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Article published In:
Language, Politics and Media: The Hong Kong Protests
Edited by Guofeng Wang and Ming Liu
[Journal of Language and Politics 21:1] 2022
► pp. 60–80

Attitudinal stance towards the anti-extradition bill movement in China Daily and South China Morning Post

A corpus-assisted comparative analysis

ORCID logo | Shanghai Normal University
| Shanghai Normal University
| Zhejiang Yuexiu University

Based on Appraisal Theory and critical discourse analysis, this corpus-assisted study examines how China Daily (CD) and South China Morning Post (SCMP) used appraisal resources to express their respective stances towards the anti-extradition bill movement. The results show that both newspapers employed negative resources of Judgement and the predication strategy to convey their stance, but SCMP seemed more refrained in the use of appraisal resources. CD openly stated that any illegal actions should be punished, and SCMP also criticised these actions. Besides, CD emphasized the consequences brought by violence and attributed the breakout of the protests to the opposition camp’s political intention for their own benefit, whereas SCMP highlighted Hong Kongers’ widespread opposition to the bill. These differences in language use and stance might be explained by the different press systems they respectively belong to and related to their respective historical and socio-political contexts.

Keywords: appraisal, news discourse, critical discourse analysis, corpus, Hong Kong, anti-extradition bill movement
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The background of the anti-extradition bill movement
  • 3.Appraisal in news discourse: A perspective of CDA
  • 4.Data and methods
  • 5.Findings
    • 5.1Analysis of illegal
    • 5.2Analysis of radical
    • 5.3Analysis of vandalised
    • 5.4Analysis of independent
  • 6.Discussion
  • 7.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 29 September 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.21021.cao
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