, legal discourses, literary discourses and academic discourses, to gainan in-depth look at the conventionally used evaluative strategies.
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1.2 Research Objective and Questions
The research objective of the thesis is to find out similarities and differences in thefrequencies of appraisal resources employed in English and Chinese LBRs. It will bereached by answering the following research questions:1. How are appraisal resources distributed respectively in the English and ChineseLBRs?2. What are the similarities and differences of the distributions of appraisalresources between English and Chinese LBRs?
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1.3 Research Significance
The contrastive study between English and Chinese BRs in terms of appraisalresources is significant in two aspects.Theoretically, the study on ABRs will again prove the feasibility of AppraisalTheory in discourse analysis which has been the goal of Systemic Functional Linguistics(SFL) since its birth. Appraisal Theory came into birth in 1990s and up until now it hasbeen applied to a range of genres, such as school discourses, media discourses, legaldiscourses etc. The BR genre is seldom touched in linguistic research until