Discourse construction of social power: interpersonal rhetoric in editorials of the China Daily

Based on systemic functional linguistics, and especially newly developed appraisal theory, this study uses editorials from the China Daily to investigate patterns of interpersonal rhetoric devised to construct and shape public opinion. Attitudinal lexis and modal expressions are examined separately with the object of discovering how editorials communicate their evaluation of their subject matter. This article contends that the author of an editorial is more likely to be explicit in evaluating events and implicit in evaluating behaviour and that he/she seldom attributes attitudes to other sources. Modality occurs frequently in editorial discourse. Modal expressions of certainty, necessity and obligation (as realized by will, should, need to, have to, must) are particularly common and indicate the authority and power nature of the discourse. Modal expressions of obligation/necessity normally occur at the end of the text in order to make the most powerful possible appeal to the reader.