War and Conflicting Voices: Attitudinal Analysis of Chinese and British News Reports on the Israel-Gaza War
Abstract
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the Middle East stands out as one of the most enduring and complex disputes of the 21st century. Despite being the central focus of world political discussions, this conflict has not received the scholarly attention it deserves. Therefore, this study investigates attitudinal devices used in the coverage of the Israel-Gaza war in China and Britain, using the appraisal theory of Martin and White (2005). This study aims to reveal the potential bias in media reports by analysing the frequency and type of the three attitudinal devices, i.e., affect, judgment, and appreciation, in 80 news reports from China Daily and BBC. The study utilised a qualitative corpus-based approach using the UAM Corpus Tool 6. The findings show that the two media use all types of attitudinal devices, but there were notable differences in their application of affect, judgment, and appreciation. While China Daily mainly uses appreciation devices, focusing on evaluating events and objects, the BBC uses more judgment devices, emphasising ethical evaluation and social norms. This variation indicates that while the Chinese media tends to focus on the evaluation of events and objects to maintain objectivity, the BBC emphasises ethical and normative assessments, reflecting a cultural inclination towards moral and legal scrutiny. In addition, the BBC shows more negative attitudes and criticism than China Daily, indicating a stance of non-support in their coverage of the Israel-Gaza conflict. These results underscore the important role of media in shaping public perception and highlight the need for critical news consumption when interpreting media coverage and cross-cultural narratives. The study’s findings further suggest that news organisations should strive to achieve greater objectivity in their news coverage by developing greater awareness of evaluative language in news texts.
Keywords: Appraisal Theory; Attitude System; Political News Discourse; Israel-Gaza War
DOI: http://doi.org/10.17576/3L-2026-3201-01
Full Text:
PDFReferences
Abid, R. Z., Altahmazi, T. H., & Abdulrahman, Z. A. (2025). Telling your side of the story: A critical discourse analysis of news coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Israel-(non) normalising Middle East countries. 3L: Southeast Asian Journal of English Language Studies, 31(3). https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Thulfiqar-Altahmazi/publication/395971838_Telling_Your_Side_of_the_Story_A_Critical_Discourse_Analysis_of_News_Coverage_of_the_Israeli-Palestinian_Conflict_in_Israel-non_Normalising_Middle_East_Countries/links/68db5984f3032e2b4be47e65/Telling-Your-Side-of-the-Story-A-Critical-Discourse-Analysis-of-News-Coverage-of-the-Israeli-Palestinian-Conflict-in-Israel-non-Normalising-Middle-East-Countries.pdf
Ahmed, M. S., Abed, T. M., & Hussain, K. H. (2022). Israeli-Palestinian struggle: A critical discourse analysis. International jJournal of hHealth sSciences, 6(S8), 3676-3688. https://media.neliti.com/media/publications/577336-israeli-palestinian-struggle-a-critical-d2d6d3f7.pdf
Al-Gamde, A., & Tenbrink, T. (2020). Media bias: A corpus-based linguistic analysis of online Iranian coverage of the Syrian Revolution. Open Linguistics, 6(1), 584–600. https://doi.org/10.1515/opli-2020-0028
Alkahtani, M. B. (2020). Failing to prevail: A discourse analysis of attitude in Mubarak’s speeches during the Arab Spring. Asiatic, 14(1), 123–137. https://doi.org/10.31436/asiatic.v14i1.1840
Amer, M. M. A. (2022). BBC and New York Times’ coverage of the May 2021 Israeli onslaught on Gaza: A critical discourse analysis. International Journal of English Linguistics, 12(5), 1. https://doi.org/10.5539/ijel.v12n5p1
Atawneh, A. (2009). The discourse of war in the Middle East: Analysis of media reporting. Journal of Pragmatics, 41(2), 263–278. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2008.05.013
Ayer, L., Venkatesh, B., Stewart, R., Mandel, D., Stein, B., & Schoenbaum, M. (2017). Psychological aspects of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict: A systematic review. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 18(3), 322-338.
Baidoun, A. (2014). The Gaza conflict 2013 and ideologies of Israeli and Palestinian media: A critical discourse analysis. MA Thesis. Örebro University, retrieved from https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:718720/FULLTEXT01.pdf
Britannica Online. (2024, May 30). Palestine | History, People, Conflict, & Religion. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/place/Palestine/World-War-I-and-after
Buheji, M. (2024). Avoiding resilience fatigue-navigating ‘Collective Pain’ and ‘Collective Happiness’ in Gaza (War of 2023/2024). International Journal of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, 14(1), 22-33. https://doi.org/10.5923/j.ijpbs.20241401.03
Ceylan, T. E. (2020). A comparative analysis of Palestinian and Jewish public opinions: The case of 2008 Gaza war. Adıyaman Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi, (36), 918-954. https://doi.org/10.14520/adyusbd.681136
Chen, S. (2013). Corpus linguistics in critical discourse analysis: A case study on news reports of the 2011 Libyan Civil War. Stream, 5(1), 21–28. https://doi.org/10.21810/strm.v5i1.77
Chomsky, N., & Pappé, I. (2010). Gaza in crisis: Reflections on Israel's war against the Palestinians. Haymarket Books.
Degaf, A., Aziza, R., & Anggrisia, N. F. (2025). Analyzing the 2021 Israel-Palestinian coverage: A critical discourse study. Eltin Journal: Journal of English Language Teaching in Indonesia, 13(1), 119-132. http://repository.uin-malang.ac.id/23432/7/23432.pdf
Eggins, S., & Slade, D. (1996). Analysing casual conversation. Equinox Book Publishing Ltd. http://ci.nii.ac.jp/ncid/BA29391162.
El Damanhoury, K., Saleh, F., & Lebovic, M. (2025). Covering the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Al Jazeera English and BBC’s Online Reporting on the 2023 Gaza War. Journalism and Media, 6(1), 9. https://www.mdpi.com/2673-5172/6/1/9
Eldin, H. M. a. S. E. S. (2019). The discursive representation of social groups through lexical choices in headlines: A critical discourse analysis of Western and Arab online reporting on Gaza War. CDELT Occasional Papers “in the Development of English Language Education” (Print), 66(1), 95–128.
https://doi.org/10.21608/opde.2019.132720
Fetzer, A., & Weizman, E. (2006). Political discourse as mediated and public discourse. Journal of Pragmatics, 38(2), 143–153. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2005.06.014
Fowler, R. (2013). Language in the news. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315002057
Graber, S. M. (2017). War of perception: a Habermasian discourse analysis of human shield newspaper reporting during the 2014 Gaza War. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 34(3), 293-307. https://doi.org/10.1080/15295036.2017.1294759
Greenberg, K. (2022). The 2014 Israel–Gaza Conflict: Exploring the representation of Israel in the Israeli media using a triangulation of corpus-based critical discourse analysis and discourse-based interviews. Doctoral dissertation. Tel Aviv University).
Halliday, M. A. K. (1985). An introduction to functional grammar. London: Edward Arnold.
Hashish, Y. Y. A., Ismail, A. A., & Abusaada, H. A. (2023). BBC coverage of the aggression on Gaza 2021: Critical discourse analysis of Arabic and English versions. Komunikator, 15(1), 54-67. http://dx.doi.org/10.18196/Jim.18508
Ho, N. K. (2019). Evaluation in English and Chinese marketing communications: an adaptation of the appraisal framework for the genre of luxury fashion promotional texts. Doctoral dissertation. Heriot-Watt University. http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.25053.36327
Hong, W., & Ge, Y. (2019). Negotiating national identities in conflict situations: The discursive reproduction of the Sino-US trade war in China’s news reports. Discourse & Communication, 14(1), 65–83. https://doi.org/10.1177/1750481319893406
Jackson, H. (2023). The New York Times distorts the Palestinian struggle: A case study of anti-Palestinian bias in US news coverage of the First and Second Palestinian Intifadas. Media, War & Conflict, 175063522311781. https://doi.org/10.1177/17506352231178148
Jakaza, E. (2019). ‘Game changer or another dummy’: Media appraisals of government policies. Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies, 37(2), 119–129. https://doi.org/10.2989/16073614.2019.1617174
Jin, J. (2019). Political news discourse analysis based on an attitudinal perspective of the Appraisal Theory—Taking the New York Times’ report China-DPRK relations as an example. Theory and Practice in Language Studies (TPLS), 9(10), 1357. https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.0910.15
Johnson, S., & Milani, S. (2010). Language ideologies and media discourse: Texts, practices, politics. Continuum International Publishing Group.
Kanaker, O., Abughazlih, M. O., & Kasmani, M. F. (2020). Media framing of minorities’ crisis: A study on Aljazeera and BBC News coverage of the Rohingya. Jurnal Komunikasi: Malaysian Journal of Communication, 36(2), 1-16. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Osama-
Kanaker/publication/342585328_Media_Framing_of_Minorities'_Crisis_A_Study_on_Aljazeera_and_BBC_News_Coverage_of_the_Rohingya/links/5efd288e45851550508481b4/Media-Framing-of-Minorities-Crisis-A-Study-on-Aljazeera-and-BBC-News-Coverage-of-the-Rohingya.pdf
Kazmi, S. M. a. M., Rakhmawati, D. E. N., & Rahardjo, M. (2024). Realization of semantic and lexical instances in online hard news representation: A study through attitude and graduation analysis. Media Asia, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/01296612.2024.2310906
Li, J. (2009). Intertextuality and national identity: discourse of national conflicts in daily newspapers in the United States and China. Discourse & Society, 20(1), 85–121. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926508097096
Li, T., & Pan, F. (2021). Reshaping China’s image: A corpus-based analysis of the English translation of Chinese political discourse. Perspectives, 29(3), 354-370. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0907676X.2020.1727540
Li, T., & Pan, F. (2025). Constructing diplomatic discourse: A corpus-driven analysis of the discursive strategies by the spokespersons of China's ministry of foreign affairs during a public health crisis. Frontiers in Psychology, 16, 1635767.
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1635767/pdf
Liu, N. X. (2021). Political discourse analysis in operation: Belt and Road Summit coverage through translation. Translation and Interpreting Studies, 16(3), 394-415. https://doi.org/10.1075/tis.19038.liu
Martin, J. R., & White, P. R. R. (2005). The language of evaluation: Appraisal in English. Palgrave Macmillan. http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/9780230511910
McKinley, J. (2018). Integrating appraisal theory with possible selves in understanding university EFL writing. System, 78, 27–37. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2018.07.002
Mori, M. (2017). Using the Appraisal framework to analyze source use in essays: a A case study of engagement and dialogism in two undergraduate students’ writing. Functional Linguistics, 4(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40554-017-0046-4
Muwafi, D. W., Fareh, S., & Jarad, N. (2024). Al-Jazeera Arabic and Al-Jazeera English headlines on the Russian-Ukrainian conflict: A Hallidayan transitivity analysis. Critical Discourse Studies, 1-19.
Ngo, T., & Unsworth, L. (2015). Reworking the appraisal framework in ESL research: Refining attitude resources. Functional Linguistics, 2(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40554-015-0013-x
O’Donnell, M. (2008). The UAM Corpus Tool: Software for corpus annotation and exploration. In Applied Linguistics Now: Understanding Language and Mind. 1433–1448. https://www.uam.es/proyectosinv/woslac/DOCUMENTS/Presentations%20and%20articles/ODonnellAESLA08.pdf
Oteí¬za, T. (2017). The appraisal framework and discourse analysis. Routledge eBooks. 481–496. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315413891-40
Ozohu-Suleiman, Y. (2014). War journalism on Israel/Palestine: Does contra-flow really make a difference? Media, War & Conflict, 7(1), 85–103. https://doi.org/10.1177/1750635213516697
Pankov, M., Mihelj, S., & Bajt, V. (2011). Nationalism, gender and the multivocality of war discourse in television news. Media, Culture & Society, 33(7), 1043–1059. https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443711415745
Pasaribu, T. A. (2020). Appraisal framework in analyzing learners’ attitudinal resources on performing of mice and men. Indonesian Journal of EFL and Linguistics, 5(1), 161. https://doi.org/10.21462/ijefl.v5i1.237
Pratama, J. R. (2021). Analysing New York Times opinion “Is America becoming a failed state?” under the perspective of appraisal Framework: A systemic functional linguistics implementation. Allure Journal, 1(1), 15–22. https://doi.org/10.26877/allure.v1i1.9260
Puspita, D., & Pranoto, B. E. (2021). The attitude of Japanese newspapers in narrating disaster events: Appraisal in critical discourse study. Studies in English Language and Education, 8(2), 796–817. https://doi.org/10.24815/siele.v8i2.18368
Qawariq, R. (2020). Political and ideological tensions in Israel: A critical language analysis of news reporting of the 2014 Gaza war. An-Najah University Journal for Research-B (Humanities), 36(7), 1531-1556. http://dx.doi.org/10.35552/0247-036-007-007
Rababah, A. G., & Hamdan, J. M. (2019). A contrastive critical discourse analysis of Netanyahu’s and Abbas’s speeches on the Gaza War (2014). Journal of Language Teaching and Research, 10(1), 178. https://doi.org/10.17507/jltr.1001.20
Sabido, R. S. (2022). Still misreporting Gaza: Violence and context in the British press coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in 2021. Journalism and Foreign Policy, 65-81.
Schudson, M. (2002). The news media as political institutions. Annual Review of Political Science, 5(1), 249–269. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.polisci.5.111201.115816
Shreim, N. (2015). A discursive analysis of the Gaza conflict of 2008-09: Provocation and proportionality in war reporting. Networking Knowledge: Journal of the MeCCSA Postgraduate Network, 8(2). https://doi.org/10.31165/nk.2015.82.368
Tantish, A. Z. R. (2012). A critical discourse analysis of the news coverage of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in AJE and CNN news websites. MA Thesis. Universiti Malaya. Retrieved from https://www.proquest.com/openview/5148f1cba7f4e49c82aeddcbd286df37/1?pq-
origsite=gscholar&cbl=2026366&diss=y
Van Dijk, T. A. (1997). What is political discourse analysis? Belgian Journal of Linguistics, 11, 11–52. https://doi.org/10.1075/bjl.11.03dij
Wang, G. (2017). Discursive construction of territorial disputes: Foreign newspaper reporting on the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands dispute. Social Semiotics, 27(5), 567–585. https://doi.org/10.1080/10350330.2017.1292621
Wang, G., Liu, Y., & Tu, S. (2023). Discursive use of stability in New York Times’ coverage of China: A sentiment analysis approach. Humanities & Social Sciences Communications, 10(1). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-023-02165-0
Wang, Q., Ngai, C. S. B., & Singh, R. G. (2021). A discursive analysis of crisis response strategies in CEO apologies—Drawing on linguistic insights from the appraisal framework. Management Communication Quarterly, 35(4), 602–622. https://doi.org/10.1177/08933189211012009
Warshagha, A. Z., Ang, P. S., & Huan, C. (2024). Comparative framing of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in newspapers: An analysis of Affect. GEMA Online Journal of Language Studies, 24(3). https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Pei-Ang-
/publication/383592836_Comparative_Framing_of_the_Palestinian-Israeli_Conflict_in_Newspapers_An_Analysis_of_Affect/links/66d6bf102390e50b2c2a3ade/Comparative-Framing-of-the-Palestinian-Israeli-Conflict-in-Newspapers-An-Analysis-of-Affect.pdf
Yazgan, P., & Utku, D. E. (2017). News discourse and ideology: Critical analysis of Copenhagen gang wars’ online news. Migration Letters, 14(1), 145–160. https://doi.org/10.33182/ml.v14i1.322
Zheng, L. (2025). A cross-lingual analysis of attitudinal meaning in publicity discourses of Anglo-American and Chinese universities: A psychological insight from the appraisal system. Frontiers in Psychology, 16, 1635204.
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1635204/pdf
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.
eISSN : 2550-2247
ISSN : 0128-5157