A Corpus-Driven Study on the Revolutionary Image Construction of Sun Yat-sen in English Literature from the Perspective of Attitudinal System in Appraisal Theory

Abstract

Under the background of developing the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area and with the purpose of responding to initiatives named “co-building humanities in bay area” and “supporting Zhongshan to promote Sun Yat-sen’s culture,” this research applies AntConc software to establish the English literature corpus related to Sun Yat-sen’s revolutionary deeds and analyzes the affect system, judgement system, and appreciation system in the English literature with the theoretical framework of the attitudinal system in appraisal theory. The following are discovered. (1) The proportion of the affect system in the corpus is the largest, while the proportion of the appreciation system is the smallest. Three systems differ greatly in quantity. (2) Focuses described by three systems are consistent. Through specific language representations, it is believed that Sun Yat-sen has the determination to dedicate and sacrifice for the revolution. He is undoubtedly the leader and pioneer of Chinese revolution. (3) Among 1854 language representations, positive attitudinal resources account for as much as 70%, which has important enlightenment in translating Sun Yat-sen’s revolutionary deeds to foreigners. Translators should reduce the usage of negative category of the attitudinal system as much as possible and adapt to the internal and ingrained cognitive model of western readers by increasing the usage of positive category of the attitudinal system. In this way, barriers from language representations and conflicts related to the deep culture will be eliminated, and ultimately Sun Yat-sen’s revolutionary culture will be exchanged and promoted at home and abroad.