An Appraisal Analysis of Sina Weibo Texts about Reforms of Undergraduate Education

Abstract

In recent years, Chinese government departments have created accounts on Sina Weibo, a rising communication platform in China, to spread information related to social issues and interact with the public in an informal way. Reforms of undergraduate education is a heated issue because it is relevant to public interests and can evoke active engagement of the public. Weibo texts about reforms of undergraduate education contain various stances and opinions, so the appraisal meanings in Weibo texts are worth analyzing. This study, adopting the appraisal framework proposed by Martin and White and with the help of corpus method, attempts to investigate the appraisal strategies and underlying meanings in 50 Weibo texts about reforms of undergraduate education quantitively and qualitatively. Hopefully, this study may enrich the research of the appraisal framework on Chinese social media and provide valuable implications for the Chinese government to reconsider the way it interacts with the public in an effective and informal style by leveraging social media platforms like Weibo, so the government can better disseminate information, promote publicity and guide public attitudes towards a positive direction.