MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

QUY NHON UNIVERSITY

VĂN THỊ THIÊN NGA

TWO STORIES FOR THE SAME HAPPENINGS?

A JOURNALISTIC VOICE STUDY OF ENGLISH
WRITTEN NEW REPORTS ON EAST SEA TENSION ON
CHINESE AND VIETNAMESE ONLINE NEWSPAPERS

Field: The English Language

Code: 60.22.02.01

MASTER THESIS IN ENGLISH

Supervisor: Dr. Võ Duy Đức

BINH DINH - 2015

 BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐẠO TẠO
TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC QUY NHƠN

VĂN THỊ THIÊN NGA

HAI CÂU CHUYỆN CHO CÙNG MỘT DIỄN BIẾN?

PHONG CÁCH BÁO CHÍ SỬ DỤNG TRONG BẢN
TIN TIẾNG ANH VỀ CĂNG THẲNG BIỂN ĐÔNG
TRÊN BÁO MẠNG VIỆT NAM VÀ TRUNG QUỐC

Chuyên ngành: Ngôn ngữ Anh

Mã số: 60.22.02.01

LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ TIẾNG ANH

Người hướng dẫn: TS. Võ Duy Đức

BÌNH ĐỊNH - Năm 2015

 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Completing this thesis research would have been impossible for me

without the support and assistance from many people. I would like to express
my sincere gratitude and respect to all of them.

First and foremost, my deepest gratitude goes to the most important

person, my supervisor, Dr. Vo Duy Duc for his professional instruction and
constant encouragement. I am really thankful for his acceptance to be my
supervisor in his expertise – Appraisal Theory. Thanks to his materials, his
hearted guidance from the very first day of my journey to the last chapter of
this thesis, his detailed feedbacks on every piece of my paper, my thesis was
finally successfully accomplished.

My special thanks also go to Dr. Peter R. R. White, who was very

enthusiastic in his every lecture of Stylistics which introduced and inspired
me to conduct a research with Appraisal Theory.

I would like to thank Dr. Nguyen Quang Ngoan who gave me

comments and recommend on my thesis proposal.

Finally, my heartfelt appreciation goes to my close friends and my

family who are always beside me and give me spiritual support in studying.
 STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP
I certify that this thesis titled “Two stories for the same happenings? A
journalistic voice study of English written news reports on East Sea tension
on Chinese and Vietnamese online newspapers” is absolutely my original
work towards the Degree of Master of the English language.

The thesis contains no material previously published or written by

another person except where the reference is made in the text.

This thesis does not incorporate with any material previously submitted
for a degree or diploma in any university without acknowledgment.

Quy Nhơn, August, 2015

Văn Thị Thiên Nga

 ABSTRACT

The aim of this thesis is to explore the journalistic voices as well as

compare and contrast the properties of these journalistic styles operating in
Chinese – Vietnamese hard news reports written in English in online
newspapers. The study focuses on news reports relating to escalating tension
on East Sea during the summer of 2014 in the online edition of two
newspapers: China Daily and Việt Nam News. In this study, the combination
of qualitative and quantitative approaches is used as a dominant method.
Besides, the system of journalistic voices framework developed by Martin &
White (2005) under Appraisal Theory serves as the fundamental framework to
conduct the research. The findings obtained from the analysis show that hard
news reports of both sources were written in a Commentator voice. Besides,
Judgement as a sub-type of Attitude is the prominent values found in the two
corpora. All instances found in the data are observed Affect which occurs at
low frequency, and most of Appreciation used is negative. Although the two
corpora share the same voice as well as some similarities, they are different in
the distribution of Appraisal values leading to the difference in terms of
objectiveness and subjectiveness. Based on the results of data analysis, some
implications and suggestions for further study were drawn out.
 TABLE OF CONTENT

SUB-COVER Page
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP
ABSTRACT
TABLE OF CONTENT
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
LIST OF TABLES
LIST OF FIGURES

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .................................................................. 1

1.1. Rationale of the study ............................................................................ 1

1.2. Aims and objectives ............................................................................... 3

1.2.1. Aims of the study ............................................................................ 3
1.2.2. Objectives ....................................................................................... 3

1.3. Significances of the study ...................................................................... 4

1.4. Scope of the study .................................................................................. 4

1.5. Research questions ................................................................................. 4

1.6. Design of the study ................................................................................ 5

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW...................................................... 7

2.1. Genre in media newspaper discourse ..................................................... 7

2.1.1 Approach to genre ............................................................................ 7
2.1.2 News reports as media genres ......................................................... 9
2.1.3. Subjectivity and objectivity in media discourse ............................ 11
 2.2. Appraisal and the system of journalistic voices ................................... 12
2.2.1. Appraisal – The language of evaluation ....................................... 12
2.2.2. Attitude .......................................................................................... 14
2.2.2.1 Judgement ........................................................................... 15
2.2.2.2 Affect ................................................................................... 18
2.2.2.3 Appreciation ........................................................................ 20
2.2.3. Engagement ................................................................................... 21
2.2.4. Graduation .................................................................................... 23
2.2.5. The system of journalistic voices .................................................. 26

2.3. Related studies on news reports & authorial voice .............................. 30

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY............................................................... 33

3.1. Research methods................................................................................. 33

3.2. Data collection ..................................................................................... 34

3.3. Data analysis ........................................................................................ 38

3.4. Reliability and validity in the research ................................................ 40

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ......................................... 41

4.1. Introduction .......................................................................................... 41

4.2. The overall usage of Attitudinal values in VNNs and CNNs .............. 42

4.3. Patterns of occurrence of Judgement in VNNs and CNNs .................. 44

4.3.1. Patterns of occurrence of inscribed authorial Judgement and
token of Jugdement in VNNs and CNNs ................................................. 45
4.3.2. Social Sanction and Social Esteem in VNNs and CNNs ............... 50
4.3.3. Positive and negative Judgement in VNNs and CNNs.................. 56
4.3.4. The Appraised in authorial Judgement in VNNs and CNNs ........ 59
 4.4. Patterns of occurrence of Affect in VNNs and CNNs ......................... 62
4.4.1. Authorial Affect and observed Affect ............................................ 62
4.4.2. The Appraised in Affect in VNNs and CNNs ................................ 66

4.5. Patterns of occurrence of Appreciation in VNNs and CNNs .............. 68

4.5.1. Positive and negative Appreciation in VNNs and CNNs .............. 68
4.5.2. The Appraised in Appreciation in VNNs and CNNs ..................... 72

4.6. Force in VNNs and CNNs ................................................................... 74

4.6.1. Intensification and Quantification in VNNs and CNNs ................ 74
4.6.2. Isolating and infused Intensification in VNNs and CNNs ............ 77

4.7. Patterns of occurrence of Attribution in VNNs and CNNs ................. 81

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATION .............................. 87

5.1. Conclusions .......................................................................................... 87

5.2. Implications .......................................................................................... 92

5.3. Limitations ........................................................................................... 93

5.4. Suggestions for further research .......................................................... 93

REFERENCES .............................................................................................. 94

APPENDIX .................................................................................................... 99
 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

CNNs: Hard news reports on East Sea tension in China Daily.

In. J.: inscribed Judgement
Obs. Aff: observed Affect
SE: Social Esteem
SS: Social Sanction
Token. J.: token of Judgement
VNNs: Hard news reports on East Sea tension in Việt Nam News
(+): positive
(-): negative
 LIST OF TABLES

Table
Title Page
number
2.1 The main types of Genre 9
3.1 Two corpora of the research 35
4. 1. Sub-types of Attitude values in the VNNs and CNNs 42
4.2. Frequency of occurrence of inscribed Judgements 46
4.3. Inscribed and token of Judgement in VNNs and CNNs 47
4.4. Types of Judgement in VNNs and CNNs 54
Distribution of Social Esteem and Social Sanction of
4.5 55
Judgement in VNNs and CNNs
The distribution of positive and negative Judgment in
4.6 56
VNNs and CNNs
4.7 The Appraised in Judgement values in VNNs and CNNs 61
Authorial Affect and observed Affect in CNNs and
4.8 63
VNNs
Distribution of the Appraised in Affects in CNNs and
4.9 68
VNNs
4.10 Positive and negative Appreciation in VNNs and CNNs 68
The Appraised in terms of Appreciation in VNNs and
4.11 72
CNNs
4.12 Distribution of Intensification and Quantification 74
4.13 Distribution of the sub-categories of Quantification 75
4.14 Intensification values in VNNs and CNNs 80
Distribution of authorial material and non-authorial
4.15 81
material
 LIST OF FIGURES

Figure
Title Page
number
2.1 Appraisal system 14
2.2 Typology of Attitude sub-systems 15
2.3 Engagement sub-categories 23
2.4 The system of authorial voices 27
2.5 The system of journalistic voices 28
4.1 Frequency of Attitude values in VNNs and CNNs 43
4.2 Inscribed and token of Jugdement in VNNs and CNNs 47
4.3 Types of Judgement in VNNs and CNNs 54
4.4 The distribution of positive and negative Judgment 56
4.5 Positive and negative Appreciation in VNNs and CNNs 69
The distribution of Isolating and Infused in VNNs and
4.6 80
CNNs
The distribution of authorial and external material in
4.7 82
VNNs and CNNs
 1

CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION

1.1. Rationale of the study

The thousand – year history of our Vietnamese nation has witnessed
many wars of resistance. Vietnamese people have had to constantly struggle
against foreign invaders instead of living in stable peace. Fortunately, no
matter how strong and cunning the enemies were, they could never defeat the
wave of patriotism as well as the spirit of resistance of such an undaunted
nation. All of them must incur the worst failures which were evidently
recorded by the national history. What has been imprinted in the history is
undeniable and unchangeable. Amongst the persistent foes who have ever
received painful lessons for all that aggression, the most dangerous is none
other than our northern neighboring country – China. It seems that China has
never abandoned the desire to invade our country. The government of China
has always claimed to the world that they not only love peace but do favor a
good friendship with other neighboring countries in the region as well;
however, it has undertaken actions that go against its words. Since we lost
control of Gac Ma, which was illegally occupied by China in 1988, our East
Sea once again has waved up. On May 2nd 2014, China moved Haiyang
Shiyou 981 oil rig into the East Sea to conduct exploratory drilling and placed
it at locations which lie deep inside Vietnam’s maritime zone. According to
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Vietnam, despite Vietnam’s consistent and
resolute protest against China’s actions that violate Vietnam’s sovereign
rights and jurisdiction over its exclusive economic zone and continental shelf
through dialogue, China continues to aggressively provoke war in response. It
is China’s illegal activities that escalated tension in the region.
 2

Being a Vietnamese, I know thoroughly the maritime sovereignty and

exclusive economic zone of my country. The Paracel archipelago and the
Spratly archipelago have been under Vietnamese sovereignty at least since the
17th century. Thus it is obvious that China’s illegal acts in East Sea not only
seriously violate Vietnamese sovereignty, disregard the basic principles of
international law but also pose a threat to the peace of the region in particular
and to the world peace in general.
Press is the shortest way to bring all the world information to each
community. At the same time, press is a tool for spreading news and events
around the world most broadly. Since China’s aggressive actions, causing
tensions in the East Sea, is fully recognized by many countries around the
world, East Sea tension is attracting public and the media both domestically
and internationally. With a view to monopolizing the East Sea, apart from
maritime strategy, China has been arguably trying to distort the truth of East
Sea issue in the eyes of its citizens within media battlefields. It is beyond any
doubt that China has purposefully withhold accurate information about East
Sea tension and incessantly stuffed misleading information to the Chinese
people so as to create the illusion of sovereignty in this area. Moreover, China
has constantly distributed coverage with illogical allegation, slandered
Vietnam of escalating current tension in the field, as well as stated Chinese
sovereignty in the Paracel archipelago of Vietnam.
In the explosive era of information technology, means of
communication likes newspapers especially online newspapers have a
significant influence on both the informative communication and the
perception of readers all over the world. Hypothetically, in order to
materialize China’s ambition, Chinese press has joined hands with its
government by distributing misleading information of the sovereignty of East
 3

Sea and making up stories of East Sea tension. The question is how such an
illegal action is linguistically realized. Do Chinese journalists write new
stories in a writing style that Martin and White (2005) see as Reporter Voice
or do they offer comments on the happenings? Similarly, do Vietnamese
writers, in dealing with the same happenings report only the truth to help the
world properly understand what actually is happening in East Sea so as to
take advantage of international support? Hence, the study of journalistic style
of domestic news reports vis à vis foreign news reports not only is necessary
but also offers practical significance, especially in current East Sea tension.
For all the above reasons, I choose the title “Two stories for the same
happenings? A journalistic voice study of English written news reports on
East Sea tension on Chinese and Vietnamese online newspapers” for my
research.
1.2. Aims and objectives
1.2.1. Aims of the study
This research aims to carry out an investigation into the journalistic
styles as well as compare and contrast the properties of the journalistic voices
operating in Chinese - Vietnamese news reports written in English dealing
with East Sea tension in online newspapers.
1.2.2. Objectives
To achieve the stated aims, the thesis will focus on the following
objectives:
- Analyzing the journalistic voices operating throughout Chinese -
Vietnamese news reports written in English on East Sea tension drawing on
Appraisal Theory with the system of journalistic voices developed by Martin
and White (2005)
 4

- Identifying the similarities and differences between journalistic voices

operating in English news reports in Chinese – Vietnamese online newspapers
on East Sea tension in the light of Appraisal Theory.
1.3. Significances of the study
The study makes contributions to the field of media analysis both
theoretically and practically, with particular reference to journalistic voices
operating in a media discourse. Also, it provides several sources of materials
for further research. Besides, it offers implications for teaching English for
journalism as well as translation studies of journalism.
1.4. Scope of the study
This thesis particularly focuses on journalistic voices operating in
Chinese and Vietnamese news reports written in English. To be more specific,
the coverage focuses only on East Sea tension between Vietnam and China
from May to July in the summer of 2014. Only 50 news texts that conform to
the data collection criteria (25 texts in each newspaper) were chosen from one
hundreds of texts downloaded from the online edition of two prestigious
newspapers of each country: Việt Nam News and China Daily. The choice of
the online sources rather than the printed ones was on the ground that the data
could be easily and freely downloaded.
In order to explore the journalistic voices operating in the data within
the time constraint, the study made an analysis of Attitude values, Force as
sub-type of Graduation and Attribution as sub-type of Engagement. The
reasons for choosing such sub-types to analyze are explained in Chapter 4.
1.5. Research questions
In order to fulfill the objectives above, the thesis focuses on two
research questions as follows:
 5

1. Which journalistic voices operate in English news reports in Chinese and

Vietnamese online newspapers dealing with East Sea tension?
2. What are the similarities and differences between these journalistic voices
in the light of Appraisal Theory?
1.6. Design of the study
Apart from the abstracts, the appendix, and the references, the
organization of current research is designed as follows:
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
This chapter presents an introduction of the study. It covers the
rationale, aims and objectives, scope of study, significance of study, research
questions, and the organization of the paper.
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter comprises the review of literature of the established
theories and the studies related to research area.
CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY
This chapter deals with the methodology and procedures of the study.
Specifically, it focuses on the methods utilized to collect and analyze the data
as well as to conduct the research.
CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
This chapter investigates in detail the journalistic voices operating in
English news reports of China and Vietnam based on the Appraisal
framework of Martin and White (2005). It presents and describes the results
of the data analysis. The discussion and interpretation of findings are also
included in this chapter.
 6

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

This concluding chapter summarizes the main findings which satisfy
the research questions as well as provides some implications and suggestions
on further research of the study.
 7

CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter aims to provide a brief overview of some theoretical

backgrounds as foundation for the theory applied to conduct current research
as well as the literature review on relevant studies.
2.1. Genre in media newspaper discourse
2.1.1 Approach to genre
The notion of genre is construed in varied ways on the basis of
disciplinary orientations. Martin (1984, p. 25) conceives genre as “a staged,
goal-oriented, purposeful activity in which speakers engage as members of
our culture”. According to Swales (1990, p. 58), “a genre comprises a class
of communicative events, the members of which share some set of
communicative purposes”. These communicative events, as Swales contends,
are characterized by their communicative purposes and their varieties of
linguistics pattern, including structure, content and intended audience. Gill
and Whedbee (1997, p. 163) define genre as “a group of texts that share specific
discursive features”, while Ljung (2000, p. 132) defines it as “groupings of texts
which display some kind of similarity … linguistic, functional…”. Texts
belonging to similar text types can be realized as different genres, e.g., recipes
and operating instructions. Vestergaard argues that (2000, as cited in
Mugumya, 2013, p. 20) although novel and news articles belong to the
narrative type they are different genres. Bhatia (2004) and van Leuween
(2008) share the same view that a communicative event or text designed to
achieve specific communicative goals in a conventionalized setting.
 8

Genre analysis is based on three main schools: the New Rhetoric, the
Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), and the English for Specific Purposes
(ESP), all of them are discussed in detail below:
The New Rhetoric is a school which comes from the North American
scholars, and it has been focused on the discourse communities within which
genres are enacted. The tradition arose mainly from research on writing in
schools, at places of work and academic writing. In this school, genre is
perceived as a social action. Miller (1984), one of the leading figures in this
school accentuates social action has equally influenced the American
tradition. Accordingly, most of the research on genre in this school is
concerned with first language (L1) teaching including rhetoric, composition
studies and professional writing (Hyon 1996, as cited in Vo, 2011, p. 21).
The second school of genre to discuss here is the English for Specific
Purposes tradition (the ESP school). Two influential figures of this school are
John Swales (1990) and Vijay Bhatia (2004). Swales’s definition of genre
mentioned above places emphasis on a discourse community who shares
communicative purposes and these purposes shape the content and style of
genre. According to Hyland (2002), the ESP paradigm aims to analyze genres
not only for purposes of teaching written and spoken English to L1 and non-
native speakers, but developing training materials for university students and
professionals as well.
Last but not least, the Australian tradition which is anchored in
systemic functional linguistics (The SFL School) developed by a group of
linguists at the University of Sydney. That is why it is also known as the
Sydney School which has played an important role in literacy programmes
and the school curriculum in Australia. Martin (1984) is a leading figure of
the SFL school. According to his definition previously mentioned, genre is a
 9

socio-cultural activity including several stages that speakers have to go

through so as to achieve their goals. “Genre analysis in the context of this
school is the analysis of stages through which a text unfolds (i.e. macro-level)
as well as the analysis of lexico-grammatical items (i.e. micro-level)” (Vo,
2011). SFL views language as a resource for making meaning descriptions
which are based on extensive analyses of written or spoken texts (Halliday,
1994).
2.1.2. News reports as media genres
According to the category for the media texts provided by Iedema, Feez
and White (1994), there are different sub-genres of media. As illustrated in
Table 2.1, types of media genres are classified subject to different functions
they serve.
Table 2.1. The Main Types of Media Genres (Iedema et al., 1994, p. 78)

Genre Purpose
agnate to story (‘hard’) new chronicling and indicating their social relevance
genres story
media chronicling and indicating (sharing) their moral
exemplum relevance
media
chronicling events and sharing experiences
anecdote
chronicling events and elaborating their
media feature
significance
agnate to factual media presenting (aspects of) a view or judgement
genres exposition regarding an issue
media
arguing against a view, an issue or proposal
challenge
media
survey different views on an issue
discussion
agnate to review Reporting on the history of a thing, a person or a
Media review
genres place
 10

In a little more detail, there are varied genres in media discourse such
as news reports, editorials, reviews, comments, letters to editor, etc. Each type
of these media genres is written for a particular communicative purpose and
ultimately represents a unique and distinctive form of language as well as
textual organization of thoughts and the fact (Sabao, 2013a). In regard to the
term of purpose, the hard news and the commentary are rhetorically opposed
to each other. For instance, a hard news report has the mission of reporting the
happenings and indicating their social relevance as objectively as possible,
while commentary deals with opinions or evaluates those events. Hence, the
characterization of news reports is low personal involvement of the authorial
voice, in contrast with the higher degree of subjectivity presence in such an
overt evaluative discourse - commentary.
The current study focuses on the hard news genre within newspaper
discourse, more specifically, English written hard news reports which present
the issue of East Sea tension. As mentioned above, news report is a kind of
media genre which reports on events that took place out there in the real
world and indicates their relevance. According to Ochi (2006), hard news
reporting is one of the registers occurring in media discourse, and it is
considered field-oriented because of its social purpose – reporting events.
Hard news coverage usually involves accidents, disasters, protests, crimes,
warfare, and similar events. Furthermore, hard new reports must typically
report nothing but the fact. Mc Cabe and Heliman (2007) deem that when
author writes a hard news report, he/ she will not tend to linguistically encode
any Judgement. Thus, with regard to the notion of media objectivity, hard
news story avoids any authorial opinion, presents just the fact and steers away
from the expressions of authorial subjectivity. The notions of objectivity and
subjectivity are further discussed in the next section.
 11

2.1.3. Subjectivity and objectivity in media discourse

Iedema et al (1994) believe the Appraisal system is introduced in order
to explore “objectivity” and “subjectivity” in journalistic discourse and to
explore how the different voices of sub-registers of journalistic discourse can
be seen to vary according to their different uses of Appraisal values. These
two notions are widely discussed in media analysis in relation to the authorial
presence in news coverage. They also state that being objective in media texts
means reporting what has been seen and what can be supported by means of
what others have to say, while being subjective means including personal
thoughts, judgements and feelings.
Scheff et al. (2006) define subjectivity as the reflection of objects or
concepts from the point of view of a subject as one perceives it. On the other
hand, objectivity is the neutral reflection of knowledge free from the
perception of any subject. In the same vein, on the linguistic level, Fairclough
(1992, p. 159) claims that “if the speaker/writer codes his/her attitude towards
the validity of knowledge (at any degree of reliability) overtly, it is subjective;
however, if this attitude is obscured linguistically, it gives an impression that
the knowledge conveyed does not belong to the speaker/writer directly, thus
becoming objective”.
It is worth noting that journalists are expected to convey news
objectively by avoiding encoding any Judgement. However, Alysen, Sedorkin
and Oakham (2003, p. 169) argue that “Of course, journalists’ own opinions
do creep into reports ...”. So, these authors agree that journalists do implicitly
voice their opinions in their reported news. According to White (1997),
although hard news is characterized as being factual and objective, reporters
take a subjective stance towards the event or issue being reported, and this
 12

stand is a “veiled” stance. Sharing the same view, Pounds (2010, p. 107)
states “through the analysis of newspaper writing as a form of discourse, it
has been widely demonstrated that all journalism is ultimately opinion
journalism in that it is always possible to detect signs of authorial stance even
in the so-called hard news reporting which is clearly marked as such (e.g.
‘news’ or ‘report’ in English)”. After all, objectivity is a rhetorical effect that
naturalizes the biases in news reports. (Ochi, 2006).
To sum up, within media discourse, the subjective text employs explicit
value of Judgement. Conversely, in the strictly objective text, there are no
explicit evaluative expressions, or if they exist they are backgrounded or
naturalized. Basing on their earliest published account of the Judgement
found in the study of the language of the news, Iedema et al. (1994) continue
to develop a system of authorial voices which is discussed in detail in the
following section.
2.2. Appraisal and the system of journalistic voices
2.2.1. Appraisal – The language of evaluation
Appraisal is defined as “a particular approach to exploring, describing
and explaining the way language is used to evaluate, to adopt stances, to
construct textual personas and to manage interpersonal positionings and
relationships.” (White, 2001, as cited in Vo, 2011, p. 26)
Appraisal framework was first developed by Martin (1996, 2000),
White (1997), and then further developed by Martin and White (2005).
This framework is used to analyze the language of evaluation. In other
words, it is used to investigate how the writers or speakers express their
attitudes and how they establish a certain authorial identity (Martin & White,
2005). The framework of evaluative language is developed within SLF theory
which aims to describe the various ways of linguistic realization of
 13

interpersonal meanings in language use. Martin and White (2005) also

maintain that Appraisal is one of three major discourse semantic resources
accounting for interpersonal meaning. It is used to negotiate our social
relationships by expressing how the speaker/ writer feels about things, people,
places, events to the listener/ reader. Besides, by Appraisal values, the degree
of intensity and preciseness of an utterance can be achieved (Vo, 2011).
Martin and White (2005)’s Appraisal Theory includes three main sub-
systems, namely Attitude, Engagement and Graduation. Each of these sub-
systems is, in turn, divided into sub-types. Specifically, Attitude, which refers
to feelings, including emotional reactions, judgments of behavior and
evaluation of things, is divided into three categories: Affect, Judgement and
Appreciation. As Martin and White (2005) state, Graduation values are
resources which we use for expressing the degree of an evaluation – strength
of our feeling. Graduation is subdivided into Force (raising or weakening the
degree of evaluation) and Focus (adjusting the strength of boundaries between
categories in the context of non-gradable). On the other hand, Engagement
deals with the linguistic resources for positioning the speakers/writers’ voice
around opinions in discourse. There are two main types of utterances within
the system of Engagement: monogloss and heterogloss. The outline of the
Appraisal framework by Martin and White (2005) is presented below.
 14

Figure 2.1. Appraisal system (Martin & White, 2005, p. 38)

As shown in Figure 2.1, the theory of Appraisal proposes a taxonomy

which consists of the systems of Attitude, Engagement and Graduation. All of
these semantic areas of Appraisal are, in turn, discussed in detail in the
following sections.
2.2.2. Attitude
According to Martin and White (2005), the system of Attitude refers to
the resources by which speakers express their feelings or the feelings they
observed; positively or negatively evaluate human behavior; and offer the
evaluation of things. It consists of three key semantic domains, namely
Affect, Judgement, and Appreciation as outlined in Figure 2.2.
 15

Figure 2.2. Typology of Attitude sub-systems.

(Liu & Thompson, 2009, p. 3)
2.2.2.1 Judgement
Judgement values are concerned with the act of judging people in terms
of their characters and social behaviors in the discourse. Martin and White
(2005, p. 42) claim that Judgement “deals with attitudes towards behaviour,
which we admire or criticize, praise or condemn”. The realization of
Judgements is presented as follows:

1. abverbial – justly, fairly, virtuosly, honestly, pluckily, indefatigably,

cleverly, stupidly, eccenttically
2. attributes and epithets – a corrupt politician, that was dishonest, don’t
be cruel, she’s very brave, he’s indefatigable, a skilful performer, truly
eccentric behavior
 16

3. nominals – a brutal tyrant, a cheat and a liar, a hero, a genius, a

maverick
4. verbs – to cheat, to deceive, to sin, to lust after, to chicken out, to
triumph
(White, 2001, as cited in Nguyen, 2014, p. 27)

Judgement values can be realized either directly or implicitly. Thus,

they are classified into two types: explicit/inscribed Judgement and implicit/
evoked/ invoked Judgement (or tokens of Judgement). With explicit
Judgements, the evaluation is overtly indicated by means of lexical items,
typically adjective such as: cruel, agressive, normal, coward, etc. On the
contrary, implicit values of Judgement are realized through ideational
meanings, lexical metaphors, and non-core vocabulary items. The
exemplification is provided below in which implicit Judgement is underlined,
and explicit Judgement is in bold.

Example 2.1:
China ships gang up on VN vessels
Updated June, 04 2014 08:18:00
[…Vietnamese fishermen have maintained normal operations in other
traditional fishing grounds in Viet Nam's waters about 18-20 nautical miles
from the rig, despite regular intimidation from the Chinese side.
Yesterday, the oil rig maintained a position at 15 degrees 33 minutes 36
seconds north latitude and 111 degrees 34 minutes 11 seconds east longitude.
This is 25 nautical miles from Tri Ton Island in Viet Nam's Hoang Sa
archipelago - and completely within Viet Nam's continental shelf.
Since early May, Chinese ships have continuously encircled, constrained or
driven away Vietnamese fishing boats and even injured Vietnamese
fishermen, threatening their lives.
 17

A Chinese ship on May 26 even sank a Vietnamese fishing vessel with 10

fishermen on board in Viet Nam's waters…]

Judgement is subdivided in two major groups: Social Esteem (SE) and

Social Sanction (SS). In Martin and White (2005)’s theory, Social Esteem
may enhance or damage a person’s image by the writer’s judgement of
admiration or criticism. It includes the notions of human “Normality” (how
special someone is), “Capacity” (how capable they are), and “Tenacity”
(how resolute they are). Social Sanction, on the other hand, relates to issues
of morality (sins), legality (crimes) or condemnation. It is divided into two
sub-categories: “Veracity” (how truthful someone is) and “Propriety” (how
ethical someone is) – the domain of right and wrong, good and evil, which is
the system of moral regulation.

Example 2.2:
Vietnam fooling (propriety, SS) no one
Updated: 2014-06-13 07:40
[Hanoi should stop fabricating (veracity, SS) evidence and trying to renege on
its recognition that Xisha Is lands are part of China's sovereign territory
(veracity, SS)
Continuous actions (tenacity, SE) taken by Vietnam since early May
disturbing (propriety, SS) the normal drilling (normality, SE) of a Chinese oil
rig in the waters off Zhongjian Island, which belongs to China's Xisha Islands,
have compromised China's sovereignty, sovereign rights, right of jurisdiction
and the safety of the operating platform. (propriety, SS)
Given that its rashness (tenacity, SE) has enlisted the support of the United
States, Japan and the Philippines and has also caught the eye (capacity, SE) of
some other countries, Hanoi has thus tried to play up (veracity, SS) the so-
called Xisha Islands dispute (veracity, SS) by holding press conferences and
 18

listing heaps of specious historical and legal bases to boost its groundless
claims.(veracity, SS.)…]
In the example above Social Sanction is in bold, while Social Esteem is
in bold and underlined.
2.2.2.2 Affect
Affect resources are used for expressing positive or negative feelings
about people, things, events. In other words, it is a resource by which
writers/speakers indicate emotions. This is not only the author’s own
emotions, but also the emotions of characters within the text. The former is
termed authorial Affect, and the latter is observed Affect.

Example 2.3:
China, Vietnam hold talks on recent anti-China violence
By Xinhua. Updated: 2014-05-17 10:56
[…While urging for continued investigation into the violence and harsh
punishment of all perpetrators, Liu also demanded Vietnam take resolute and
effective measures to immediately prevent violent actions to make sure that
similar acts do not recur and protect the safety of the lives and property of all
Chinese nationals and organizations in the country.
For his part, Vietnamese Deputy Foreign Minister Pham Quang Vinh once
again expressed his regret for the losses of lives and properties of the Chinese
side…]

In Example 2.3, two items of Affect are in bold and underlined.

Obviously, both of them are not authorial Affect, for they are not the
emotional response of the journalist but the emotional reaction observed and
reported by the journalist. So, they are instances of observed Affect.
 19

Similar to Judgements, feelings can be expressed directly or can be

inferred indirectly from one’s emotional reaction, so we have overt Affect and
covert Affect.

Example 2.4:
- I am disappointed that no measures were taken to solve the problem.
(overt Affect)
- That is my greatest disappointment. ( cover Affect - something that
causes me to be disappointed)

Affectual meanings are realized through various lexical items. They

can be adjectives and adverbs as quality, verbs of mental process, adjunct as
comment as in the following examples:

Example 2.5:
- Adjective: “a sad captain.”
- Adverb: “The captain left sadly”
- Verb of emotion: “his departure upset him”
- Modal Adjunct: “Sadly, he had to go”
(Martin and White, 2005, p. 46)

Martin and White (2005) divide Affect into four sub-groups as follows:
+ Un/Happiness is concerned with the feelings of happiness or sadness, for
example: whimper, cry, wail, miserable, dislike, hate, cheer, cheerful, rejoice,
be fond of, hug, love, adore and so on.
+ In/Security is concerned with feelings of peace and anxiety in relation to
our environs, including of course the people sharing them with us, for
example: restless, anxious, anxious, confident, trusting, declare, together,
assert confident, proclaim assured, entrust, trusting and so on.
 20

+ Dis/Satisfaction deals with the feelings of achievement and frustration of

emotion in relation to the activities in which we are engaged, including our
roles as both participants and spectators, for instance: fidget,caution,
compliment, reward, absorbed, engrossed, satisfied, pleased and so on.
+ Dis/inclination (also known as desire) deals with the desire of something,
for example, words related to fear like wary, terrorize, fearful, tremble,
shudder, cower, unwanted or words related to desire like demand, keen, miss,
long for, yearn for and so on.
2.2.2.3 Appreciation
Appreciation is the final Attitudinal sub-type used for evaluating
aesthetically the entities, processes, and states of affairs. As can be seen from
Figure 2.2, Appreciation has three sub-types: Reaction, Composition and
Valuation.
It is useful to distinguish Appreciation from Judgement and
Appreciation from Affect. Obviously, Judgement is concerned with
assessments of human behaviour, while Appreciation construes the value of
things or aesthetic appearance of people. For instance, adjective ‘nice’ in ‘a
nice girl’ is the value of Judgement which is a quality attributed to the girl;
meanwhile, nice in ‘a nice house’ evaluates the house. Another example to
differentiate between Appreciation and Judgement is provided below:

Example 2.6:
- She is a nice girl. She likes to help out people. (Judgement, Social
Sanction, Propriety)
- She is a nice girl. Most of men get a crush on her at first sight.
(Appreciation, Reaction, quality)
 21

In Example 2.7, “skill” has different coding in those examples. The

behavior of the participant is the target of Judgement as in (1) and (2). In this
case, the author applies the value of Judgement to praise the player.
Appreciation “skillful” in (3) targets thing as it values the innings.

Example 2.7:
(1) He played skillfully - Judgement (Social Esteem – Capacity)
(2) He is a skillful player - Judgement (Social Esteem – Capacity)
(3) It was a skilful innings - Appreciation (Reaction – Quality)
(Martin and White (2005, p. 60)

On the other hand, Affect construes the feelings of someone, while

Appreciation ascribes objects the power to trigger such feelings.

Example 2.8:
– “this building bored me”: Affect
– “It’s a boring building”: Appreciation

In summary, while Judgement values evaluate social qualities of

human, and Appreciation involves aesthetic qualities of things, Affect
resources deal with emotional responses. The system of journalistic voices
developed by Martin and White (2005) mostly bases on Attitude values. Thus,
the analysis of authorial stance clearly involves the analysis of the three sub-
category of Attitude in order to identify and compare the voices operating in
the two national online newspapers. The next section shifts the focus from
Attitude values to the second sub-type of Appraisal – Engagement.
2.2.3. Engagement
Within the framework of Appraisal Theory, according to Martin and
White (2005, p. 92), Engagement “is the linguistic resource whereby the
 22

authorial voice positions itself with respect to other textual voices and
alternative positions at stake in a given communicative context”. Two main
types of Engagement are Monogloss and Heterogloss. In monoglossic
utterances (bare assertion), there is no other view in existence, and they are
typically simple declarative clauses. Conversely, heteroglossic options overtly
refer to other voices, other interpretations or viewpoints. In the example
below, the first sentence falls into monoglossic style due to no other voices.
The second sentence is heteroglossic because its proposition is provided
through the voice of another, in this case, the chairman.

Example 2.9:
The banks have been greedy.
The chairman of the consumers association has stated that the banks
are being greedy
(Martin & White, 2005, p. 100)

Heterogloss consists of Contract and Expansion. These sub-types, in

turn, are divided into minor sup-types as illustrated in Figure 2.3:

Disclaim
Contract

Proclaim
Heterogloss

Entertain

Engagement Expand
Attribute
Monogloss

Figure 2.3. Engagement sub-categories

 23

The first sub-type of Heterogloss is Contract which includes Disclaim

and Proclaim. The category of Disclaim concerns meanings by which some
alternative position is introduced in the text so as to be directly overruled. The
category Proclaim refers to overt formulations whereby the author shows
agreement with the proposition, which is presented as reliable or valid. With
respect to Expand, there are two sub-categories termed Entertain and
Attribute. Firstly, the category Entertain refers to expressions by which the
speaker/writer indicates the position is one among different possible dialogic
alternatives. The resource of Entertain are often realized by Modality and
Evidentiality (it seems, the evidence suggests, apparently, etc.) or via mental
processes. Secondly, Attribution is concerned with the viewpoints of others
such as authorities or experts in relevant issues by means of direct quotations
or textual assimilations.
According to White (1998) and Martin and White (2005), Attribution is
more common in hard news reports, and it can be seen as a form of
impersonalization by which the authorial voice is protected. In hard news
coverage, journalists prefer to use the voice of other sources to present and/ or
support their positions. Thus, the notion of “appraising through the words of
others” (Jullian, 2001) plays an essential role investigating the journalistic
voices operating in news reports genre. Therefore, I put more concentration
on Attribution as a sub-category of Engagement in order to investigate the
journalistic voices operating in the data utilized in my research. Next, I turn to
give further discussion of the last semantic area of the Appraisal Theory –
Graduation.
2.2.4. Graduation
Graduation is the last semantic area mentioned in Appraisal Theory.
Martin and Rose (2003) claim that Graduations are lexico - grammatical
 24

resources that we use to say how strong or weak the feeling about someone or
something. Within Appraisal, Graduation enables the evaluators to intensify
Attitude or Engagement values, so Graduation is considered to operate across
Appraisal categories. Two dimensions of Graduation are labelled Force and
Focus. Force either intensifies or lowers the degree of the graded items;
meanwhile, Focus deals with sharpening and softening the graded items.
Martin and White (2005) state that Focus applies most to categories which,
when viewed from an experiential perspective, are not scalable. In the
following extract taken from the data, instances of Focus are in italic and
bold.

Recklessness on Vietnamese side in South China Sea must stop

By Xinhua. Updated: 2014-05-28 15:58
[…The Chinese side displayed restraint and issued warnings that were ignored by
the Vietnamese boat. The Vietnamese side should bear full responsibility for all
its reckless acts and should refrain from taking any futher moves that will escalate
tension and disrupt security in the South China Sea…]

Force, which has two sub-categories: Intensification and Quantification,

is applied to adjust the degree of an evaluation. Intensification deals with
qualities (e.g. slightly happy, very happy), processes (e.g. the storm greatly
damaged crop, seriously strike) and modality (e.g. possible, probable,
certain), while Quantification is the assessment on numbers, mass, and extent.
Assessment of extent is concerned with the proximity of time and space
and with distribution of time and space (e.g. short-termed, long –termed,
global). Some instances of Quantification in terms of number, mass, extend
and instances of Intensification are identified in the following examples in
which these values are in bold and italic.
 25

Example 2.11:
Vietnam maintains pressure on China to remove illegal rig
Updated June, 20 2014 09:00:00
[…At the beginning of May 2014, China illegally dispatched the rig Haiyang
Shiyou-981 as well as a large fleet of armed vessels (mass) military ships and
aircraft to Vietnam's waters and positioned the rig at 15 degrees 29 minutes 58
seconds north latitude and 111 degrees 12 minutes 06 seconds east longitude,
80 miles deep into Vietnam's continental shelf and exclusive economic zone.
(proximity of space)
Despite Vietnam's protest, China expanded its scale of operation and moved
the rig to 15 degrees 33 minutes 36 seconds north latitude and 111 degrees 34
minutes 11 seconds east longitude, 60 nautical miles deep inside Vietnam's
continental shelf and exclusive economic zone. (proximity of space)
China's armed vessels have aggressively and consistently fired high-power
water cannons at and intentionally rammed against Vietnamese public-service
and civil ships, causing damage to many (number) boats and injuring many
(number) people on board…]

China keeps up aggressive tactics near East Sea oil rig

Updated June, 12 2014 08:15:53
[…In May alone, 19 fisheries surveillance ships and five coast guard vessels
belonging to Viet Nam were seriously (Isolating) damaged after being
rammed and fired at with water cannons. On May 26, Chinese ships sank a
fishing boat belonging to Da Nang fishermen operating in their traditional
fishing grounds near Viet Nam's Hoang Sa (Paracel) archipelago.
Lawyers respond
The International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL) issued a
statement on the escalating (Infused) violence in the East Sea at a press
conference in Ha Noi yesterday…]
 26

To sum up, along with Attitude and Engagement, the system of

journalistic voices also involves Graduation. At the same time, Graduation is
seen to operate across Appraisal categories. Therefore, with the aim of this
research, an analysis of Graduation is necessary.
2.2.5. The system of journalistic voices
Since the great development of news media, the use of the language in
this field has attracted many linguistic experts. The most influential studies in
this regard are those conducted by van Dijk (1988), Bell (1991, 1998), Iedema
et al. (1994), and White (1997, 1998). The notion of journalistic or authorial
voice was firstly developed by Iedema et al. (1994) and White (1997, 1998),
and then developed further in the Appraisal framework as outlined in White
(2000, 2002, 2003, and 2004) and Martin and White (2005). These authors
defined journalistic voice as “taxonomy for classifying and grouping news
media text according to the use they make of certain key evaluative meanings,
and more specially to the various ways in which positive or negative
assessments are conveyed or activated” (Thomson, White & Kitly, 2008, p. 13).
Iedema et al. (1994) state that the system of language features which contributes
to our sense of the presence of the writer’s attitudes towards the happenings is
called authorial voice.
Iedema et al (1994) divide authorial voices into three other sub-types
according to the explicit values of Attitude (as defined by the Appraisal
framework) which can be observed in the various types of news story. In
their theories, the authorial voices is classified base on whether authorial
Judgements are presented in the news story and what types of Judgements
(i.e. Social Esteem and Social Sanction) are involved. This system of
authorial voices, which lays a foundation for later studies of voices by White
(1998), Martin and White (2005), is illustrated in Figure 2.4.
 27

Figure 2.4. The System of authorial Voices (Iedema et al., 1994, p. 212)

White (1998) thereby evolves this system to the one in which

authorial voices are classified according to not only the type of Judgements
but also other attitudinal recourses such as Affect and Appreciation. His
system is presented in Figure 2.5.
 28

Figure 2.5. The System of journalistic Voices (White, 1998, p. 126)

On the basis of these previous research, Martin and White (2005) then
develop a framework in which journalistic voices can be identified by all
Appraisal values including Attitude, Engagement and Graduation. The three
types of voices agreed by all researchers are Reporter voice, Correspondent
voice, and Commentator voice. Each of them has distinctive features as
follows:
Reporter voice is most typically used in hard news reports. This key is
identified as unmediated Attitudinal values are curtailed to the least,
particularly with respect to authorial inscribed Judgement and authorial
Affect; the probability of authorial inscribed Appreciation is lower compared
to Correspondent and Commentator voice. Journalists operating in Reporter
voice mode refrain from inscribed Judgement of human behavior, and confine
their evaluations to attributed sources. Correspondent voice is shown to be
occurred most in the work of specialist or rounds journalists and in news
 29

coverage dealing with local or international politics. Similar to Reporter voice

which involves curtailment of authorial inscribed Attitude, but the constraints
in Correspondent voice text are less extensive. More specifically, texts of this
voice contain low probability of authorial inscribed Social Sanction
Judgement; the writers avoid making ethnic Judgement about right and
wrong, good and evil. The authors, instead, assess human behavior by
reference to notion of human capacity, tenacity and normality which results in
regular use of unmediated inscribed Social Esteem. Also, the probability of
unmediated inscribed Appreciation is higher than that in Reporter voice. The
last voice termed Commentator is most found in argumentative and subjective
text type, where author’s Attitudinal values are explicitly revealed in the
language. There is no co-textual constraint on Attitudinal values (with free
occurrence of both of unmediated Judgement values of Social Sanction and
Social Esteem, Affect and Appreciation).
Accordingly, the key distinguishing feature of the three voices above is
that whether or not the author explicitly passes any Judgements on human
participants or their behaviors. If explicit Judgement occurs in the Reporter
voice texts, it will largely be confined to words of external sources via
directly or indirectly reported speech. According to previous research of
voices, Attribution occurs regularly across the three types of voices. They are,
however, found to be most frequent in Reporter voice and lowest frequent in
Commentator voice. Martin and White (2005) point out that Reporter voice is
a typical journalistic voice occurring with highest frequency in hard news
reports about accidents, misadventures, crimes and natural disasters. By
attributing evaluation to external sources and employing almost no inscribed
Judgement, Reporter voice texts is seen as a form of impersonalization by which
the author’s subjective role is backgrounded (Martin & White, 2005, p. 183).
 30

All in all, my research is conducted drawing on the system of

journalistic voices by Martin and White (2005). This framework of evaluative
language is applied so as to analyze the stylistic properties of English written
news reports, particularly compare and contrast the properties of the journalistic
voices operating in Chinese - Vietnamese news reports written in English,
specifically, those dealing with the issue of East Sea tension.
2.3. Related studies on news reports & authorial voice
The development of Appraisal Theory over the last decade has
generated a brand new field for linguistic researchers, and it has become the
basic framework for many studies in this field. At the same time, since the
explosive growth of information technology, people’s increasing needs of
achieving information of daily life are satisfied remarkably with the help of
mass media. One of the most common types of mass media, the main source
for spreading news and events around the world is news reports - both in
online and hard copies of newspapers. In a written way of talking to readers,
the journalists have to choose certain kind of source of language to express
their opinions, to raise people awareness as well as to position the readers to
take a negative or positive view towards the issues or people involved. Thus,
having the knowledge of language utilized in news reports is essential, and
attracts concern of many linguists.
Ochi (2006) has a study of Reporter voice in hard news reports in
English and Japanese from the perspective of context, semantics, and
lexicogrammar. His study proposes an approach for modeling and profiling
the semantic system of Appraisal that contrues a part of Reporter voice
operating in English and Japanese hard news reporting. McCabe and Heilman
(2007) investigated the textual and interpersonal differences between a News
Report and an Editorial. Their findings show that the Editorials actually use
 31

more forms of interpersonal comment through tokens of Judgement,

Appreciation and Modality, while the new reports use very little or no
Appraisal value, thereby giving an impression of factuality. Thomson, White
& Kitley (2008) have an online research of objectivity and hard news
reporting across cultures. Their research is concerned with comparisons of the
language of hard news reporting in English, French, Japanese and Indonesian
journalism. Besides, the study of Thomson, Fukui and White (2008)
demonstrates that the two investigated Japanese lead stories are far from
being 'neutral' and 'objective' because the authors of each article take an
evaluative position in relation to the handover of power to the new provisional
Iraqi government. This book chapter also concludes that the Reporter voice
defined by White can be found in these Japanese news stories. Tran and
Thomson (2008) are the first researchers to use Appraisal framework to
explore the journalistic voice in Vietnamese news coverage. They found that
the Vietnamese news in Nhan Dan article does not have the properties of
Reporter voice as the case in English as defined by Martin and White (2005)
but, instead, much closer to that of Commentator voice in English. Vo (2011)
conducted a study of English and Vietnamese hard news reports in three
perspectives: style, structure and ideology. His findings indicate that the
English and Vietnamese business hard news reports not only are written in the
style of Reporter voice but share the same orbital structure as well. In 2013, a
journal by Sabao which evaluates the nature of Reporter voice in hard news
reports on the Renewal of Sanction in Zimbabwe was published. Also, in the
same vein, his PhD. Dissertation examines the subjectivity in ‘controversial’
hard news reports and the objectivity ideal. The study shows that
Zimbabwean news reports share the same orbital structure with those in
Shona and Ndebele; however, they are different in terms of the textuality of
 32

news reports and the uses made of attributed materials. Liu and Stevenson
(2013) have an analysis of stance in cross-culture media discourse by
comparing news reports in a Chinese, an Australian Chinese, and an
Australian newspaper. The analysis revealed that the Australian reports
focused primarily on evaluating the actual earthquake situation, both the
Chinese and the Australian Chinese reports, , on the other hand, focused more
on evaluating the participants and their behavior during the aftermath of the
disaster. Additionally, in Vietnamese, a research by Nguyễn (2010) pays
much attention to Vietnamese journalism basing on Appraisal framework. His
study mainly focuses on the subjectivity of writers in press writings which
have been considered as the stances, how they position their readers and how
writers construe for themselves particular authorial identities or personal. The
M.A research by Nguyen (2014) is the only study specifically focusing on the
journalistic voice in English and Vietnamese world hard news reports. It is
found that both English and Vietnamese world news texts operated in the
same Reporter voice, yet they are different in the way authors employed
Appraisal values to report world news.
In conclusion, apart from Vo‘s Ph.D dissertation (2011) and Nguyen‘s
M.A thesis, to the best of my knowledge, up to now there has been little work
attended closely to issues of journalistic style and voices in Vietnamese press.
There have been no studies which particularly seek to compare the news
journalisms of a foreign country and Vietnamese from such perspectives.
Particularly, no systemic comparison has been made between Chinese and
Vietnamese news reporting - written in English in term of journalistic voices.
That is the reason why my thesis comes into existence.
 33

CHAPTER 3
METHODOLOGY

This chapter describes the methodology used to conduct the research. It

also presents the sources from which data were collected, the data collection
procedure, data analysis process. Besides, the reliability and validity of the
research are also mentioned in this chapter.
3.1. Research methods
In this study, the combination of qualitative and quantitative
approaches was used as a dominant method. In order to fulfill the aims and
objectives of the study as outlined in Chapter 1, the qualitative approach was
applied for describing and analyzing language features of hard news as well
as finding out the similarities and differences between the voices of English
language news reporting of a Vietnamese online newspaper and a Chinese
one. On the other hand, the quantitative approach helped the researcher find
out the frequency of occurrence of Appraisal values in the news discourse.
Additionally, the research was carried out thanks to some other following
methods.
The descriptive method was utilized to give a detailed description of
collected data. Comparative and contrastive methods helped the researcher
compare and contrast the journalistic voices used in the Chinese –
Vietnamese news reports written in English so as to find out the resemblances
and distinctions between those in the online newspapers of each country. Last
but not least, the researcher was able to synthesize the outcomes of the
research and draw out the final conclusion of the whole study by synthetic
and analytic methods.
 34

3.2. Data collection

The data of the study are news reports written in English by a Chinese
online newspaper and a Vietnamese one, dealing with the East Sea tension.
As previously stated, the study aims to discover the journalistic styles as well
as compare and contrast the properties of the journalistic voices operating in
news reports of China and Vietnam. To meet the demand of the objectives of
the study, these data were collected from reliable online sources. Specifically,
all of the news reports were downloaded from two prestigious and well-
known online newspapers of each country: Việt Nam News
(http://vietnamnews.vn/) and China Daily (http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/).
As a matter of fact, Việt Nam News is a national English language daily,
published in Hanoi by the Vietnam News Agency, the news service of the
government of Vietnam. Việt Nam News has been developed for twenty four
years since it first hit the news-stands in 1991. It is published seven days a
week and is the main English newspaper in Vietnam. The paper is a member
of the Asia News Network and its Internet edition exists with simplified
typography. Việt Nam News’s coverage is continuously updated with the
latest domestic and international news on all areas including politics,
economics, sports and socio-culture issues. China Daily, on the other hand, is
an English language daily newspaper published in the People's Republic of
China. China Daily was established in June 1981 and has the widest print
circulation of any English-language newspaper in China (over 200,000 copies
per issue, of which a third are abroad). Published from Monday to Saturday, it
serves an international audience and it is often used as a guide to government
policy. The online edition of China Daily is one of the first major online
Chinese newspapers. It is also a member of the Asia News Network, and has
editions in three languages: Chinese, English, and French. As a newspaper
 35

group, the China Daily Group also publishes some other editions such as
China Business Weekly, China Daily Hong Kong Edition, China Daily Asia
Weekly, China Daily US Edition, China Daily European Edition, etc.
It can’t be denied that the more data are collected, the more reliable the
findings would be. However, due to the limitation of time and the scope of this
thesis, I collected only 50 news reports (25 texts of Việt Nam News and 25 texts
of China Daily) as shown in Table 3.1 for my present research. They were
randomly chosen from one hundred texts downloaded from online editions of
the two national newspapers mentioned above from May to July, 2014 – the
period in which Vietnam faced the escalating tension on our East Sea provoked
by China. It is worth noting that the contents of all downloaded news reports
converge to nothing else but the tension on East Sea between Vietnam and
China which was considered the hottest issue of the region at that time. And the
average lengths of them vary from 300 to 750 words per text.

Table 3.1. The two corpora of the research

No. VNNs CNNs
VN: China must withdraw oil rig China: Stop harassing oil rig in
1 (updated May 07, 2014) Xisha Islands
(updated May 09, 2014)
Viet Nam pledges all efforts to Vietnam's claims do not hold
2 protect territorial waters water
(updated May 08, 2014) (updated May 09, 2014)
Int'l opinion condemns China's China far from being 'aggressive'
3 escalation of tensions in East Sea in South China Sea
(updated May 09, 2014) (updated May 13, 2014)
4 Viet Nam resolved to safeguard Hanoi on a dangerous course
 36

rights, interests in the East Sea (updated May 16, 2014)

(updated May 12, 2014)
Worldwide support voiced for Cease provocative activities in
5 Viet Nam Chinese waters
(updated May 19, 2014) (updated May 16, 2014)
Viet Nam insists on oil rig Stopping unreasonable
6 withdrawal (updated May 21, provocations good for Vietnam
2014) (updated May 17, 2014)
China maintains fleet around Vietnam rams ships 100s of times
7 illegal oil rig (updated May 19, 2014)
(updated June 02, 2014)
China ships gang up on VN China urges Vietnam to stop
8 vessels (updated June 04, 2014) interferences
(updated May 22, 2014)
Chinese vessels keep up pressure Hanoi behind all the trouble
9 in East Sea (updated June 06, (updated May 24, 2014)
2014)
China keeps up aggressive tactics China determined on peace,
near East Sea oil rig stability in South China Sea: vice
10
(updated June 2, 2014) FM
(updated May 27, 2014)
Film evidence proves China Recklessness on Vietnamese side
11 aggressor in East Sea row in South China Sea must stop
(updated June 17, 2014) (updated May 28, 2014)
China continues sea incursion Tensions rise as Vietnam's fishing
12 (updated June 18, 2014) vessel sinks
(updated May 28, 2014)
 37

Vietnam maintains pressure on China urges Vietnam to stop

China to remove illegal rig disruptions in oil drilling
13
(updated June 20, 2014) operation
(updated June 06, 2014)
China unveils documents to
Chinese ships ram, damage VN
14 clarify Xisha situation
vessel (updated June 24, 2014)
(updated June 09, 2014)
China continues aggressive action Drilling is legal and legitimate
15
(updated June 25, 2014) (updated June 09, 2014)
China continues East Sea Two scoundrels acting tough
16 aggression (updated June 28, (updated June 11, 2014)
2014)
Vietnam fooling no one
China steps up hindrance of VN
17 (updated June 13, 2014)
(updated June 30, 2014)
China has broken its promise Vietnam's groundless accusations,
(updated July 03, 2014) unreasonable demand dismissed at
18
G77+China summit
(updated June16, 2014)
Vietnam violating agreements
Explanation sought for fishing
19 (updated June 17, 2014)
boat arrests (updated July 07,
2014)
VN ships uncowed by China's Top envoy to discuss maritime
20 actions (updated July 08, 2014) tensions in Hanoi
(updated June 18, 2014)
ASEAN media criticise China Hanoi needs amending deeds
21
(updated July 09, 2014) (updated June 19, 2014)
 38

Chinese jet encroaches VN Three more rigs set for the South
22 airspace over illegal oil rig China Sea
(updated July 14, 2014) (updated June 21, 2014)
China asked not to bring rig back Peaceful rise is a choice, not expe
23 for peace in East Sea diency 370w
(updated July 16, 2014) (updated June 22, 2014)
China told not to return oil rig to Neighboring countries urged not
24 VN waters to stir tensions
(updated July17, 2014) (updated June 23, 2014)
Experts call for legal action Oil rig finishes exploratory
25 against China drilling near Xisha Islands
(updated July 28, 2014) (updated July 17, 2014)

3.3. Data analysis

Having been collected, fifty news texts (25 texts of each newspaper)
form two corpora. Then these data were taken into consideration to identify,
describe, compare and contrast the evaluative language used. The Appraisal
values were recorded and counted in order to determine the frequencies of
their occurrence in individual texts and across the corpus. These results are
displayed in charts and tables.
In this research, Appraisal Theory with the system of journalistic voices
developed by Martin and White (2005) serves as the analytical framework for
exploring the authorial voice of the collected news reports. In fact, Appraisal
framework has become framework and serves as analytical tool for many
studies, especially in English hard news reporting. Earlier, several studies of
hard news reporting in other languages such as French, Japanese, Chinese,
Italian, Zimbabwean, Indonesian, Finnish, Greek, and Vietnamese were
 39

carried out in the light of Appraisal Theory and evaluative language system.
The detailed account of the system is given in section 2.2 of Chapter 2.
The system of journalistic voices under Martin and White’s framework
not only deals with whether or not authorial explicit Judgements are presented
in the reports, but rather they involve all Appraisal values (three Attitudinal
categories – Judgement, Affect and Appreciation, Engagement and Graduation).
According to Martin and White (2005) “isolating” Intensification is less frequent
in unattributed contexts in Reporter voice texts than in Writer voice texts. In
contrast, “infused” Intensification found to be more frequent in Reporter
voice texts than in the Writer voice texts. Besides, Martin and White (2005)
also believe that Attributions present across the three keys of journalistic
voice. However, there is a high frequency of occurrence of attribution values
in Reporter voice text than the other keys. Because English news reports are
characterized as being objective and factual, the journalists have to refrain
from making inscribed evaluation. Instead, they resort to external sources so
as to express their viewpoints under other’s views and feelings. Hence, it can
be seen that the occurrence and frequency of such Appraisal values vary
according to the voices to which the news text belongs.
Therefore, in this study, for the exploration of journalistic voices
operating in English language news reports in the Chinese and Vietnamese
online newspaper, the study focuses on not only three categories of Attitude
values but also the values of Force (Graduation) and Attribution
(Engagement). The first step is identifying Attitude which consists of the
analysis of Judgement, Affect and Appreciation. Additionally, the analysis of
the Appraised in these Attitudinal values was also carried out so as to identify
how the journalists or the appraisers evaluate the Appraised as well as to
observe whether their assessments toward the target of evaluation are positive
 40

or negative. It is noted that Appreciation shares with Judgement the property

of being oriented towards the appraised rather than the subjective appraiser,
whereas the value of Affect is attributed to the emoter/ appraiser rather than
the appraised. The next step deals with the analysis of Graduation values
dealing with Force followed by the analysis of sources of information –
Attribution as a sub-type of Engagement. The last step is interpreting the
results of those analyses to answer the research questions of the current study.
3.4. Reliability and validity in the research
In order to make current research reliable and valid, the quality of the
study data must be assured. Firmly, the data collection procedure conforms to
the data collection criteria; therefore, there is no doubt of the dependability
and validity of the data as well as the data sources of this research. Besides,
any information or knowledge which is cited in the research is as accurate as
the source materials. At the same time these quotations are provided with
clear references of the authors, the publishers and the page number where the
information is extracted. All theories applied in this research are extracted
from specialized works written by experts, nothing is made up by myself.
Also, the theoretical framework for the research is that by Martin & White,
who are very renowned in the field of Appraisal and Stylistics. This
framework system has been widely employed in both linguistic and cross-
linguistic studies of news reporting by many linguists in the past. Moreover,
the conclusions of the study are completely inferred from the findings of the
data analysis procedure, so the researcher is not influenced or driven by the
set results.
 41

CHAPTER 4
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

4.1. Introduction
The previous chapters not only describe the methodology but also
provide a detailed review of Appraisal Theory as well as the system of
journalistic voice as a fundamental framework to carry out the current
research. Chapter 4 concentrates on specifying what types and how the term
“journalistic voices” operates in the news texts written in English language in
a Chinese online newspaper and a Vietnamese one. In other words, this
chapter presents and describes the final outcomes of the data analysis as well
as makes further discussion in order to answer the research questions
previously stated. It also demonstrates how the journalists of the two online
newspapers make use of Appraisal values to provide the readers with the
whole picture of what was happening in East Sea as well as position the
reader to take a different view of the event being described in accordance with
their intention.
This chapter begins with the overall usage of Attitude values used in
the English written news reports of Vietnam News (VNNs) and the English
written news reports of China Daily (CNNs). It then goes into detail by
discussing further each sub-type of Attitude values in order to identify the
voices operating in the collected data. The chapter continues to explore
patterns of occurrence of Force (Graduation). Because the data coverage
concerns only the escalated tension in East Sea, it must be closely associated
with the values of Force. The next section focuses how the authors use the
voice of other authoritative sources to present or support their own positions.
The chapter ends with a brief conclusion of the finding of data analysis. Every
 42

single value of Appraisal in unattributed context was recorded and calculated,

and the distinctive features of the news reports in the two online newspapers
in the two were found.
4.2. The overall usage of Attitudinal values in VNNs and CNNs
The system of Attitude values not only is a major sub-system in
Appraisal framework but also plays a central role in the analysis of
journalistic voices. This sub-system, which includes Judgement, Affect and
Appreciation, refers to those meaning that provide reference to emotional
responses and evaluation of human behavior or object. The findings of the
whole analysis reveal that there are totally 297 items of Attitude in VNNs and
411 items of CNNs, respectively. This section provides an overall view of
how the three dimensions of Attitude are distributed in term of percentage in
collected hard news reports of each online newspaper which is shown in
Table 4.1 and Figure 4.1.

Table 4.1. Sub-types of Attitude values in the VNNs and CNNs

VNNs CNNs
Sub-types
Instances Percentage Instances Percentage

Judgement 209 70.4% 270 65.7%

Affect 36 12% 18 4.4%

Appreciation 52 17.6% 123 29.9%

Total 297 100% 411 100%

 43

100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
VNNs
50%
CNNs
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Judgement Affect Appreciation

Figure 4.1. Frequency of Attitude values in VNNs and CNNs

It can be seen from Figure 4.1 that all three sub-types of Attitude are
found in both CNNs and VNNs. However, as revealed in Table 4.1,
compared to VNNs there are much more instances of Attitude found in
CNNs. The Judgement values are the dominant items in proportion in the two
corpora. There are 270 items of Judgement in CNNs, which account for
65.7% of the Attitudinal values and 209 items of Judgement in VNNs with
the percentage of 70.4% in the total percentage. Following is the use of
Appreciation and Affect which has the lowest percentage of all. In the
reference to the data, Chinese journalists tend to employ more Appreciation
than Vietnamese writers do (29.9% and 17.6%, respectively). Conversely,
VNNs show a greater use of Affectual values which count for nearly three
times the percentage compared to CNNs (12% versus 4.4%).
In summary, the findings of Attitudinal distribution in English written
news reports of Việt Nam News and China Daily reveal that the use of
Judgement overtops the percentage of Attitude used in both VNNs and CNNs.
This finding corresponds with the fact that the data only deal with tension in
 44

East sea, so the writers take advantage of this value not only to report what
happened but to admire or criticize, praise or condemn the behaviors of who
were involved in the event. Besides, in the two corpora, following Judgement
Appreciation ranks second and the last is Affect. A more detailed discussion
of each sub-type in VNNs and CNNs in term of their frequency of occurrence
is shown in the following subsequent parts.
4.3. Patterns of occurrence of Judgement in VNNs and CNNs
As previously discussed, the system of journalistic voices by Martin
and White (2005), which refers to a taxonomy for classifying and grouping
news media, includes three keys labeled as Reporter voice, Correspondent
voice, and Commentator voice. The classification of these voices is mostly
based on whether or not authorial explicit Judgement presented in the hard
news texts. The occurrence of authorial inscribed Judgement; therefore, was
taken as a starting point for the exploration of journalistic voices in VNNs and
CNNs. Besides, Martin and White (2005) believe that Reporter voice is the
typical mode of general hard news stories which is considered to be objective
and factual as they contain no authorial inscribed Judgement. However, the
findings surprisingly reveal that unattributed explicit Judgement values do
occur with high frequency in both VNNs and CNNs. An extract from CNNs
corpus is provided below for exemplification; in the extract, unattributed
inscribed Judgement is underlined.

Example 4.1:
Stopping unreasonable provocations good for Vietnam.
By Xinhua. Updated: 2014-05-17 17:46
BEIJING - Vietnam must stop provocative acts against Chinese companies and
nationals in the country, or its international credibility will be undermined and its
development momentum sacrificed.
 45

Anti-Chinese sentiment has surged in Vietnam and quickly turned into violence.
Extremists targeted Chinese businesses, including those from Taiwan and Hong
Kong, as well as companies from Singapore and the Republic of Korea, killing
two Chinese nationals and injuring more than 100 others.
The attacks, which came on the back of a series of provocative activities by
Hanoi to disturb the normal drilling of a Chinese oil rig in the South China Sea,
cannot be justified under any circumstances.
No violence can achieve its aim of scaring China away from exercising its
legitimate rights, and the Vietnamese government bears unshirkable
responsibility for the failure to contain such violence in a timely manner.
The operations undertaken by China Oilfield Services Limited (COSL) are only
17 nautical miles from Zhongjian Island, completely within China's territorial
waters, while they are as far as 130-150 nautical miles (241-278 km) from
Vietnam's coastline.
Therefore, COSL's operations are completely within the mandate of China's
sovereignty, sovereign rights and jurisdiction.
Vietnam's provocations will undermine its international accountability, sharply
reduce foreign direct investment and the number of inbound tourists, thus
impacting its economic development…]

As can be seen from the text, there are 7 authorial sourced inscribed
Judgement out of 17 sentences. So, their frequency of occurrence in this text
is quite high with 41.2%. Thus, it can be said that, the hard news reports
investigated in this research are not written with the voice of Reporter but
with the voice of Writer. The next sub-part provides more details and
illustration for this conclusion.
4.3.1. Patterns of occurrence of inscribed authorial Judgement and token of
Jugdement in VNNs and CNNs
As the most important sub-system of Attitude, Judgement deals with
implicit or explicit evaluation of people’s behavior by reference to socially
 46

determined expectation. Explicit or inscribed Judgement is coded by the

vocabulary of explicit subjective assessment such as “courage”, “expert”,
“scoundrel”, “recklessness” etc. Implicit or token of Jugdement is indirect
Judgement inferring from events, actions and conditions in the texts.
It is found that hard news reports written in English in Vietnamese and
Chinese online newspapers operate in the same voice - Writer voice due to the
presence of inscribed authorial Judgements. Specifically, almost every text
out of 25 texts in the two corpora is found to contain many instances of
unmediated inscribed Judgement. However, there is a slight difference that
Chinese journalists employ more values of Judgement than Vietnamese do.

Table 4.2. Frequency of occurrence of inscribed Judgements

VNNs CNNs
Number of texts with
inscribed Judgement 24/25 24/25
values
Values/sentences 103/436 188/433
Frequency of occurrence 23.6% 43.4%

In Table 4.2, it is clearly that the two corpora are similar in that they do
contain instances of explicit authorial Judgement values. In CNNs, the
explicit evaluation of human behaviors occur at higher frequency (43.4%)
with 188 instances found in 433 sentences of the whole corpus; meanwhile,
that in the English language texts written by Vietnamese authors operates at
lower frequency (23%) with 103 instances out of 436 sentences. At this point,
it can be said that, the hard news reports used as data of the current research
are written in Writer voices. The following table shows the distribution of
inscribed and token of Jugdements in VNNs and CNNs, and the figure below
graphically illustrates for it.
 47

Table 4.3: Inscribed and token of Judgment in VNNs and CNNs

VNNs CNNs
Types of Judgement
Number Percentage Number Percentage
Inscribed Judgement 103 49.3% 188 69.6%
Token of Jugdement 106 50.7% 82 30.4%
Total 209 100 % 270 100 %

VNNs CNNs

Inscribed Inscribed
Judgement Judgement
Token of Token of
Judgement Judgement

Figure 4.2: Inscribed and token of Jugdement in VNNs and CNNs

As can be seen from the results above, the authors of hard news reports
on the both online newspapers do explicitly and implicitly pass their own
Judgement. However, as shown by the pie chart, Vietnamese journalists
favored token of Jugdement rather than inscribed Judgement, but the
disproportion is not considerable (50.7% and 49.3%, respectively). The
percentage of inscribed Judgement in CNNs, on the other hand, accounts for
69.6% which makes nearly twice the percentage of token of Jugdements
(30.4%). This finding does not conform to the characteristic of general hard
news reports in Martin and White’s theory probably because of the coverage
of the data. The investigated hard news reports only focus on the tension in
East Sea provoked by China by illegally placing the oil rig inside
Vietnamese’ water, so the use of Judgement, especially explicit Judgement is
possibly needed in order to strongly criticize or condemn the actions of the
 48

opposite sides and to convince the readers whether China or Vietnam created
such confrontation in East Sea. The following extracts are given as
illustration for the analysis of Judgements with regard to implicitness and
explicitness in which inscribed Judgement (In. J.) is in bold and italic, while
Token of Jugdement (Token. J.) is in bold and underlined.

Example 4.2:
VNNs
Chinese jet encroaches (Token. J)VN airspace over illegal oil rig
Updated July, 14 2014 09:09:00
[…The ships aggressively prevent (In. J) Vietnamese vessels from approaching
the rig to perform communications work to demand China immediately remove
the rig from Viet Nam's waters. Facing aggressive harassment (Ins. J) from the
Chinese side, Viet Nam's coast guard and fisheries surveillance ships have
maintained their operations about 10 nautical miles from the rig. (Token. J)
Vietnamese fishing boats are continuing normal activities about 42 nautical
miles from the rig despite (Token. J.) the violent disturbance (In. J.) of a large
fleet of Chinese fishing vessels backed by two coast guard ships and two
auxiliary ships...]

In Example 4.2, there are 3 instances of the inscribed Judgement that

Vietnamese authors condemn the impropriety actions of China by using some
expressions: “aggressively prevent” “aggressive harassment”. Besides, the
extract contains 3 values of token of Jugdement that implicitly praise the
tenaciousness of both Vietnamese authority force and Vietnamese fishermen
despite constant attacks and harassments of Chinese side. Below is an
example of analysis in CNNs.
 49

Example 4.3
CNNs
Vietnam violating agreements. (In. J.)
By Chu Hao, Updated: 2014-06-17 08:02
Hanoi should take history into consideration (Token. J.) stop disturbing
Chinese operations (In. J.) and be constructive about partnership (In. J.)
On May 2, 2014, a Chinese company's rig started drilling operations inside
the contiguous zone of China's Xisha Islands for the purpose of oil and gas
exploration (Token. J.). Vietnam sent a large number of vessels, including
armed vessels, to the site illegally and forcefully disrupted the Chinese
operations (In. J.) and rammed Chinese government vessels (In. J.) on escort
and security missions there. By stirring up trouble (In. J.) in the South China
Sea, Vietnam has gone against its word and obligations. (In. J.)
Vietnam's claims and provocative actions (In. J.) on the sea run counter to the
historical and objective facts (In. J.). The Xisha Islands are an inherent part of
China's territory, over which there is no dispute. China was the first to discover,
develop, exploit and exercise jurisdiction over the Xisha Islands. (Token. J.)
During the Song Dynasty (960-1279), the Chinese government had already
established jurisdiction over the Xisha Islands and sent naval forces to patrol the
waters there.
In 1911, the government of the Republic of China announced its decision to put
the Xisha Islands and their adjacent waters under the jurisdiction of Yaxian
county of Hainan Island. Japan invaded and occupied (In. J.) the Xisha Islands
during World War II.... The Xisha Islands, which had once been illegally
occupied (In. J.) by a foreign country, were thus returned to the jurisdiction of
the Chinese government.
Disregarding history and the facts (In. J.), Hanoi has fabricated (In. J.) so-
called historical and legal bases to "prove" its "sovereignty" over the Xisha
Islands in a bid to mislead (In. J.) people and create a territorial dispute
(Token. J.). It is trying to gain sympathy (Token. J.) from the international
 50

society by disguising itself as "weak" so as to occupy the moral high ground

and gain the support of international public opinion. (Token. J.)…]

The analysis above contains 14 instances of inscribed Judgement and 6

instances of token of Jugdement. Chinese journalists constantly and explicitly
condemn the Vietnamese actions such as “violating agreements”,“illegally
and forcefully disrupted the Chinese operations”, “disturbing Chinese
operations”, “stirring up trouble” or “rammed Chinese government vessels”.
At the same time, through some phrases such as “disregarding history and the
facts”, “Hanoi has fabricated” and“trying to gain sympathy” they both
implicitly and explicitly indicate that Vietnamese side is a liar, who denies the
historical fact that the Xisha island (Hoang Sa in Vietnamese) is under
Chinese maritime sovereignty and claims himself a victim in his own
provocation. The next part discusses in detail the Judgement values of Socical
Esteem and Social Sanction so as to clarify which sub-categories of Writer
Voice the data belong to.
4.3.2. Social Sanction and Social Esteem in VNNs and CNNs
So far we have proved that VNNs and CNNs are clearly written in
Writer voices as they are rich in authorial inscribed Judgement. However, it
should be noted that Writer Voice consists of two sub-categories, namely
Correspondent voice and Commentator voice. According to Martin and White
(2005) the former is limited to authorial Social Esteem, whereas the latter has
access to both Social Sanction and Social Esteem. Hence, at this point, an
investigation into Social Sanction and Social Esteem was necessarily carried
out to identify whether the hard news data fall into Correspondent voice or
Commentator voice.
 51

The analysis is provided in the following examples in which Social

Sanction are underlined and abbreviated to SS, while Social Esteem are in
italic and abbreviated to SE.

Example 4.4
VNNs
Vietnam maintains pressure on China to remove illegal rig (SS, Propriety)
Updated: June, 20 2014 09:00:00
[…A large number of Chinese coast guard and patrol ships and tugboats
defending the rig kept on following and blocking Vietnamese ships, driving them
away (SE, Capacity). Meanwhile, Vietnamese authorities detected two Chinese
minesweepers operating about 18-21 nautical miles from the rig, a Vietnam News
Agency reporter at the site said. At 13:00, a reconnaissance aircraft also flew
above Vietnam's fisheries surveillance ships
At the same time, about 38 Chinese fishing ships, backed by two coast guard
ships, coded 46102 and 44608, continued to violently disturb Vietnamese fishing
boats (SS, Propriety) operating about 37 nautical miles from the rig. However,
the Chinese aggression (SS, Propriety) could not stop Vietnamese fishermen
from conducting their catching activities in their traditional fishing ground in
Vietnam's waters.
At the beginning of May 2014, China illegally dispatched (SS, Propriety) the rig
Haiyang Shiyou-981 as well as a large fleet of armed vessels, military ships and
aircraft to Vietnam's waters and positioned the rig at 15 degrees 29 minutes 58
seconds north latitude and 111 degrees 12 minutes 06 seconds east longitude, 80
miles deep into Vietnam's continental shelf and exclusive economic zone.
Despite Vietnam's protest, China expanded its scale of operation and moved the
rig to 15 degrees 33 minutes 36 seconds north latitude and 111 degrees 34
minutes 11 seconds east longitude, 60 nautical miles deep inside Vietnam's
continental shelf and exclusive economic zone.
 52

China's armed vessels have aggressively (SS, Propriety) and consistently (SE,
Tenacity) fired high-power water cannons at and intentionally rammed against
Vietnamese public-service and civil ships, causing damage to many boats and
injuring many people on board. Chinese ships have continuously (SE, Tenacity)
encircled, constrained and driven away Vietnamese fishing boats and even
injured Vietnamese fishermen, threatening their lives (SS, Propriety)
On May 26, Chinese ship 11209 sank a Vietnamese fishing vessel (SS,
Propriety) while it was operating normally (SE, Normality) in its traditional
fishing ground near Vietnam 's Hoang Sa (Paracel) archipelago.— VNA/VNS]

As the above analysis shows, there are 10 inscribed Judgements. Eight

of them are Social Sanction and the rest are Social Esteem. For example,
“illegally dispatched” is Social Sanction of Propriety because it is seen to be
in breach of law or contradict some rules of behavior. While, “consistently”
belongs to the semantic field of tenaciousness, so it is obviously Social
Esteem. With Tenacity values, Vietnamese journalist praises the courage and
persistence of Vietnamese side against illegal and aggressive actions of
China.

Example 4.5:
CNNs
Recklessness (SE, Tenacity) on Vietnamese side in South China Sea must stop
By Xinhua. Updated: 2014-05-28 15:58
BEIJING - The increasingly aggressive and dangerous acts (SS, Propriety) of
Vietnamese vessels against Chinese oil drilling in the South China Sea resulted in
an unfortunate accident on Monday, which bode ill for the already tense situation.
Recklessness (SE, Tenacity) on Vietnamese side in South China Sea must stop
Territorial disputes in the South China Sea
 53

A Vietnamese fishing boat capsized after it bumped into (SS, Propriety) a

Chinese vessel in the waters near China's Xisha Islands. Fortunately the crews
aboard the boat were rescued immediately and were unhurt.
Such recklessness (SE, Tencacity) must stop. However, instead of containing the
illegal intrusion (SS, Propriety) of Vietnamese vessels and their attempts to
obstruct normal operation of the Chinese oil rig, Vietnamese officials have made
irresponsible and wild accusations (SS, Propriety) against China, which could
encourage and embolden Vietnamese activists into undertaking even more
aggressive acts. (SS, Propriety)
The boat accident was as a result of a kamikaze-style attack (SS, Propriety) as
the boat deliberately ran into Chinese waters and collided with one of the vessels
protecting the oil rig. However, some Vietnamese officials blamed it on China
and accused the country of "inhumane acts" and "attempted murder."
The Chinese side displayed restraint (SE, Capacity) and issued warnings that
were ignored by the Vietnamese boat.
The Vietnamese side should bear full responsibility for all its reckless acts (SE,
Tenacity) and should refrain from taking any further moves that will escalate
tension and disrupt security (SS, Propriety) in the South China Sea.
The Xisha Islands are Chinese territory and the drilling takes place in Chinese
waters. The Vietnamese side's obstruction (SS, Propriety) of business activities
in Chinese waters has no legal grounds.
Oil drilling operations off the Xisha Islands have been conducted by Chinese
companies for 10 years. The current operation, which has entered a second phase,
is a normal legitimate offshore drilling task.
The oil rig off Zhongjian Island of the Xisha Islands lies 17 nautical miles (31
km) from the island, completely within China's territorial waters, while it is as far
as 130-150 nautical miles (241-278 km) off Vietnam.

Compared to the analysis of VNNs, instances of Social Sanction and

Social Esteem in CNNs outnumber those in VNNs. However, similar to the
 54

example of VNNs analysis above, values of Social Sanction is dominant. For

example, “recklessness” is a case of Social Esteem which Chinese journalist
uses to criticize Vietnamese’s behavior – behaving without thinking or caring
about the consequences. “Kamikaze style attack” is an instance of Social
Sanction in which “Kamikaze” indicates a person or thing that behave in a
wildly reckless or destructive manner. The distribution of those sub-
categories of Judgement in CNNs and VNNs is presented in Table 4.4 and
Figure 4.3.
Table 4.4: Types of Judgement in VNNs and CNNs
VNNs CNNs
Judgement
Number Percentage Number Percentage
Social Esteem 84 40.2% 77 28.5 %
Social Sanction 125 59.8% 193 71.5 %
Total 209 100 % 270 100 %

VNNs CNNs

Social Social
esteem esteem
social Social
sanction Sanction

Figure 4.3: Types of Judgement in VNNs and CNNs

It is clear from Table 4.4 that both Social Sanction and Social Esteem
values are found across the two corpora with a tendency to give prominence
to the former. In VNNs, 40.2% of Judgement are Social Esteem, while Social
Sanction earns 59.8%. The percentage of Social Sanction in CNNs is 71.5%,
while that of Social Esteem is only 28.5%. A detail distribution of the sub-
categories of Social Sanction and Social Esteem is presented in Table 4.5.
 55

Table 4.5: Distribution of Social Esteem and Social Sanction of Judgement

in VNNs and CNNs
VNNs CNNs
Judgement
occurrence percentage occurrence Percentage
Normality 8 3.8% 18 6.7%
Social
Capacity 27 12.9% 35 13%
Esteem
Tenacity 49 23.4% 24 8.9%
Social Veracity 8 3.8% 45 16.6%
Sanction Propriety 117 56% 148 54.8%
Total 209 100% 270 100%

From the table it is clear that Propriety is the dominant factor in both
VNNs and CNNs (56% and 54.8%, respectively). However, the factors which
rank second are not the same. In VNNs, Propriety is followed by Tenacity
(23.4%) which is used not only to possibly evaluate the doggedness of
Vietnamese side, but also to negatively appraise the pertinacity of Chinese
government. Chinese writers, on the other hand, put more concentrate on the
truthfulness of the situation on East Sea by employing Veracity with high
frequency (16.6%).
Hence, the voice which has the properties most close to the findings
above is Commentator voice which has access to full array of Judgement
values – both Social Esteem and Social Sanction, but the latter is more
favored. Because the classification of voices also relies on the occurrence of
other values of Attitude – Affect and Appreciation, the study keeps going
with the analysis of these Attitudinal values. The exploration of journalistic
voices operating in the data continues to be discussed in the next subsequent
parts.
 56

4.3.3. Positive and negative Judgement in VNNs and CNNs

This section focuses on the positivity and negativity of Judgement
values found in the collected hard news reports. Although these terms are not
so relevant to the exploration of journalistic voices, they are in need to
consider how Vietnamese and Chinese journalists positively and negatively
evaluated the same event – tension in East Sea. As revealed from the data,
VNNs and CNNs are similar to each other, i.e. most of the Judgement values
are negative and positive Judgement accounts for a small proportion. The
frequency of occurrence of positive and negative values of Judgement is
presented in Table 4.6.

Table 4.6: The distribution of positive and negative Judgment in VNNs and CNNs
VNNs CNNs
Judgement
Number Rate Number Rate
Positive 55 26.3% 48 17.8 %
Negative 154 73.7% 222 82.2 %
Total 209 100 % 270 100 %

VNNs CNNs

Positive Positive
Judgement Judgement
Negative Negative
Judgement Judgement

Figure 4.4: The distribution of positive and negative Judgment

The statistics shows that values of negative Judgement in VNNs

account for 73.7%, while values of positive Judgement are just 26.3%.
Similarly, in CNNs, negative values make up 82.2% which is nearly five
 57

times as high as the percentage of positive values (17.8%). In Example 4.6

below, Judgement values are underlined in which negative Judgement is
coded (-) and (+) for positive one.

Example 4.6:
VNNs
VN ships uncowed (+Tenacity) by China's actions
Updated July, 08 2014 09:36:00
[HA NOI (VNS) — Vietnamese surveillance and fishing vessels continued to
resist Chinese intimidation (+Tenacity) yesterday, stationing themselves at 10-11
nautical miles from the illegally placed (-Propriety) oil rig, constantly
demanding its removal.
The Viet Nam Fisheries Surveillance Department reported yesterday that China
used up to 110 ships of various types, including military vessels, to surround
Haiyang Shiyou-981, the oil rig standing illegally in Viet Nam's exclusive
economic zone and continental shelf.
The Chinese ships prevented Vietnamese law enforcement vessels from operating
in their nation's waters (-Propriety) China also deployed two aircraft, including a
helicopter that flew above the rig…]

Example 4.7:
CNNs
China far from being 'aggressive' in South China Sea
By Xinhua. Updated: 2014-05-13 21:28
[BEIJING - Contrary to an aggressive image painted by Vietnam (-Veracity) and
the United States lately, China has been quite restrained (+Capacity) about what
happened in the Xisha Islands last week.
The trouble started when Vietnam attempted to stop (-Propriety) a Chinese
company from drilling in waters 17 nautical miles (some 31 kilometers) from
China's Zhongjian Island and 150 nautical miles from the Vietnamese coast.
 58

Chinese companies have been operating in these waters for about a decade and
the current operation is a routine continuation of that work (-Normality). China
considers the Xisha Islands and the waters around them an inalienable part of
Chinese territory.
From May 3 to 7, Vietnam dispatched 36 vessels, including armed warships, to as
171 times. How a country should respond to such harassment (-Propriety) in its
own territory may vary, but China's response has not crossed any line
(+Propriety)…]

Generally, the results of the data analysis show that most of Judgement
values used in VNNs and CNNs are Social Sanction which involve in the
domain of right and wrong, unfairness and cruelty. That is the reason why
negative values rules over the Judgement values. Vietnamese journalists tend
to use negative Judgement for the illegal and aggressive actions of China, and
positive Judgement to praise how persistent Vietnam was against all of those
actions. On the contrary, Chinese authors employ positive assessments to hail
China herself who not only restrained but did not violate any laws or rules as
well.
Thus, the employment of Judgement in two corpora is similar. They
both tend to utilize more Judgement values of Social Sanction than those of
Social Esteem, more inscribed Judgement than token of Judgement, and more
negative values than positive ones. Noticeably, CNNs have more Judgement
values in general and negative ones in particular than VNNs indicating that
Chinese writers much emphasize on the behaviors of Vietnam side. They
purposely want to draw in readers’ minds that it was VietNam who
obstructed Chinese normal oil drilling activities and created tension in region.
 59

4.3.4. The Appraised in authorial Judgement in VNNs and CNNs

With regard to author-sourced Judgements, the appraised refers to those
who are being judged in the text. In hard news reports dealing with East Sea
tension, the appraised entities are the government/authority, security forces,
ships, etc. The following extracts are given as examples in which the appraised
is in bold and underlined and Judgement values are in italic.

Example 4.8:
Chinese ships ram, damage VN vessel
June, 24 2014 09:14:00
[HA NOI (VNS) — A ship belonging to the Viet Nam Fishing Surveillance
Department was deliberately rammed (In. J.) and seriously damaged by two
Chinese ships illegally operating (In. J.) in Vietnamese waters yesterday.
The action continued China's flagrant violation of international law in placing an
oil rig in Vietnamese seas and preventing the nation's vessels from engaging in
their normal activities (In. J.).
At 9:30 a.m., two Chinese tugboats 284 and 285 and a maritime patrol ship
No. 11 blocked Vietnamese fishing surveillance ship KN-951 and steadied it on
one side. The action allowed tugboat coded Xinhai 285 to ram the other side,
seriously damaging the ship (Token. J).
Meanwhile, the Chinese fleet, including about 44 coast guard ships, 15 cargo
ships, 19 tugboats, 35 fishing vessels and five battleships, continued to defending
the drilling rig Haiyang Shiyou-981 that has been illegally positioned (In. J.) in
Viet Nam's waters since the beginning of May.
The Chinese ships kept up their aggression (In. J.) even after the latest ramming
incident, coming threateningly close to Vietnamese vessels (Token. J)…]

According to Example 4.8, the appraised entities are mostly Chinese

ships such as “the two Chinese ship”, “the Chinese ships”. Two other
evaluated items contained in this example are “China”, “the drilling rig
 60

Haiyang Shiyou – 981” refer to the China’s government who are behind all of
its illegal activities.

Example 4.9:
CNN
Cease provocative activities in Chinese waters
By Cao Qun. Updated: 2014-05-16 08:04
[…When the oil rig, or Haiyang Shiyou 981, owned by China National Offshore
Oil Corporation, commenced operating in early May, the China Maritime Safety
Administration issued a notice, demanding vessels avoid passing within a three-
mile radius around the drilling site to ensure safety. In disregard of this notice
(Ins. J.), the Vietnamese authorities dispatched a large number of vessels,
including armed ones, close to the site, and they have rammed China's civilian
ships and disturbed the normal operations of the Chinese drilling platform
(Token. J)
The Vietnamese authorities also filed a protest, accusing the drilling operation
of falling within "disputable waters" and violating the United Nations Convention
on the Law of the Sea and the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South
China Sea (Ins. J.). Hanoi has made use of the so-called "collision incident" in
the South China Sea incited by the media, to describe itself a victim bullied by
China. (Token. J)…]

China determined on peace, stability in South China Sea: vice FM

By Xinhua. Updated: 2014-05-27 16:52
[…Following Vietnam's intensive harassment (Ins. J.) of normal drilling by the
China Oilfield Services Limited in the waters of China's Xisha Islands in the
South China Sea earlier this month, anti-China protests broke out about two
weeks ago in some Vietnamese cities and then escalated into looting and arson
(Token. J) targeting Chinese factories and nationals.
The violence left at least two Chinese dead and more than 100 others injured
(Token. J).]
 61

In Example 4.9, it is clear from the first text, all the phrases – “the
Vietnamese authority”, “they”, “Hanoi” refer to Vietnamese authority/
government. Another case of the appraised occurs in CNNs is the Vietnamese
protesters who caused lots of damage to both Chinese facilities and people as
shown in the second text. The table below presents the distribution of the
Appraised in VNNs and CNNs.

Table 4.7: The Appraised in Judgement values in VNNs and CNNs

VNNs CNNs
The Appraised
Number Percent Number Percent
Chinese
37 28.2% 30 18 %
government/authority
Vietnamese
15 11.5% 82 49%
government/authority
Chinese’s security
56 42.8 % 2 1.2 %
forces/ships
Vietnamese’s security
21 16% 30 18%
forces/ships
Vietnamese protesters 2 1.5 % 23 13.8 %
Total 131 100 % 268 100%

As the table shows, authors of CNNs mostly criticize Vietnamese

authority (49%). The proportion between Chinese government and
Vietnamese ships are equal with 18%. With the Appraised – Vietnamese
ships were condemned to aggressively disturb Chinese drilling oil rig and
attack Chinese guard ships, while the Chinese government was appreciated
for their restraint, tolerance and laws respect. In contrast, in VNNs Chinese
ships rank highest with 42.8% followed by the Chinese government who
stands behind all the troubles with 28.2%. The tenacity and restraint of
 62

Vietnamese side were appraised through the two last items - Vietnamese
government and ships as shown in Table 4.7. Additionally, it is noticeable
that the Vietnamese protesters as the appraised account for 13.8% in CNNs,
but only 1.5% in VNNs. The anti-China protest of Vietnamese workers in
Binh Duong taking place in May 13th, 2014 is seen as aggressive “loots and
arsons” which is repeatedly mentioned across the CNNs corpus. Along with
Judgement value, the notion of journalistic voice also involves the values of
Affect and Appreciation, so the next section focuses on the analysis of Affect.
4.4. Patterns of occurrence of Affect in VNNs and CNNs
4.4.1. Authorial Affect and Observed Affect
As previously discussed, Affect is one of the three dimensions in the
attitudinal system according to Appraisal framework outlined by Martin and
White (2005). Affect indicates how some phenomena affect the
writers/speakers emotionally. Affectual expression is further classified into
three categories, namely authorial, observed and external. Authorial Affect
concerns with the author’s own emotions, while observe Affects indicate
emotion of other participants that the author observes and reports in the news
coverage. External Affect records the emotional responses attributed to
external sources which are excluded in the research of authorial voices.
Besides, Affect can be positive or negative, explicit or invoked. Because
current research particularly focuses on investigating what kind of journalistic
voices operating in VNNs and CNNs, only authorial and observed Affect
were taken into consideration. Once again, it is worth noting that authorial
Affect appears to be absent in Reporter voice and Correspondent voice, but
are free to occur in Commentator voice. Observed Affects operate through the
three keys of voices but with a lowest probability of occurrence in Reporter
voice. It is found that there are quite a few items of Affect in both CNNs and
 63

VNNs, even several hard news contain no Affect values at all. The following
table shows the frequency of occurrence of authorial Affect and observed one
in CNNs and VNNs.

Table 4.8: Authorial Affect and observed Affect in CNNs and VNNs
VNNs CNNs
Affect
Number Percentage Number Percentage
Authorial Affect 0 0% 0 0%
Observed Affect 36 100 % 18 100%
Total 36 100 % 18 100%

As Table 4.8 shows, there is no instance of authorial Affect values

found across the two corpora. Instead, journalists of two newspapers favor
observe Affect with 16 instances in CNNs and 36 instances in VNNs which
make up 100%. Two examples of each corpus are given below in which
observed Affects are coded in bold and abbreviated to (Obs. Aff).

Example 4.10:
VNNs
China keeps up aggressive tactics near East Sea oil rig
Updated June, 12 2014 08:15:53
[ …IADL has demanded (Obs. Aff) that China clarify the legal basis for placing
the rig in Vietnamese waters, deploying vessels and aircraft to the vicinity of the
rig. It has also demanded (Obs. Aff) that China explain its provocative acts,
such as ramming and firing water cannons at Vietnamese ships.
It calls upon China, as a member of the United Nations and a permanent
memberof the UN Security Council, to completely respect and observe the UN
charters and behave in line with its status as a major country in maintaining
regional and international peace, stability and security. In the letter, the
organisation also requested (Obs. Aff) China to respect international law,
 64

restrain from actions that may escalate tensions in the region and jeopardise
security and safety in the East Sea…]

As shown in the extract above, both of the two values “demanded” and
“requested” are values of observed Affect. Noticeably, these two values
occur and repeat many times across the corpus of VNNs. They indicate the
desire of Vietnamese government and organizations that China ceases all
provocative acts escalating tensions in region as well as prove legal basis for
their presence in our East Sea.

Example 4.11:
CNNs
China determined on peace, stability in South China Sea: vice FM
By Xinhua. Updated: 2014-05-27 16:52
[…While saying other countries do not need to worry (Obs. Aff) about China's
policy on the South China Sea, Liu emphasized that no country should doubt
China's determination and will to safeguard the peace and stability of the South
China Sea…]

Hanoi needs amending deeds

Updated: 2014-06-19 07:07
[…It is against Chinese interests to let territorial disputes protrude and get in its
way as a rising power. Beijing's dream (Obs. Aff) of national rejuvenation calls
for a considerably stable and peaceful environment…]

China: Stop harassing oil rig in Xisha Islands

By Zhang Yunbi and Pu Zhendong in Beijing and Chen Weihua in Washington
(China Daily USA). Updated: 2014-05-09 11:47
[ …Beijing demanded (Obs. Aff) on Thursday that Hanoi cease its harassing
actions against a Chinese oil rig in waters off an island in the South China Sea
and called for dialogue to end the conflict…]
 65

Cease provocative activities in Chinese waters 414w

By Cao Qun. Updated: 2014-05-16 08:04
[…In the face of provocative activities from Vietnam, China has had to reinforce
security precautions on the site to ensure (Obs. Aff) the safety of those on the oil
rig and the safety of operating equipment. To maintain China's normal maritime
operations and ensure (Obs. Aff) the safety of its operating vessels, equipment,
personnel and navigation, it is justified for Chinese vessels to fend off bumping
Vietnamese vessels…]

Actually, there are very few instances of Affectual values across the
whole CNNs corpus, and all of them are the values of observed Affects as
illustrated in the extracts above. The Affect - “worry” reports the insecurity
feeling of other countries of China’s policy toward peace and security of East
Sea which is considered not necessary by China side. Items of “dream” and
“demand” in the two next examples express China desire of solving the
conflict in peace and the cease of harassing action against Chinese oil rig in
the maritime zone where they claim to be under their sovereignty. Another
observed Affect – “ensure” shows the security emotion of the safety of China
oil rig progress which China believed legitimate.
Hence, the similarity of two corpora in terms of Affect values in this
research is the fact that they contain no authorial Affect. The journalists do
not express their feelings, but only observe and convey the emotional
responses of others in the event being reported. This finding corresponds to
Martin and White’s theory (2005) that no value of authorial Affect occurs in
general hard news stories and that if any emotional response occurs, it is
observed and reported by the journalist.
 66

4.4.2. The Appraised in Affect in VNNs and CNNs

With regard to Affect, appraiser refers to the person who is feeling
something and the appraised deals with the person, thing or activity that is
being reacted to. To put it differently, Martin and White (2005, p.72) also use
the term the emoter as appraiser, and the trigger of the emotion as appraised.
Affect values in the data occur with low frequencies and all of them are
observed Affects. The triggers of the emotion are found to be primarily
concerned with the oil rig, the actions of both side, or the peace and security in
region. Consider the following example in which the triggers of emotion are
presented in bold and underlined, the Affect items are in italic

Example 4.12:
VNNs
VN ships uncowed by China's actions
Updated July, 08 2014 09:36:00
[Vietnamese surveillance and fishing vessels continued to resist Chinese
intimidation yesterday, stationing themselves at 10-11 nautical miles from the
illegally placed oil rig, constantly demanding its removal….
Viet Nam's fisheries surveillance were hindered in their task by lines of
Chinese ships of various kinds sounding their sirens, but stayed put in the area,
demanding that China stops its illegal occupation of Vietnamese waters…]

Example 4.13:
CNNs
Tensions rise as Vietnam's fishing vessel sinks 603w
By Pu Zhendong. Updated: 2014-05-28 07:04
[…Maritime tensions have escalated, with China demanding that Vietnam stop
its policy of harassment in the South China Sea following the sinking of a
Vietnamese fishing boat…]
 67

Hanoi needs amending deeds

Updated: 2014-06-19 07:07
[… It is against Chinese interests to let territorial disputes protrude and get in
its way as a rising power. Beijing's dream of national rejuvenation calls for a
considerably stable and peaceful environment…]

In Example 4.12, the activity of China placing its oil rig in

Vietnamese’s water can be regarded as the trigger of emotion, so it is a case
of the appraised in Affect. The harassment of Vietnamese side in the first text
of Example 4.13 is the cause of China’s desire “Vietnam stop its policy of
harassment in the South China Sea following the sinking of a Vietnamese
fishing boat”. On the other hand, the fact that the peace and security in East
Sea is being threatened triggers China’s desire of a “considerably stable and
peaceful environment” as shown in the second text of Example 4.13. Table
4.9 presents the distribution of the appraised in Affects across the two
corpora.

Table 4.9: Distribution of the appraised in Affects in CNNs and VNNs

VNNs CNNs
The trigger of emotion
Number Percent Number Percent
Oil rig 3 8.3% 1 5.6 %
Vietnamese actions 5 13.9 % 10 55.6 %
Chinese actions 23 63.9 % 1 5.6 %
Peace and security in
5 13.9% 6 33.3%
region
Total 36 100 % 18 100%

According to Table 4.9, the actions of opposite sides are the primarily
triggers of emotion of each other (63.9% in VNNs and 55.6% in CNNs).
 68

Interestingly, China appears to concern the peace and stable in East Sea in
particular and in region in general. It is indicated via the proportion of the
appraised – “peace and security in region” which ranks second in the total
percentage (33.3%).The other items of appraised account for small proportion.
The subsequent part shifts the focus to Appreciation values in the two corpora.
4.5. Patterns of occurrence of Appreciation in VNNs and CNNs
4.5.1. Positive and negative Appreciation in VNNs and CNNs
Appreciation, which evaluates the objects and products of human
behavior (rather than human behavior) with respect to aesthetic standards and
other systems of social values, is the last Attitudinal resources. This research
concentrates on investigating the Appreciation in terms of positive and
negative so as to observe how the journalists position the readers to take
different views of the objects being appraised. The frequency of occurrence
of positive and negative Appreciation in VNNs and CNNs is illustrated in
Table 4.10 and the pie charts below.

Table 4.10: Positive and negative Appreciation in VNNs and CNNs

VNNs CNNs
APPRECIATION
Number Percentage Number Percentage
Positive 23 44.2% 25 20.3 %
Negative 29 55.8% 98 79.7 %
Total 52 100 % 123 100 %
 69

VNNs CNNs

Positive Positive
Negative Negative

Figure 4.5: Positive and negative Appreciation in VNNs and CNNs

It is clear from the Table 4.10 and Figure 4.5 Chinese news reports
employ much more Appreciation values than Vietnamese ones. However,
in English written news reports of China Daily, negative Appreciation
dominates with the percentage of 79.7% which is much higher than the
percentage of positive Appreciation (20.3%). Unlike China Daily’s news,
in Việt Nam News the proportion of negative Appreciation is nearly equal
to the positive one (55.8% and 44.2%, respectively).
Some instances given as an illustration for the analysis of Appreciation
are provided in Example 4.14 and Example 4.15. These values are in bold in
which negative Appreciation is coded as (-) and (+) is for positive
Appreciation. Appreciation in attributed texts is excluded from the analysis.

Example 4.14:
VNNs
China has broken its promise.
Updated July, 03 2014 10:06:46
[…There is a popular (+) anecdote among the Chinese on the need to defy
everything. When asked by Han Shi Zhong (1089-1151), one of the four famous
(+) generals of the Nan Song dynasty (1127-1279), to table evidence against Yue
Fei, Prime Minister Qin Gui (1090-1155) flatly replied: "No evidence, no need
for evidence."
 70

For nearly a millennium now, Chinese have condemned the reply as well as the
"defying all" attitude by Qin Gui. Yet China itself is defying law and justice,
trampling on common (+) moral standards to grab interests in the East Sea that
do not belong to it. It is opting to act in a way condemned by the Chinese nation.
China believes it can use economic benefits to erode Viet Nam's determination to
safeguard her independence and sovereignty. China has banned its state-run
enterprises from bidding for any projects in Viet Nam. However, for Viet Nam,
independence and sovereignty are the most sacred freedoms (+). Economic
benefits are necessary (+), but nothing is more precious than independence (+).
Viet Nam's leaders have said that not a single inch of the mountains and rivers of
the country will ever be conceded - not for anything. –VNS]

Example 4.15:
CNNs
Hanoi needs amending deeds
Updated: 2014-06-19 07:07
The ship ramming is dangerous (-). The exchange of verbal swords is useless (-).
And the threat (-) of "legal actions" will go nowhere.
The current state of affairs determines the confrontation (-) between China and
Vietnam will be one with no winner (-). Neither China nor Vietnam will emerge
unbruised from any further escalation of the tensions in the South China Sea.
It is against Chinese interests to let territorial disputes (-) protrude and get in its
way as a rising power. Beijing's dream of national rejuvenation calls for a
considerably stable and peaceful (+) environment.
Nor does it serve Vietnam, which faces the daunting (-) task of revitalizing its
less-than-vibrant (-) economy.
So unless both countries want a more costly (-) showdown over their maritime
disputes, there has to be a way out.
Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi's visit to Hanoi is in the first place symbolic
of Beijing's serious (-) intention to bring the potentially explosive recent
confrontation (-) to an end.
 71

Yang's discussions with Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Pham Binh Minh,
who is also the Vietnamese foreign minister, which he described as "frank, broad
and deep", appear to have been constructive, with both acknowledging their
"desire" to control the crisis (-).
Their talks about the Chinese oil rig in the South China Sea, at the center of the
latest skirmishes (-) in the surrounding waters, might not solve the disputes (-),
but were conducive (+) to cooling down the confrontation (-) there, and
avoiding misjudgments.
As the two parties have stated previously and now, they prefer solving their
disputes (-) through dialogue which is obviously the best choice (+) for both.
But the most imperative (+) task now is to defuse the dangerous confrontation
(-), the burden (-) of which lies essentially on Hanoi's shoulders.
Given Beijing's pressing need for good-neighborliness (+), as well as its
emphasis on peace and development, it has every reason to be sincere about its
peacemaking efforts. Whether or not peace can be achieved, then, depends
ultimately on Hanoi's response.
Since all the recent troubles (-) derive from Hanoi's miscalculations (-) and
unwarranted provocations, the current standoff (-) will not see a peaceful (+) end
without Hanoi correcting its approach.
The anti-China riots in May spiraled out of control thanks in part to Hanoi's
connivance (-). The latest maritime confrontation (-) originated from Hanoi
eating its own words acknowledging Chinese sovereignty over those South China
Sea islands.
Whether the current situation can see a peaceful (+) solution rests on whether
Hanoi matches its rhetoric (-) about "desire" with sensible (+) deeds.

The CNNs shows that Chinese journalists do employ a lot of values of

Appreciation, and most of them are negative Appreciation. These items of
Appreciation commonly concern the evaluation of the situation happening in
 72

East Sea. On the contrary, the presence of Appreciation in VNNs corpus is

low with a few instances of this sub-type being found in each text.
4.5.2. The Appraised in Appreciation in VNNs and CNNs
Since Appreciation deals with evaluation of entities and events
including their emotive and aesthetic impacts, the Appraised in Appreciation
found in the data deals with the non-human aspects including the oil rig, the
result of actions, the sovereignty, the marine area, the situation in East Sea
and solutions to the situation. Appreciations are also concerned with the
appearance of the people involved; however, there are no instances occurring
in this case found in the data. The number of the Appraised in the data can
be seen in the following table.

Table 4.11: The Appraised in terms of Appreciation in VNNs and CNNs

VNNs CNNs
The Appraised
Number Percentage Number Percentage
The oil rig 5 9.6 % 10 8.1 %
The results of actions 13 25% 32 26 %
The marine
16 30.8% 4 3.3%
area/fishing ground
The sovereignty 4 7.7% 6 4.9%
The situation in East
8 15.4 % 53 43.1%
Sea
Solution to the
6 11.5% 18 14.6%
situation in East Sea
Total 52 100 % 123 100%

As is shown by the table, in VNNs and CNNs the rank-order of the

Appraised in terms of Appreciation is different to each other. In VNNs, the
marine area ranks the first with 30.8%. The Appraised which ranks the
 73

second is the results of actions (25%) followed by the situation in East Sea
(15.4%) and the solution to the situation (11.5%). The smallest proportion
(9.6%) is contributed by the assessments of sovereignty. On the other hand,
in CNNs, the highest proportion goes to the situation in East Sea with 43.1%
followed by the evaluation of the results of actions with 26%. The rank of the
rest Appraised order as follow: solution to the situation (14.6%), the oil rig
(8.1%), the sovereignty (4.9%) and marine area (3.3%). Thus, the difference
in distribution of the target of evaluation in Appreciation between VNNs
and CNNs demonstrates the different concentration of their journalists in
giving assessments. For example, Chinese journalist focus on evaluating
repeatedly the situation in East Sea as “tension”, “confrontation”,
“dispute” “conflict” “the standoff” or “crisis”, etc...
In conclusion, the findings reveal that the overall tendency of the use
of Attitudinal values across the two data sources are similar in that Judgement
is strongly favored by the journalists rather than Appreciation or Affect.
Specifically, inscribed Judgements outweigh token of Jugdement with high
presence of Social Sanction. The investigated hard news reports downloaded
from two sources operate in the same mode: Commentator voices.
Furthermore, both VNNs and CNNs lack authorial Affect and most of
Appreciation values are negative. The last domain in Appraisal Theory is
Graduation which is concerned with semantics of scaling degree. Graduation
involves Force and Focus. Because the two corpora only deal with the topic
of East Sea tension, in order to observe how this event was described and
intensified, the next section focuses on examining how the writers use
language resources termed Force for their reports.
 74

4.6. Force in VNNs and CNNs

Graduation is the third dimension of Appraisal framework, which is
concerned with gradability. Focus and Force are two main categories of
Graduation. The former is language resources used to sharpen or soften the
strength of boundaries between categories. The latter is a scaling system by
which writers can indicate the intensity as well as the amount of the object
being depicted. This research only concentrates on investigating the values
of Force due to its aims and scope. Also, the occurrence of Focus was
found to be very low, so it is not discussed in this study.
4.6.1. Intensification and Quantification in CNNs and VNNs
Force is further divided into two minor sub-categories, namely
Intensification and Quantification. Intensification refers to the assessment of
degree of intensity of qualities and processes. Quantification, on the other
hand, involves the assessment on numbers, mass/presence and extent which is
concerned with the proximity of time and space and with distribution of time
and space. The use of Intensification and Quantification in the data sources
can be statistically summarized in Table 4.12:

Table 4.12 Distribution of Intensification and Quantification

VNNs CNNs
Force
Number Percent Number Percent
Intensification 57 31.5% 93 57.8%
Quantification 125 68.5% 68 42.2%
Total 181 100% 161 100%

As can be seen from the table, there is a contradiction in the use of

these sub-categories in the two corpora. In CNNs, Intensification is more
preferred to Quantification (57.8 and 42.2%, respectively). Conversely, VNNs
 75

shows a greater use of Quantification with 68.5%. Its frequency of occurrence

doubles that of Intensification which accounts for only 31.5%. To more
understand why Vietnamese authors favor Quantification, the analysis continues
with the detail distribution of its sub-systems presented in Table 4.13:

Table 4.13. Distribution of the sub-categories of Quantification

VNNs CNNs
Quantification
Occurrence Percentage Ocurrence Percentage
Number 64 51.6% 20 29.4%
Mass 6 4.8% 6 8.8%
Proximity of space/time 55 43.6% 39 57.4%
Distribution of space/time 0 0% 3 4.4%
Total 125 100% 68 100%

As shown in Table 4.13, in the two data sources, the assessments on

number and proximity of place/time take up much higher percentage than that
of the others. Particularly, these assessments are found to occur with higher
presence in VNNs with 64 and 55 instances in which Number ranks the first
with 51.6% and followed by Proximity of place/time with 43.6%.
Interestingly, the contradiction keeps happening in the frequency of
occurrence in the use of these two sub-types of Quantification between the
two data corpus. In contrast to VNNs, in CNNs, the assessments dealing with
the proximity of place/ time rank the first (57.4%) and the second goes to
Number (29.4%). Thus, possibly by using several evaluations of Number and
Proximity, Vietnamese writers intentionally stress on how Chinese deployed
their forces to threaten Vietnamese naval guard and then how they violated
Vietnamese maritime sovereignty. This is illustrated in the example below in
which Quantification is underlined and in bold.
 76

Example 4.16:
VNNs
Chinese ships ram, damage VN vessel.
June, 24 2014 09:14:00
[…On May 2, 2014, China had illegally dispatched its oil rig along with a
large fleet of armed vessels including military ships and aircraft and
positioned it 80 miles deep inside Viet Nam's continental shelf and
exclusive economic zone. It moved the rig later to a site 60 nautical miles
deep inside Viet Nam's continental shelf and exclusive economic zone,
ignoring Viet Nam's continental shelf and exclusive economic zone, ignoring
Viet Nam's protest and denouncements from across the globe. — VNS]

The example above contains three instances of Quantification. The first

one is an instance of Mass “a large fleet of armed vessels”. The two last
assessments fall into the case of Proximity of place. The following extract is
an example of CNNs:

Example 4.17:
CNNs
Hanoi behind all the trouble
By Ruan Zongze. Updated: 2014-05-24 08:03
[…Since China's placement of the oil rig on May 2, Vietnam has dispatched a
large number of vessels to the waters near the drilling site, instigating
collision with Chinese ships and interfering with the normal operations of the
Chinese oil company. So far, Hanoi has sent more than 60 vessels, including
armed ones, to the waters near the oil rig. And between May 3 and May 21,
the Vietnamese vessels deliberately rammed the Chinese ships more than 700
times. The Vietnamese side also employed Frogmen and cast fishing nets and
 77

other obstacles in these waters, posing serious security threat to the Chinese
vessels and facilities…]

There are also five instances of Quantification in the extract. Two of

them are Number – “more than 700 times”, “more than 60 vessels”; two
others are Proximity of place such as “near the drilling site”. “A large
number of vessels” is an instance of Mass. Generally, in contrast to VNNs,
Chinese journalists take advantage of values of Quantification in order to
affirm all of their activities in East Sea (including oil rig operation,
deployment, fishing exploitation) normally take place in their maritime
sovereignty and exclusive economic zone; Vietnam has nothing to do in this
area. Besides, several assessments of Number are used to emphasize the times
Chinese ships were rammed by Vietnamese ships and the damages caused by
Vietnamese anti-China riots broke out in Binh Duong. The next section gives
further discussion on Intensification and its sub-categories distribution in the
data.

4.6.2. Isolating and infused Intensification in VNNs and CNNs

According to Martin and White (2005), Intensification can be further
divided into Isolating and Infused based on the lexico-grammatical status of
values. Isolating deals can be realized by separate lexical items through
three ways: up/down scaling of qualities; up/down scaling of verbal processes
and up/down scaling of modalities. On the other hand, Infused conveys the
up-scaling and down-scaling by infusing the semantics of intensification
which performs other semantic function (e.g. the tension escalated…, the
number of users climbed slowly over a ten year period, it mounts at 60%,..).
The Intensifications in the examples below are in bold. Because the study
 78

focuses on authorial voice, Intensification in the words attributed to external

sources is excluded from the analysis.

Example 4.18:
VNNs
Chinese ships ram, damage VN vessel
Updated June, 24 2014 09:14:00
[HA NOI (VNS) — A ship belonging to the Viet Nam Fishing Surveillance
Department was deliberately rammed and seriously (Isolating) damaged by
two Chinese ships illegally operating in Vietnamese waters yesterday.
The action continued China's flagrant violation of international law in placing
an oil rig in Vietnamese seas and preventing the nation's vessels from
engaging in their normal activities.
At 9:30 a.m., two Chinese tugboats 284 and 285 and a maritime patrol ship
No. 11 blocked Vietnamese fishing surveillance ship KN-951 and steadied
(Infused) it on one side. The action allowed tugboat coded Xinhai 285 to ram
the other side, seriously (Isolating) damaging the ship.
Meanwhile, the Chinese fleet, including about 44 coast guard ships, 15 cargo
ships, 19 tugboats, 35 fishing vessels and five battleships, continued to
defending the drilling rig Haiyang Shiyou-981 that has been illegally
positioned in Viet Nam's waters since the beginning of May.
The Chinese ships kept up their aggression even after the latest (Isolating)
ramming incident, coming threateningly close to Vietnamese vessels…]

Example 4.19:
CNNs
Hanoi behind all the trouble
By Ruan Zongze. Updated: 2014-05-24 08:03
[…Anti-China protests in Vietnam turned deadly last week amid the Sino-
Vietnamese maritime standoff over China's placement of an oil rig in waters
 79

south of Zhongjian Island of China's Xisha Islands in the South China Sea.
Running out of control, the looters and arsonists not only targeted Chinese
nationals and companies but also South Korean, Singaporean and other
foreign-owned factories, inflicting (Infused), damage to some 400 factories
and forcing another 1,100 to shut down.
Vietnam, however, has shown the rest of the world how novel its crisis
management is. When the anti-China protests spread, Hanoi mouthed
(Infused) its readiness to quell the riot on one hand but continued to use
politics to fan (Infused) anti-China sentiments on the other. The spokesman
for Vietnam's Foreign Ministry, Le Hai Binh, even argued at a press briefing
that it was "legitimate and natural" for the protesters to manifest patriotism
and determination to protect national sovereignty, following the killing of
Chinese nationals in the anti-China violence.
The fact, however, is quite (Isolating) the opposite. The oil rig was operated
by China's National Offshore Oil Corporation in waters only 17 nautical miles
(31.4 kilometers) south of Zhongjian Island of China's Xisha Islands and about
150 nautical miles from Vietnam's coast. Besides, operations like the latest
(Isolating) one, which is being conducted within China's contiguous zone,
actually started 10 years ago and just in May and June last year, a three-
dimensional seismic operation and well site survey was conducted by the
Chinese company in these waters…]

As can be seen from the extracts above, in VNNs there are four
instances of Intensification, and three of them are Isolating. However, in
CNNs, the author tends to favor Infused than Isolating. The examples also
show that in these two extracts Intensification occurs more frequently in
CNNs than in VNNs.
 80

Table 4.14 is provided for detail numbers of Intensification found in

data analysis. Figure 4.6 graphically illustrates the distribution of isolating
and infused Intensification in the two corpora.

Table 4.14: Intensification values in VNNs and CNNs

VNNs CNNs
Intensification
Number Percent Number Percent
Infused 27 43.5 % 52 56%
Isolating 30 56.5% 41 44%
Total 57 100 % 93 100%
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50% Infused
40% Isolating
30%
20%
10%
0%
VNNs CNNs

Figure 4.6 The distribution of Isolating and Infused in VNNs and CNN

According to the statistic above, there are 57 instances of

Intensification in VNNs, while 92 instances of Intensification are found in the
other corpus. It indicates that the presence of this value can be found with
higher rate in news reports of Chinese newspaper. However, there is a
contrary difference in using sub-types of Intensification between the two
sources. In reference to the data, Isolating is found to outnumber Infused in
VNNs (56.5% vs. 43.5%); meanwhile, in CNNs Infused takes up higher
proportion than Isolating (with 51% and 49%, respectively).
 81

After all, to this point, the distinction and resemblance in the use of
language sources for evaluation between VNNs and CNNs have been
revealed. However, the framework of Appraisal Theory still includes another
linguistic resource – Engagement. In order to investigate the journalistic
voices operating in the data, the next section focuses on Attribution as a sub-
category of Engagement in the two corpora.
4.7. Patterns of occurrence of Attribution in VNNs and CNNs

According to Martin and White (2005, p.182) Attribution occurs

regularly across the three voices but at the highest frequency in Reporter
voice, and lowest frequency in Commentator voice. Therefore, an
investigation into the distribution of attributed sources versus authorial
sources is considered the last step to examine the voices operating in the data
of this research as partly identified in previous sections. In order to identify
the occurrence of un/attributed materials in each corpus, the number of
un/attributed words are counted and then the percentage of each of them in
the whole corpus is calculated. The proportion of unattributed and attributed
sources in the two corpora is illustrated by Figure 4.7

Table 4.15. Distribution of authorial material and non-authorial material

Number of words Total

Percentage
5994 11456
Authorial source
49%
VNNs
6246
Attribute source
51% 100%
7046 12240
Authorial source
61.5%
CNNs
4410
Attribute source
38.5% 100%
 82

100%
90%
80%
70% 61.5%
51%
Authorial
60% 49% sources
50% 38.5% Attributed
40% sources
30%
20%
10%
0%
VNNs CNNs

Figure 4.7. The distribution of authorial and external material in VNNs and CNNs

As can be seen from Figure 4.7, in VNNs corpus the authorial material
has 49% and the percentage of the external material is 51%. The journalist’s
information and the information derived from external sources are almost
equal in news reports on Vietnamese online newspaper. It is found that
writers of CNNs corpus prefer reporting events in their own words rather than
attributing the material to external sources. Specifically, authorial material
accounts for as 61.5% which makes nearly twice the percentage of material
attributed from external sources (38.5%). Hence, in reporting the hottest event
on East Sea, Vietnamese journalists appear to be more objective by using
equally their own materials and information provided by attributed sources. In
contrast, Chinese journalists make themselves primary sources of most
information reported in the hard news stories. It is also recognized that some
texts in CNNs corpus contain only from one to four external materials, even
there is a text completely written by journalist’s words without any material
 83

referring other voices. In the following examples, for ease of reference,

attributed materials are put in bracket […] and presented in bold and italic:

Example 4.20:
VNNs
China continues aggressive action
Updated June, 25 2014 09:17:00
HA NOI (VNS) — China yesterday sent more than 100 ships, including six
military vessels, to protect its oil rig illegally stationed in Viet Nam's waters.
The Viet Nam Fisheries Resources Surveillance Department said [the Chinese
vessels continued to aggressively harass Vietnamese ships.]
For nearly an hour and a half in the early afternoon, Chinese reconnaissance
aircraft CMS-B3586 flew about 500 to 700 metres above the sea 12 nautical
miles from the rig Haiyang Shiyou-981.
Vietnamese fisheries surveillance vessels continued their duties between nine
and 11 nautical miles from the rig. At the same time, they communicated with
the Chinese, asking them to [withdraw the rig and escort their ships out of
Viet Nam's waters.]
Chinese coastguard vessels and tugboats travelled in rows at high speed in an
attempt to ram and fire water cannons at Vietnamese ships, which refused to
budge.
Meanwhile, about 30 Chinese fishing ships, escorted by two coastguard
vessels coded 46102 and 46106, operated at a distance of 20-50 metres from
Vietnamese fishing boats. Supported by fisheries surveillance ships, the
Vietnamese fishermen continued their normal activities \40-45 nautical miles
west-southwest of the rig.
Laos worries
 84

The Lao Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday sent a diplomatic note to the
Vietnamese Embassy in Vientiane, voicing concern about the East Sea
situation.
The Lao ministry said [the East Sea was an important and sensitive area and
was of paramount importance in maintaining and promoting peace, stability
and co-operation.]
[It said Laos was worried about developments, calling for both sides to
restrain from actions that could escalate tension.]
The note asked [both sides to solve the dispute peacefully in accordance with
international law, including the 1982 United Nations Convention on the
Law of the Sea.]
It said [the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea must be
implemented and that consultations on a Code of Conduct of Parties in the
East Sea should be stepped up. — VNS]

Example 4.21:
CNNs
Two scoundrels acting tough.
Updated: 2014-06-11 08:09
Vietnam and the Philippines are trying to make a scene over their maritime
territorial disputes with China. A football game between the two armies on an
island controlled by Vietnam in the South China Sea on Sunday is the latest
shameless farce the two countries have staged. Turning a blind eye to the fact
that the South China Sea islands have long been China's territory and even
their own old maps marked the nine-dash lines in the area as belonging to
China, both countries are behaving like scoundrels on the street.
Hundreds of ships sent by Vietnam have been trying to interfere with the
construction of a floating drilling rig by a Chinese oil firm near China's Xisha
Islands for weeks. And in March, the Philippines tried to send supplies to a
 85

warship that it grounded on China's Ren'ai Reef in the late 1990s, in a bid to
claim ownership of it, to display its defiance at China's sovereignty over the
island.
With the intention of giving the world an impression that they are being
bullied by China, they have ignored China's offer to shelve the disputes and
jointly explore the resources in the South China Sea. Instead, they consider
China's restraint and goodwill gesture as a sign it lacks the heart for direct
conflict.
Some remarks by United States officials and military generals showing [the
US sides with them on this issue have cajoled them into the fantasy that they
can expect military help from the world's sole superpower should they have
a military conflict with China.]
This is a miscalculation.
China has exercised restraint and made its goodwill gesture for the settlement
of the disputes through peaceful means because China treasures friendship
with its two neighbors and peace in the region. Chinese leaders have reiterated
repeatedly that [China wants its rise to be peaceful. But China will never give
in on the question of sovereignty and territorial integrity.]
Chinese President Xi Jinping has said [China would never provoke any
country or make trouble in the world but China is not afraid of provocations
from any country.]
Both Vietnam and the Philippines should not underestimate China's
determination to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity if necessary no
matter which country has ill-advisedly puffed up their bravado.
There is a limit to China's restraint. Bilateral talks on an equal basis for the
peaceful settlement of the disputes are what China wants from both countries.
China does not bully any country, but both Vietnam and the Philippines
should not take its forbearance for granted.
 86

The occurrence of frequency of attributed sources used in the examples

above is low. The writers mostly see themselves as the sources of information.
Therefore, they are free to code his/her attitude towards the validity of
knowledge (including their personal opinions, judgements and feelings). This is
compatible with the distinctive figure of Commentator voice.
In conclusion, the hard news reports dealing with East Sea tension in
online Vietnamese newspaper and Chinese one operate in the same voice -
Commentator voice. Most of the text is highly charged with inscribed authorial
Judgement, inscribed authorial Appreciation but free of authorial Affect. Sharing
the same voice, however, the hard news reports of two sources are different in
the frequency of occurrence of Appraisal values results in the difference in terms
of objectivity and subjectivity. Due to the occurrence of authorial inscribed
values of Judgement, the collected news reports are seen to be subjective.
However, with the variation of frequency of Attitudinal values and the
distribution of its sub-categories, VNNs is seen as less subjective than CNNs; or
it can be said that the news reports dealing with East Sea tension in the
Vietnamese online newspaper are more objectively written than those of the
Chinese online newspaper.
In summary, this chapter describes the data analysis and the outcomes of
current research, which is aimed at identifying the voices operating in the two
corpora. At the same time, it examines how the journalists use language
resources for evaluation to position the reader to take different views of the
people and the event being described. A more detailed discussion of the voice
which the hard news data fall into as well as their similarities and differences,
and an adequate summary of findings of the whole research is the focus of the
final Chapter – Conclusions and Implications.
 87

CHAPTER 5
CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

Being the last chapter of this thesis, chapter 5 summarizes the

outcomes of the research, which has been discussed and described in detail in
the preceding chapter, as the answers to the research questions. Some
conclusions drawn from the discussion are also presented in this concluding
chapter. On the basis of the conclusion, the study suggests some
implications followed by some discussion of the limitations of the research.
The chapter ends with some suggestions for further research.
5.1. Conclusions
With the aim of exploring the journalistic voice operating in the hard
news reports in a Vietnamese online newspaper and a Chinese one, the study
applied the Appraisal framework developed by Martin and White (2005) by
looking at the three language resources, namely Attitude, Engagement and
Graduation. With regard to Attitude, the study began with the analysis of
inscribed Judgement and invoked Judgement followed by the analysis of
Social Sanction and Social Esteem to identify the voices. The positivity and
negativity of Judgement also were taken into consideration to see how the
journalists evaluate the event. Then study proceeded to investigate the other
two sub-types of Attitude, namely Affect and Appreciation. Additionally, the
study also examined how similar or different the Appraised of each
Attitudinal values are in VNNs and CNNs. Under Graduation, due to the
coverage of the East Sea tension, only Force as a sub-type of Graduation was
investigated. Finally, the paper ends with the exploration of the Attribution to
examine the sources of the material in the texts. An adequate summary of the
findings of the whole research is presented below:
 88

The investigation finds that the authorial inscribed Judgement passed

on human behavior occur with high frequency in the hard new reports dealing
with East Sea tension, at least in the two corpora on which this study focuses.
Therefore, it can be concluded that they were written in the voice of Writer.
Thus, the hard news data does not display the characteristics of Reporter
voice, which is believed to be the key voice operating in hard news reports, as
defined by Martin and White (2005). At the same time, based on the
distribution of Social Sanction and Social Esteem, Commentator voice is
found to operate in English news reports in Chinese and Vietnamese online
newspapers dealing with East Sea tension.
Although VNNs and CNNs are written in the same voice, there are
similarities and differences between them in terms of the occurrence
frequencies of Appraisal values and the distribution of the sub-categories of
each of them.
There is a similar trend of using the three sub-systems of Attitude in
VNNs and CNNs. Judgement takes up the majority of proportion followed by
Appreciation and Affect since the journalists focus on the evaluation of
human behavior resulting the event rather than things, objects. With regard to
Judgement, there are three similarities in the two corpora. Specifically,
Propriety makes up the highest percentage in comparison with other sub-
types. Secondly, explicit values are more than implicit ones, and the third is
that negative Judgement outnumbers positive Judgement. Hence, the writers
of both corpora favor to use explicit assessments to negatively evaluate the
human behaviors, which were believed to be in breach of laws as well as go
against the morality. Besides these similarities, there are differences in the
subgroups of Judgement. In VNNs, Propriety is followed by Tenacity while
Veracity ranks the second in CNNs. This suggests that Vietnamese writers
 89

stress the doggedness of Vietnamese side and negatively appraise the

pertinacity of Chinese government. In contrast, Chinese writers emphasize
the truthfulness of the situation on East Sea including the sovereignty and
jurisdiction over its exclusive economic zone and continental shelf. Another
difference involves the Appraised – the target of evaluation. Generally, the
Appraised in VNNs are commonly concerned with the aggressive actions of
Chinese ships while CNNs directly criticize the Vietnamese government.
In respect of Affect, CNNs are similar to VNNs in that they are free of
authorial Affect. This finding contrasts with the property of the voice
operating in the data termed Commentator in which authorial Affect are free
to occur according to Martin and White (2005). Chinese and Vietnamese
journalists have tendency to report the emotion of others by employing
observed Affect. However, there are quite a few instances of observed Affect
found in the data. Interestingly, this finding is compatible with Martin and
White’s theory (2005) that hard news reports contain no value of authorial
Affect and that observed Affect does occur but with low probability. The
authors in the two corpora rarely use values of Affect to directly show their
emotion or the feelings of others possibly because of the following reasons.
The investigated data report on the politic events which are related to the
nations or the public, so the frequent occurrences of Affect values could
make the reports too personalized or too subjective in other words resulting in
the low probability of persuading the readers. Secondly, VNNs and CNNs
share the same tendency to the appraised – also termed trigger of emotion in
Affect in which the actions of opposite sides count for large proportion.
In terms of Appreciation, the findings show that VNNs and CNNs are
similar in that negative Appreciation is more than the positive one. However,
Chinese writers have a significant use of negative evaluations toward things,
 90

processes rather than positive ones, while the disproportion of positive and
negative Appreciation in Vietnamese corpus is not remarkable. It is also
observed that the focus of journalists in giving assessments in Appreciation in
the two corpora is different indicating through the distribution of the target of
evaluation. Specifically the situation in East Sea as Appraised entity occur
commonly in CNNs, whereas this case is concerned with the marine/ fishing
ground in VNNs
With respect to the values of Force as a sub-type of Graduation, there is
a contradiction in the occurrence between the VNNs and CNNs in terms of
Intensification and Quantification. Vietnamese authors use less
Intensification, while this language resource is much favored by Chinese
writers. Likewise, this is also the case of the sub-categories of Intensification
– Infused and Isolating. Vietnamese writers prefer Isolating to Infused, while
Infused is more frequently found in Chinese corpus. Thanks to the
deployment of Infused items, the situation in East Sea is more strongly
intensified and vividly depicted, so the readers are able to imagine the
happening being reported. Last but not least, Attribution is another term
closely related to the notion of journalistic voices. Generally, the data analysis
shows that attributed materials account for lower proportion than that of the
authorial sources. This point corresponds to the theory of Martin and White
(2005) that attributed materials occur at the lowest frequency in commentary
texts. Thus, at this point, there is sufficient evidence to confirm that the
investigated data were written in a Commentator voice. However, there exists
a slight difference in the distribution between VNNs and CNNs. Chinese
journalists see themselves as key sources for their materials; meanwhile,
attributed sources and unattributed sources are employed quite equally by
Vietnamese journalists.
 91

In conclusion, apart from the similarities summarized above, it can be

said that the major differences between VNNs and CNNs lie on the variation
of frequency of Apprasalvalues and the distribution of its sub-categories. The
greatest difference is that CNNs corpus obviously contains an overwhelming
employment of all sub-groups of Attitude (especially inscribed Judgement) in
unattributed texts. This difference leads to the distinction in respect of
subjectivity and objectivity of the voices operating in the two corpora. Hence,
the hard news reports written in English in ViệtNam News are more objective
than those in China Daily and vice versa. Therefore, they are more factual as
Vietnamese journalists tend to report on what has happened and what has
been said on the happening rather than making comments on it. In the end,
the answers to the two research questions stated in Chapter1 were found and
the aims and objectives of the research were achieved.
Additionally, as the researcher observed, hard news reports that are
conventionally seen to be factual, objective can be transformed into
“commentary” by adding subjective elements. It can be inferred that the voice
operating in news texts possibly vary partly depending on their coverage (i.e.
the event being reported). If the coverage deals with the events which are
necessary to assert evaluations or subjective elements to persuade the readers,
the voice of objectiveness may shift to the voice of subjectiveness to meet the
intention of the journalists. This seems to be the case of China press. In order
to blame Vietnamese side for all faults and confirm the normality of all of
Chinese activities as well as their innocence in East Sea, Chinese journalist
share the same formulae in their ways of writing as follows: Mostly, they
employ many values of Judgement to criticize Vietnamese actions, while
most of which are Chinese actions themselves and they shift the blame to
Viet Nam despite the fact that their aggressive acts were already filmed by
 92

Vietnamese and many foreign reporters on board; then they praise themselves
for being restraint and tolerant for all of these deeds. Through Appreciation,
they affirm the drilling oil rig and the so called sovereignty of China in the
area are as usual. Besides, Chinese writers frequently evaluate the situation in
East Sea to stress how China concern and worry for the peace and security in
region. At last, China has deliberately distributed wrongful information about
East Sea tension with illogical allegation to slander Vietnam of escalating
tension. Chinese newspaperdom has joined hands with its government to
make up stories in which Chinese side is a victim of Vietnamese assailants.
Dealing with the same happenings Vietnamese journalists have, however,
reported on what has been seen with sufficient evidence (historical
documents, photographs, filmed videos) to help the world understand
properly what was actually happening in East Sea so as to take advantage of
international support. The opposite coverage as presented above is the reason
why there exist two contrary stories for the same happening. This might make
readers, especially those who do not have enough knowledge and information
relating to this situation, feel confused or take a one-sided view. However, the
Vietnamese patriots and all people around the world who support Vietnam
believe that justice triumphs eventually.
5.2. Implications
Hopefully, the study may be beneficial to those who do research with
the Appraisal Theory in general and in journalistic voices in particular. The
similarities and differences between VNNs and CNNs probably help other
researchers, who want to conduct further studies also dealing with the tension
in East Sea, easily understand the evaluative language used in the two corpora
as well as compare and contrast the writing style of Vietnamese versus
Chinese journalists. Furthermore, this thesis may be useful for those who
 93

learn or work in the area of journalism, especially in writing commentaries in

newspapers.
5.3. Limitations
Due to the limit of time and reference materials as well as the
knowledge of the author, the study inevitably has shortcomings. Firstly, the
number of samples collected is only 50 downloaded from two online
newspapers; therefore, the findings of the study may not reflect completely
how evaluative language is used and the key voice operating in all hard news
reports dealing with East Sea tension. It is uncertain that whether or not other
hard news reports sharing the same coverage in other websites or printed
newspapers are written in the same style. Secondly, the study does not
investigate a full array of Appraisal sub-systems. Last but not least, the
author’s experience in doing scientific research is inadequate, so there may
remain some mistakes and weaknesses such as in interpreting the outcomes of
data analysis.
5.4. Suggestions for further research
The present study just focuses on the journalistic voices operating in
English written hard news dealing with East Sea tension. To fulfill its aim, the
research tried to make a detailed analysis of some Appraisal values including
Attitude, Force (Graduation) and Attribution (Engagement). Thus, there still
exist other aspects that need further research. It is recommended further
studies investigate how ideology influences the reporters in the way of
construing and depicting the tension in East Sea. Or, researchers may make an
investigation into full system of Engagement. In addition, they can examine
evaluative language in other kinds of media genres.
 94

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VIETNAMESE
Nguyễn, H. S. (2010). So sánh ngôn ngữ báo chí Tiếng Việt và Tiếng Anh qua
một số thể loại, Luận án tiến sĩ ngữ văn, Trường ĐH KHXH & NV Tp.
Hồ Chí Minh.

INTERNET
China Daily website: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/
Việt Nam News website: http://vietnamnews.vn/
 99

APPENDIX

SAMPLE ANALYSIS OF VNNs

Vietnam maintains pressure on China to remove illegal rig
Updated June, 20 2014 09:00:00
HA NOI (VNS) — Despite the Chinese agression in the East Sea, Vietnamese
fisheries surveillance and coast guard authorities on June 19 continued to
relentlessly demand China remove its drilling rig out of Vietnam's waters and
respect international law, reported the Vietnam Fisheries Surveillance Department.
Facing obstinate and violent obstruction by the Chinese side, Vietnamese ships still
managed to get about 9 nautical miles near rig Haiyang Shiyou-981, standing
illegally in Vietnam's exclusive economic zone and continental shelf since the
beginning of May, the department said.
A large number of Chinese coast guard and patrol ships and tugboats defending the
rig kept on following and blocking Vietnamese ships, driving them away.
Meanwhile, Vietnamese authorities detected two Chinese minesweepers operating
about 18-21 nautical miles from the rig, a Vietnam News Agency reporter at the site
said. At 13:00, a reconnaissance aircraft also flew above Vietnam's fisheries
surveillance ships.
At the same time, about 38 Chinese fishing ships, backed by two coast guard ships,
coded 46102 and 44608, continued to violently disturb Vietnamese fishing boats
operating about 37 nautical miles from the rig.
However, the Chinese aggression could not stop Vietnamese fishermen from
conducting their catching activities in their traditional fishing ground in Vietnam's
waters.
At the beginning of May 2014, China illegally dispatched the rig Haiyang Shiyou-
981 as well as a large fleet of armed vessels, military ships and aircraft to Vietnam's
waters and positioned the rig at 15 degrees 29 minutes 58 seconds north latitude and
 100

111 degrees 12 minutes 06 seconds east longitude, 80 miles deep into Vietnam's
continental shelf and exclusive economic zone.
Despite Vietnam's protest, China expanded its scale of operation and moved the rig
to 15 degrees 33 minutes 36 seconds north latitude and 111 degrees 34 minutes 11
seconds east longitude, 60 nautical miles deep inside Vietnam's continental shelf
and exclusive economic zone.
China's armed vessels have aggressively and consistently fired high-power water
cannons at and intentionally rammed against Vietnamese public-service and civil
ships, causing damage to many boats and injuring many people on board.
Chinese ships have continuously encircled, constrained and driven away
Vietnamese fishing boats and even injured Vietnamese fishermen, threatening their
lives.
On May 26, Chinese ship 11209 sank a Vietnamese fishing vessel while it was
operating normally in its traditional fishing ground near Vietnam 's Hoang Sa
(Paracel) archipelago.— VNA/VNS

The appraised items

Judgement Affect Appreciation Force
(in unattributed text)
Vietnam maintains pressure on SE, +Tenacity,
(-)
China to remove illegal rig Token. J
A large number of Chinese Quantification
coast guard and patrol ships
and tugboats defending the rig SE, +Capacity,
kept on following and
blocking Vietnamese ships,
driving them away.
 101

At the same time, about 38

Chinese fishing ships, backed
by two coast guard ships,
coded 46102 and 44608,
continued to violently disturb SS, -Propriety
Vietnamese fishing boats
operating about 37 nautical
miles from the rig.
However, the Chinese SS, -Propriety
aggression could not stop SE, +Tenacity
Vietnamese fishermen from Token. J
conducting their catching
activities in their traditional (+)
fishing ground in Vietnam's
waters.
At the beginning of May 2014,
China illegally dispatched the SS, -Propriety
rig Haiyang Shiyou-981 as
well as a large fleet of armed
vessels, military ships and Quantification
aircraft to Vietnam's waters
and positioned the rig at 15
degrees 29 minutes 58 seconds
north latitude and 111 degrees
12 minutes 06 seconds east
longitude, 80 miles deep into
Vietnam's continental shelf Quantification
and exclusive economic zone.
China's armed vessels have SS -Propriety
aggressively and consistently SE, +Tenacity
fired high-power water
cannons at and intentionally SS -Propriety
rammed against Vietnamese Token. J
public-service and civil ships,
 102

causing damage to many boats Quantification

and injuring many people on Quantification
board
Chinese ships have
continuously encircled, SE, -Tenacity
constrained and driven away
Vietnamese fishing boats and
even injured Vietnamese SS, -Propriety
fishermen, threatening their
lives
On May 26, Chinese ship
11209 sank a Vietnamese SE, -Propriety
fishing vessel while it was
operating normally in its SE, +Normality
traditional fishing ground near Quantification
Vietnam 's Hoang Sa (Paracel) (+)
archipelago.— VNA/VNS]
Total 12 0 3 6

SAMPLE ANALYSIS OF CNNs

Recklessness on Vietnamese side in South China Sea must stop
By Xinhua. Updated: 2014-05-28 15:58
BEIJING - The increasingly aggressive and dangerous acts of Vietnamese vessels
against Chinese oil drilling in the South China Sea resulted in an unfortunate
accident on Monday, which bode ill for the already tense situation.
Recklessness on Vietnamese side in South China Sea must stop Territorial disputes
in the South China Sea.
A Vietnamese fishing boat capsized after it bumped into a Chinese vessel in the
waters near China's Xisha Islands. The crew aboard the boat were rescued
immediately and were unhurt.
Such recklessness must stop. However, instead of containing the illegal intrusion of
Vietnamese vessels and their attempts to obstruct/ normal operation of the Chinese
 103

oil rig, Vietnamese officials have made irresponsible and wild accusations against
China, which could encourage and embolden Vietnamese activists into undertaking
even more aggressive acts.
The boat accident was as a result of a kamikaze-style attack as the boat deliberately
ran into Chinese waters and collided with one of the vessels protecting the oil rig.
However, some Vietnamese officials blamed it on China and accused the country of
"inhumane acts" and "attempted murder."
The Chinese side displayed restraint and issued warnings that were ignored by the
Vietnamese boat.
The Vietnamese side should bear full responsibility for all its reckless acts and
should refrain from taking any futher moves that will escalate tension and disrupt
security in the South China Sea.
The Xisha Islands are Chinese territory and the drilling takes place in Chinese
waters. The Vietnamese side's obstruction of business activities in Chinese waters
has no legal grounds.
Oil drilling operations off the Xisha Islands have been conducted by Chinese
companies for 10 years. The current operation, which has entered a second phase, is
a normal legitimate offshore drilling task.
The oil rig off Zhongjian Island of the Xisha Islands lies 17 nautical miles (31 km)
from the island, completely (isolating) within China's territorial waters, while it is as
far as 130-150 nautical miles (241-278 km) off Vietnam.
 104

The appraised items

Judgement Affect Appreciation Force
(in unattributed text)
Recklessness on Vietnamese SE, -Tenacity
side in South China Sea must
stop
The increasingly aggressive Isolating
and dangerous acts of SS, -Propriety
Vietnamese vessels against
Chinese oil drilling in the
South China Sea resulted in an
unfortunate accident on (-)
Monday, which bode ill for the
already tense situation. (-)
Recklessness on Vietnamese SE, -Tenacity
side in South China Sea must
stop Territorial disputes in the (-)
South China Sea
A Vietnamese fishing boat
capsized after it bumped into a SE, -Propriety
Chinese vessel in the waters
near China's Xisha Islands.
The crew aboard the boat were
rescued immediately and were SE,+Capacity, Isolating
unhurt. Token. J
Such recklessness must stop. SE, -Tenacity
However, instead of
containing the illegal intrusion SS, -Propriety
of Vietnamese vessels and
their attempts to obstruct
normal operation of the (+)
Chinese oil rig, Vietnamese
officials have made
irresponsible and wild SS, -Propriety
accusations against China,
 105

which could encourage and

embolden Vietnamese activists
into undertaking even more Isolating
aggressive acts. SS, -Propriety
The boat accident was as a SE, -Propriety (-)
result of a kamikaze-style
attack as the boat deliberately SS, -Propriety,
ran into Chinese waters and Token. J
collided with one of the
vessels protecting the oil rig.
The Chinese side displayed SE, +Capacity
restraint and issued warnings
that were ignored by the SE, -Tenacity,
Vietnamese boat. Token. J
The Vietnamese side should SS, -Propriety,
bear full responsibility for all Token. J
its reckless acts and should SE, -Tenacity
refrain from taking any futher Isolating
moves that will escalate Infused
tension and disrupt security in SS, -Propriety (-)
the South China Sea
The Xisha Islands are Chinese
territory and the drilling takes
place in Chinese waters. The
Vietnamese side's obstruction SS, -Propriety
of business activities in
Chinese waters has no legal (+)
grounds.
Oil drilling operations off the SE, +Normality
Xisha Islands have been Token. J.
conducted by Chinese
companies for 10 years. The
current operation, which has
entered a second phase, is a
 106

normal legitimate offshore (+)

drilling task.
The oil rig off Zhongjian
Island of the Xisha Islands lies
17 nautical miles (31 km) from
the island, completely within Isolating
China's territorial waters,
while it is as far as 130-150
nautical miles (241-278 km)
off Vietnam.
Total 18 0 8 6