Evaluative language in Chinese and Japanese history textbooks

This paper presents a corpus-based analysis of the appraisal devices that the PRC and Japanese history textbooks deploy in their evaluation of the Mukden Incident. There are a number of significant findings that illustrate the different ways they construe the same event. While the PRC history textbooks construe China's unhappiness and insecurity, the Nationalist Party's unpopularity and non-resistance, and Japan's deceptiveness, they value the CPC's resistance, and the impact and importance of the incident. The authorial voice distances itself from the Japanese militarists’ words and construes texts of Japan's aggression as undeniable. Japan's aggression and the CPC's resistance are intensified. In contrast, while Japanese history textbooks construe Japan's intention for and fortune in Manchuria, the Japanese army's capable and proper action, they criticize the Nationalist Party for its untrustworthiness and Japanese officials for their weakness. The authorial voice is salient for interpreting the incident, but remains neutral to texts unfavorable to Japan's image. The scale and destructiveness of Japan's action are blurred. Different evaluative positionings thus formulate two conflicting genres of history discourse. The paper shows that while the PRC fashions a discourse of overt patriotism, Japan constructs a discourse of covert nationalism.