Evaluative Language and Media Positioning in US–China Trade War Editorials: Appraisal Analysis
Keywords:
Attitude Resource, Evaluative Language, Media Positioning, US-China Trade WarAbstract
This study examines how evaluative language constructs media positioning in editorials on the US–China trade conflict published by The New York Times (TNYT) and South China Morning Post (SCMP). It uses Martin and White's (2005) Appraisal Theory, focusing on the Attitude system, which includes Affect, Judgment, and Appreciation, and their evaluative polarity. The data consist of 20 editorials published between January and March 2025, with 10 editorials from each newspaper. The texts were manually annotated with the UAM Corpus Tool version 6.2 and analyzed using quantitative and qualitative methods. The findings show that Appreciation is the dominant Attitude resource in both TNYT (70.4%) and SCMP (88.1%). Judgment is more dominant in TNYT (28.3%) than in SCMP (11.6%). Affect accounts for only 0.3% in both outlets. TNYT demonstrates a more negative tone, with negative evaluations portraying China's trade policy, economic status, and performance of trade obligations. SCMP, on the other hand, features almost equal polarity. Positive evaluations frequently relate to China's economic robustness, responsible behavior, and cooperation, while negative evaluations portray the USA's trade policies and their outcomes. Thus, the results show that media positioning is influenced not only by negative or positive evaluation but also by repetitive patterns in applying evaluative resources.
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