Chapter 2 clarifies the theoretical framework adopted in this study. The definition of modality, types of modality, linguistic modality expressions, modality orientations, and modality values are introduced.
Chapter 3 presents the results and findings of analyzing the VOA and BBC news reports on the relation between China and Japan from the perspective of modality. It explains how China’s image is constructed and what foreign countries’ attitudes toward Sino-Japanese relation are.
Chapter 4 is the conclusion of this study. In this part, review of major findings, limitations, implications and directions for research are illustrated.
2. Modality and attitudinal meanings
2.1 The definition of modality
When it comes to the definition of modality, linguists express the opinions from different perspectives. Hence, there are a number of various answers to the definition of modality. Jesperson proposes that modality can express the speaker’s specific attitudes towards the content of the sentence (Xu, 2008). According to Fowler, it is considered as “‘comment’ or ‘attitude’ of the writer or speaker towards themselves, their interlocutors, the subject matter, their social and economic relationships with the people they address, their communicative intentions and the actions which are performed via language”(Fowler, 1979). In other words, modality is associated with the writer’s or the speaker’s “judgment of the probabilities or obligations in a proposition” (Xiang, 2012).
In this paper, modality will be discussed in the framework of systemic functional grammar. M. A. K. Halliday’s Systemic-functional grammar (SFG) provides “a comprehensive account of how language is used in context for communication” (Chapman & Routledge, 2009). Three meta-functions of language put forward by Halliday are ideational function, interpersonal function and textual function. The ideational function serves to convey the information that is unknown to the hearer. The textual function means that “people organize their message in ways which indicate how they fit in with the other messages around them and with the wider context in which they are talking or writing” (Chapman & Routledge, 2009).The interpersonal function is “to enact social relations between addressers and addressees, to express the speaker’s viewpoint on events and things in the world, and to influence the addressee’s behavior or views” (Chapman & Routledge, 2009). It is realized by mood and modality. Halliday (1994) indicates that modality is mainly realized by auxiliary verbs, auxiliary adjectives and auxiliary adverbs. Modality is related to the area of meaning that lies between yes and no-the intermediate ground between positive and negative polarity (Halliday, 2000).
Halliday (2000) argues that modality refers to the intermediate ground of meaning between the positive and negative polarity. He proposes that modality is concerned with a speaker’s viewpoints “on validity of the assertion or on the rights and wrongs of the proposal” (1985), which demonstrates speaker's standpoint, viewpoint and attitude.
2.2 Modality system
The theoretical framework of the research is the modality, an important branch of systemic-functional grammar. According to Thompson, there are two types of modality, the first one is referred to as modalization, and the second one is modulation. Modality orientation includes Modualization consists of probability (how likely it is to be true) and usuality (how frequently it is true). Modulation is made of the obligation in a command (with the degree of allowed to/supposed to/required to); and inclination in an offer (with the degree of willing to/ anxious to/ determined to). In functional grammar, modalization is applied to refer to the semantic category of a proposition and modulation to the one of a proposal. Halliday (2000), in An Introduction to Functional Grammar, sets out the four types of modality in a diagrammatic form: BBC和VOA中日关系新闻报道语篇分析情态和态度(5):http://www.751com.cn/yingyu/lunwen_45353.html