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Facing the challenges and opportunities brought by the launch of the WeChat subscription account in 2012, Reference News (hereafter RN), a Chinese official news agency publishing selected translated foreign news, has responded quickly, becoming one of the most successful WeChat accounts. Among the various contents produced by RN's WeChat account, there is a type of news report that quotes social media comments posted by foreign netizens on China-related topics. This study investigates the translation of those comments. Using a dataset containing news articles quoting translated comments published between 1 August 2019 and 31 July 2020, we analysed the selection of news topics and comments and investigated the translated comments by drawing on appraisal theory and framing strategies. It was found that RN tends to cover more soft news and quotes positive comments towards China. These selected comments were then rendered and reframed to play up the pro-China stance in the original and presented to the readers with screenshots of their source texts. In a highly marketized, digitalised, and competitive social media context, these strategies have facilitated RN's efforts to represent China's positive global image among foreign netizens to their WeChat account followers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws upon transitivity and Appraisal within Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) to study the traumatic discourse of Nanjing Massacre in Chinese Mainland's and Japan's history textbooks. Through corpus analysis, this research finds that the Chinese discourse mainly uses effective process, relational process, verbal process to construe Japan's victimizering experience and China's victimhood, and employs negative Affect, opposite values of Judgment, negative Appreciation, Expand, Raise and Sharpen to construct a critical voice for the Japanese army and a sympathic tone for the Chinese. By contrast, the Japanese discourse largely uses pseudo-effective and middle processes, mental and existential processes to cover up Japan's victimizering experience, and employs negative Judgment, positive Appreciation, Contract and Raise to construct an almost uncritical voice for the Japanese army and the massacre. The difference in the representation and evaluation of Nanjing Massacre results from the politics of official memories in both countries. As China endeavors to strengthen its patriotic education by using Nanjing Massacre as an ideological weapon for national solidarity, Japan expedites its nationalist historiography move to recreate its normal national image by marginalizing the massacre. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of cross-cultural luxury values perceptions (LVPs) emphasize the consideration of different cultures. This study argues that certain LVPs in the West and China deviate from Hofstede's cultural dimensions. This study investigates the perception of four values: high social status, high quality, uniqueness and modernity. Drawing on explicit and implicit epithets of Martin and White's Appraisal framework, the textual characteristics of the four values in parallel corpora: English 17,268 words and Chinese 19,103 words are examined against Hofstede's cultural dimensions. Results caution against the generality of Hofstede's finding and offer new insights into Chinese luxury marketing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explored the marketisation process of top-tier Chinese universities by scrutinising their self-promotional strategies over the past two decades. Drawing on Martin and White's (2005) Appraisal framework, we identified all attitudinal markers in the About Us texts posted by 35 top-tier Chinese universities on their official websites at two time-points: the turn of the century and the year of 2021. The 35 universities were drawn from China's "Double First Class" Initiative that prioritises the development of a select group of elite universities in China. Close textual analyses focussing on the attitudinal markers with reference to their contexts were conducted to identify the themes evaluated in the About Us texts; Wilcoxon signed-rank tests were run to quantitatively compare the relative frequencies of the attitudinal markers between the two phases, which was then supplemented by diachronic qualitative comparisons on the fine-grained linguistic features surrounding the markers. The study identified seven major themes positively appraised by the universities at both time-points. It also revealed diachronic differences in the use of attitudinal markers, reflecting a mediated change of promotional strategies over the past 20 years or so in the Chinese higher education context. These findings point to the influence of market, government, and tradition on Chinese top-tier universities' promoting strategies and the role of social cognition in shaping student choice. They also suggest the emergence of a higher education system with Chinese characteristics that features a reconciliation of market and government forces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The central issue of this research is to evaluate the extent of cognitive appraisal and coping processes within the pandemic encounter and determines their influence on frontline healthcare providers who had been dispatched to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epicenter (HPDE) distress symptoms. Materials and methods: An electronic survey of the HPDE and frontline healthcare providers who worked in their original medical facility (HPOF) was conducted from March 1 to 15, 2020. Two variables, appraisal (measured with an 18-item questionnaire) and coping (measured The Brief Cope questionnaire), were used in the analysis to explain distress symptoms (Impact of Event Scale-Revised). Results: A total of 723 eligible respondents completed the survey with a response rate of 57.3% (351 HPDE and 372 HPOF). The mean IES-R scores of HPDE respondents were 26.47 ± 11.7. Of HPDE respondents, 246 (70.09%) reported distress symptoms (score 9–88). The scores of intrusion, avoidance, and hyperarousal for HPDE were 10.28 ± 4.7, 8.97 ± 4.3, and 7.20 ± 3.2, respectively. The respondents had higher scores in overall distress and three subscales than HPOF. Appraisal and coping variables explained 77% of the distress variance. Five appraisal variables (health of self, health of family/others, virus spread, vulnerability or loss of control, and general health) were positively associated with distress symptoms. Four coping variables (active coping, positive reframing, self-distraction, and behavioral disengagement) were negatively associated with distress level, whereas self-blame was positively associated with distress symptoms. Regarding the appraisal, the scores of HPDE were significantly higher than HPOF (all p -values < 0.05), whereas being isolated was not significantly different between HDPE nurses and HPOF nurses. HPDE was significantly more likely to use humor, emotional support, instrumental support, self-distractions, venting, substance use, denial, behavioral disengagement, and self-blame (P < 0.05), whereas HPOF was significantly more likely to use active coping and acceptance (P < 0.05). HPDE doctors were significantly more likely than nurses to use active coping and acceptance (P < 0.05), whereas HPDE nurses were significantly more likely to use emotional support and use self-blame (P < 0.05). Conclusion: Frontline healthcare providers who had been dispatched to the COVID-19 epicenter respondents had a higher distress level. Therefore, we should provide proactive psychological support based on specific appraisal and coping variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study reports on the development of the interpersonal discourse semantic system of involvement based on the analysis of evaluative meanings in 3 different data sets of Chinese digitally mediated communication. It builds on prior work developed within tenor and interpersonal meanings. Within the proposed system, 3 kinds of interpersonal meaning dimensions are posited. The first relates to the relative status between interlocutors and participants within a social hierarchy and is, thus, named social hierarchy. The second relates to the positioning of the person posting and others in relation to how close their relationship is and is, thus, named social distance. The third relates to who is being positioned within the other 2 dimensions and is called involvement type. Within the 3 data sets of digitally mediated Chinese communication (i.e., forum posts, SMS, and chat room messages), we found that the Chinese interlocutors frequently positioned themselves and others in relationships both within a social hierarchy as well as in relationships concerning their relative social distance. Results show there are a number of linguistic realisations of these 3 involvement systems which Chinese interlocutors use to negotiate their relative social positions in digitally mediated communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on a combined framework of Appraisal System and Ideological Square Model, this paper conducts a corpus-based investigation of the ways in which the image of China is (re)shaped in the English translation of Chinese political discourse in terms of appraisal epithets. The results show that (1) shifts regularly occur in the English translation of the appraisal epithets in Chinese political discourse, though an equivalent translation strategy is a canonical option for the translators of Chinese political discourse; (2) translation patterns of the appraisal epithets vary within the three sub-categories of Appraisal System, with shifts found mostly in the translation of the negative appraisal epithets under 'engagement' and 'graduation' subcategories; (3) discursively, China is more negatively represented in the translated than in the source Chinese texts. A two-layered Ideological Square Model is proposed to account for the research findings in terms of ideological factors in the translation of Chinese political discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The conflict over the sovereignty of the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands in the East China Sea has become intense since the Japanese government announced its purchase of the islands from a private owner in 2012. Since then, hostile attitudes have been seen in the press between the Chinese and Japanese governments regarding these islands. In order to understand how newspapers present international readers with opinions on the conflict, this article examines visual and written evaluations of the conflict in online English-medium newspaper editorials in China and Japan. To do this, a corpus of editorials published from 1 January 2012 to 31 December 2016 from Chinese newspapers and a Japanese newspaper was compiled. The analysis draws on an appraisal analysis to examine the visual and written evaluations of the texts. The study reveals that the Chinese and Japanese editorials' visual images represent the conflict in their own respective favours by focusing on different entities, and using visual resources such as colour. The visual-written interaction analysis illustrates how different domains of evaluative meanings appear in the visual and written texts in the two sets of editorials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attitude is an important resource for courtroom discourse to perform interpersonal functions. This paper analyzes the attitude expressions in the audio recording transcripts of eight trials and finds that: judgement is the most important way for courtroom participants to express attitude, followed by appreciation, while affect is the least frequently used. In the four criminal trials, the defendants express attitude most frequently and most negatively; in the four non-criminal trials, the plaintiffs express attitude most frequently and most negatively. In the debate section of criminal trials, judgements of legality and capacity and non-judgement invoking appreciations are employed by the prosecutors and defense attorneys to express attitude and debate each other. Non-judgement invoking appreciations are used not only to evaluate the evidence, but also to introduce substantial statements, serving as an intermediate link between the two. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The purpose of the study was to build a model to explain the relationships between social support, uncontrollability appraisal, adaptive coping, and posttraumatic growth (PTG) among cancer patients in China.Methods: The participants who were cancer patients in a cancer hospital in China filled out a survey. The final sample size was 201. Structural equation modeling was used to build a model explaining PTG.Results: Structural equation modeling results indicated that higher levels of social support predicted higher levels of adaptive coping, higher levels of uncontrollability appraisal predicted lower levels of adaptive coping, and higher levels of adaptive coping predicted higher levels of PTG. Moreover, adaptive coping was a mediator between social support and growth, as well as a mediator between uncontrollability and growth. The direct effects of social support and uncontrollability on PTG were insignificant.Conclusions: The model demonstrated the relationships between social support, uncontrollability appraisal, adaptive coping, and PTG. It could be concluded that uncontrollability appraisal was a required but not sufficient condition for PTG. Neither social support nor uncontrollability appraisal had direct influence on PTG. However, social support and uncontrollability might indirectly influence PTG, through adaptive coping. It implies that both internal factors (eg, cognitive appraisal and coping) and external factors (eg, social support) are required in order for growth to happen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article, based on the appraisal framework, investigates the ways in which Chinese and Australian journalists strategically mobilize and mediate emotions in hard news reporting on risk events that disturb social order. Drawing on a newly built comparable corpus of Chinese and Australian hard news reporting on risk events, the study found that both Chinese and Australian journalists endeavour to reconstruct social order in the face of risk events mainly through building a shared feeling community. However, Chinese and Australian journalists strategically communicate emotions to construct different centres of social values. In Australian hard news, the centre of social values holding the nation together is construed through ordinary citizens, whereas in the Chinese context the centre is construed through power elites. The article argues that such different strategic rituals of emotionality are conditioned by the press conditions (e.g. tightening media budget, increasing press competition, and rising broadloidization), and that they reflect divergent stances undertaken by Chinese and Australian journalists. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study was based on the view that collective conceptions of learners have intimate connections with both social and linguistic analysis and language education. It set out to examine systematically the perceptions of Chinese college students on English and English education against the background of both the increasing role of English in the world at large and a national advocacy for English learning in China. Drawing on data obtained from an extensive survey conducted at four universities in China, the study probes the complexities of students’ attitudes toward the status of English, the pluralism of English, and the way students identify themselves with English. The findings lend support to making adjustments to English education so as to attend to learners’ needs of learning, communication, and identity seeking and to empower them to meet the opportunities and challenges brought about by the unprecedented spread of the language. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Background: Parents play a critical role in adolescents' psychological adjustment, especially in stress response. Few studies have investigated parental impact on adolescents' psychological adjustment in the pandemic. The longitudinal study examined how parental psychosocial factors at the surging period of the pandemic (T1) in China predicted adolescents' anxiety and depression concurrently and at the remission periods three (T2) and six months (T3) later., Methods: Middle and high school students and their parents from three schools in Shanghai, China, completed online surveys on March 10, 2020 (T1), June 16, 2020 (T2), and Sep 25, 2020 (T3). Adolescents' anxiety/depression levels were assessed by matching self- and parent-reports at T1, T2, T3, and parents reported their psychological state (emotion and psychopathology), pandemic response (appraisal and coping), and perceived social support (PSS) at T1., Results: Parental positive/negative emotions, anxiety, depression, control-appraisal, forward- and trauma-focus coping style and PSS were all significantly related to their children's anxiety/depression at T1. All factors, except coping style, predicted adolescents' anxiety/depression at T2 and T3, even after controlling for T1 adjustment levels. Parental positive emotion and depression had the strongest impact on adolescents' adjustment., Limitations: Some participants didn't complete the surveys at later time points, and the participants were only recruited in Shanghai., Conclusions: The study found that parents' psychosocial factors played a pivotal role on adolescents' psychological adjustment during COVID-19, highlighting the need to provide help to parents who were suffering from potential psychological distress., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest None., (Copyright © 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Disputes and conflicts affect interpersonal relationships. The key factors in resolution are what attitudes people take and what kinds of reconciliation people choose. The paper examines the language of judges from the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistics, specifically Appraisal System. It presents a case study that is a civil one brought to court in Tahe County in China. The case concerns the conflict and dispute between a chicken raiser and his neighbor. The judge resolved the conflicts and disputes, and the two parties were reconciled. The appraisal analysis of the language used by the two parties explains how conflicts and disputes occurred. The appraisal analysis of the judge's language explains how the mediation succeeded in reconciling the conflicts and disputes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines stance in cross-cultural media discourse by comparing disaster news reports on the Sichuan earthquake of May 2008 in a Chinese, an Australian Chinese, and an Australian newspaper. The stance taken in the news reports is examined using the Attitude sub-system of Martin and White's (2005) Appraisal framework. The analysis revealed that stance patterns in the reports from the three newspapers varied systematically, and that the reports from the three newspapers could be placed on a continuum, with the Chinese-Australian news reports taking an intermediate stance, though leaning more towards the Chinese stance. For instance, whereas the Australian reports focused primarily on evaluating the actual earthquake situation, both the Chinese and the Australian Chinese reports focused more on assessing the participants and their behavior during the aftermath of the earthquake. Findings are linked to features of the Chinese and Australian sociocultural contexts, and the implications of the study are discussed for understanding the discourse of migrant 'sub-cultures' in relation to the discourse of the cultures to which they are connected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: From aspects of the adsorption mechanism, adsorption experiment method and standards, application of adsorption isotherm method, the paper has summarized and appraised the theory research course and achievement of methane adsorption on coal at home and abroad and analyzed existing problems in China''s coal reservoir adsorption theoretical research and experiment method. Finally the paper probed into the study of the development trend and problems need to be resolved. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Appraisal of tourism development planning is a core link tot its authoritativeness and legalization. Currently, China's appraisal work is mainly confined to qualitative analysis and presents "pro forma" irrational phenomena. The paper constructs 25-index appraisal system from the 4 levels of standardization, scientification, feasibility and innovation and takes tourism development planning in Qinling Mountains, Shananxi Province as an empirical study. The results show that 1. the appraisal system is composed of compiling system, planning object system and management system and the appraisal stakeholders are divided into core stakeholders and fringe stakeholders; 2. feasible index weighs the most, at the core position, followed by scientific index, as the key target of examination and appraisal; innovative index places the third, attention is paid to the planning contents and technical innovation and standardized index weighs the least, which is closely related to planning forms and content system; 3. demonstration link of the results of tourism development should be increased to carry on the evaluation ways combining qualitative, quantitative and grading contents and develop the management system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study applies the seven hotel-valuation techniques proposed by Rushmore to estimate the value of a state-owned hotel in China. The dearth of research on hotel real estate in China may be attributed to the fact that the historic data of hotel sales transactions is not available or difficult to obtain. Nevertheless, many international hotel investors are interested in China's hotels because of its booming tourism business. This study analyzes the extent to which the seven generally accepted hotel valuation techniques might be appropriate for China, since those approaches rely on certain types of data and financial ratios that may not be readily available. Using a single hotel as a case study, the study found that each valuation technique has its own strengths and weaknesses. On balance, the income capitalization approach should work most reliably in China, while a sales comparison approach may be the least reliable technique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the construction of personal identities through the request e-mail discourse by a group of professional English language teachers of a public education institution in Hong Kong. Facing the downsizing of the civil service, the revised appraisal system, and the tighter budget of the Hong Kong SAR government following the Asian financial crisis, teachers working in Hong Kong public schools have less chances of getting promotion and pay rises. To put themselves in an advantageous position in relation to get a promotion and a pay rise, as argued in this paper, the teachers constructed two personal identities online before their peers and superiors in their workplace. A total of 50 e-mails met the two criteria that follow and formed the corpus of the present study: containing at least one request, and having teachers of the same rank as the author and recipients. The request e-mail discourse is analyzed at the clause level with respect to transitivity, mood and modality by drawing upon systemic functional linguistics. It is found that the teachers, using the resources available in the English language grammar, constructed for themselves the identity of a responsible, hardworking member, and of a member with authority and power. This paper hopes to achieve three aims - (1) to contribute to the understanding of the constitutive effect of discourse; (2) to illustrate how such effect could be manipulated by discourse producers in order to achieve both their communicative and political aims; and (3) to enhance people's e-mail communication competency in the workplace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Recent reforms to curriculum standards in China have highlighted for the first time ‘emotion and attitude education’. This new focus is the pedagogic backdrop to the research reported in this article–an exploration of how evaluative stance is construed through the co-deployment of linguistic and visual resources in primary and secondary textbooks for teaching English as a foreign language in China. In particular, this study considers language-image complementarity and co-instantiation. It is found that linguistic and visual appraisal resources play essential roles in realizing various attitudinal curriculum goals, guiding students to the putative reading and in the joint construction of texts. Working towards an ontogenetic view on the attitudinal accumulation, it identifies an attitudinal shift from an emotional release to a more institutionalized type of evaluation as students advance through the school years. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In recent years, with the development of her economy, the ways in which China presents herself positively to the outside world has been a major research focus of international communications studies in China. The present research contributes to this trend. Based on Martin's theory of genre, this paper demonstrates how the institutional power of China Daily, the only national English newspaper in China, is reproduced through its generic structure in its editorials. The author shows that power is realized principally through five types of editorial, which can be generalized by the formula: entity (thing/event/people) followed by evaluation (negative/positive/ calling-on). This relatively simple but stereotyped form of editorial genre corresponds to the authority of editorials and the institutional power of China Daily on the one hand; and on the other hand, it echoes the monoglossic voices in this kind discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purposes of this study were to determine the extent to which sources of stressful events and cognitive appraisal of those events predict coping style and to determine differences in coping style between 138 (ns = 74 females and 64 males) Chinese college athletes at the elite level and 253 (ns = 60 females and 193 males) non-elite athletes who had competed on their high school sports team, and currently engage in recreational (intramural) sports as college students. Two fivepoint Likert-type inventories were developed for this study, the Sources of Acute Stress in Sport Inventory (SASSI) and the Coping Style in Sport Inventory (CSSI). The Stress Appraisal Measure (SAM; Peacock & Wong, 1990), a validated measure used extensively in the non-sport literature, identified the athletes' cognitive appraisals. Results of a discriminant analysis indicated that three stress sources, verbal-abuse-by-others, coach-dissatisfaction, and environmental-sources, and two cognitive appraisals, control-by-self and control-by-others, were significant predictors for athletes' coping styles. It was concluded that coping style is a function of the type of stressor and cognitive appraisal and that an athlete's coping style differs as a function of skill level and gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

HIV/AIDS epidemic is crucial in China; however, few studies were performed on youths. This study was performed to examine the effectiveness of peer-led HIV prevention intervention on HIV-related knowledge, attitudes and behaviour intention in senior high-school students in San-ming, a medium-sized city in Fujian province. Three thousand and sixty-eight students completed self-administered questionnaires before and after intervention, of which 981 students (the intervention group) accepted peer-led HIV/ AIDS prevention intervention and others (the control groups) continued the usual teacher-led health education curriculum. Significant increases were observed in the intervention group in HIV-related knowledge, in attitudes and in behaviour intention after intervention. The results of this research also indicated an inconsistent level of HIV/AIDS knowledge and attitude among students, with a significant gender, health education history and style difference in session delivery. More concerted efforts in HIV prevention are needed to improve young people's sexual health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article compares the practice of and attitudes towards performance appraisal for managerial and professional staff in Hong Kong and Britain, and considers the extent to which actual practice and employee preferences are in alignment. Findings suggest that appraisal may be more widespread in Hong Kong than in Britain. However, British appraisal tends to be more participative and to place greater emphasis on discussing objectives, development and career plans. Hong Kong appraisals appear to be more directive and Hong Kong respondents perceive a higher level of 'negative' appraiser behaviour. In spite of this, Hong Kong respondents show if anything slightly more confidence in the utility of appraisal than do British respondents. They show stronger support for appraisal's use for reward and punishment and less support for the objectives-setting and training and development uses than do the British sample. Hong Kong respondents are more likely than their British counterparts to favour involving a more senior manager in appraisal, and they are less likely to prefer more frequent appraisals. There was little evidence that Hong Kong respondents had a stronger preference for group-based appraisal criteria, although they did show more support than the British sample for the use of personality as a basis for appraisal. Overall, the suggestion is that appraisal has been adopted in Hong Kong organizations but that the practice of appraisal has been adapted to suit the cultural characteristics of the society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]