Abstract

Modality is a means for the speaker to express viewpoints on validity of the assertion and judgments of the proposals. Halliday subdivides modality into four orientations which are explicit objective orientation, explicit subjective orientation, implicit objective orientation, and implicit subjective orientation. Modality orientations are realized in different ways according to the degree of the speaker’s responsibility of the utterance. Since English is the most widely used language in the world, the impact of America and western countries on news is stronger than China’s. It is possible that the national image of China is discursively constructed by the foreign reporters so as to help Japan win supports. 30 VOA and BBC reports on Sino-Japanese relationship are collected as samples. The study explores the role of modal expressions in different orientations by calculating the rate of different kinds of modal expressions and further discusses VOA and BBC journalists’ attitudes towards these two countries for the long-lasting conflicts between them. The results demonstrate that VOA and BBC reports are inclined to adopt implicit subjective orientation and sustain Japan instead of China.

Keywords: Sino-Japanese relationship; modality; image; attitude

Contents

Abstract

摘  要

1.-Introduction-2

1.1-Literature Review-2

1.1.1 Studies on news report-2

1.1.2 Studies on modality-3

1.2-Research purposes and significances-4

1.3-Research questions-4

1.4-Thesis structure-5

2.-Modality and attitudinal meanings-6

2.1 The definition of modality-6

2.2 Modality system-6

2.3 Linguistic modal expressions-7

2.4 Modal orientations-9

2.5 Modality values-10

3.-Corpus analysis-11

3.1 The frequency of modality occurrence-11

3.2 Explicit subjective orientation-11

3.3-Explicit objective orientation-12

3.4-Implicit subjective orientation-15

3.5-Implicit objective orientation-17

4.-Conclusion-20

4.1 Major findings-20

4.2 Limitations and suggestions-21

References-22

Appendix-23