Attitude and Identity Categorizations: A Corpus-based Study of Chinese Animated Movie of Ne Zha Zhi Mo Tong Jiang Shi

Abstract

This paper reports a corpus based attitudinal analysis of discourse of movie reviews of Chinese
animations. The study aims at the perception of viewers about Chinese animated films. The aim of the
study is to investigate the social semiotic perspective of online reviewersto analyze identity construction
in a corpus of text comprising online reviews of moviegoers. Based on appraisal theory proposed by
Martin and White (2005) to investigate the distribution of the three attitudes: Affect, Judgment, and
Appreciation on film reviews of Ne Zha Zhi Mo Tong Jiang Shi on IMDb website by self-compiling a
corpus. Results of the study indicate that seventy-five percent of foreign moviegoers positively
appreciate the film. On the contrary, about fourteen percent of viewers express their affections and nine
percent of viewers make judgment. Regarding the appreciation, the internal structures of the film are
frequently discussed, such as the balance of the storyline and the complexity of the languages. Overall,
the storyline, the state-of-the-art special effects and the upbeat theme are applauded, while the structure
of the story and the translation are criticized. It is also figured out that the majority of the reviewers
turn out to be overseas Chinese and foreign audiences go to see the movie because they accompany
their Chinese wives or friends to see the film.