A critical discourse study of news reports from four countries on the Kunming terrorist incident in China: Based on Appraisal language from Systemic functional linguistics

Objectives The purpose of this study is to analyze the texts of news reports from major Western and Eastern media on the Kunming terrorist incident in China by utilizing the Appraisal of Systemic Functional Linguistics to identify how appraisal language in texts interacts with social context to reinforce certain ideologies, power structures, and social attitudes. Methods This study centers on the appraisal theory of SFL and utilizes the Four-level Context Model proposed by Wodak (1996, 2009) to conduct the analysis. The subjects of the analysis were news articles on the Kunming terrorist incident reported by major media organizations in China, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and the appraisal language (attitude, engagement, gradation) was compared in-depth in four dimensions: intra-textual context, intertextual context, extra-linguistic social context, and political-historical context. Results Eastern and Western media showed distinct differences in the way they used Appraisal language in news reports. Attitude was prominent in Chinese media, emphasizing the victims and the tragic outcome to generate emotional empathy, while Engagement was used in a positive way to instill trust in the response of the government and public institutions. Gradation used strong language to emphasize the seriousness of the incident and the importance of the government's response. On the other hand, Western media (UK, US) focused on analyzing the context and causes of the incident and used objective and neutral Engagement, while Attitude was used to critically examine the social and political implications and international impact of the incident. The latter emphasized the complexity of the events and the diversity of perspectives, inviting readers to make their own judgments. Conclusions By applying Appraisal theory and Wodak's four-stage contextual analysis model, this study shows that Appraisal language use in news reports goes beyond the mere conveyance of information and plays an important role in reinforcing certain social goals and ideologies.