A Comparative Analysis of the Attitude Resources in Chinese and US Mainstream Media Reports on the Xinjiang Cotton Controversy
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Abstract
The Xinjiang Cotton industry, which is primarily populated with Uyghur workers, has made headline news across the globe. Its discussion has important ramifications for how the world views China’s treatment of ethnic minorities. In this article, I explore how this industry and its workers are represented in one Chinese and one American newspaper. Specifically, I focus on how attitudinal choices are used in 40 news articles on the Xinjiang Cotton industry and surrounding controversies. Using Martin and White’s appraisal framework, I explore the similarities and differences between the New York Times and China Daily. Results show a comparable distribution of judgment, appreciation, and affect in both publications. However, the New York Times included more subjective and emotional positions than the China Daily. Furthermore, eight categories of representation were identified, each of which were used to present positive us-representations and negative them-representations. Moreover, strategic uses of attitude included applying affect to direct emotional messages among readers, employing judgment to increase authoritativeness, and creating opposite representations to their literal meanings. The study not only supports previous findings in the use of attitudinal resources in news discourse, but it also extends the scope of appraisal research by analyzing the representations of social and ethnic groups from a micro perspective.
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