Abstract：Attitudinal stance involves the evaluation of the stance object by the stance subject, i.e., the stance subject displays his or her attitude(s) towards the object by means of expressing value judgments and personal feelings. Previous studies have mainly focused on the categories of attitudinal stances and their explicit markers in discourse, while scant attention has been paid to the positioning effects of attitudinal stances. Drawing on the stance triangle of Du Bois (2007) and the ideological square of van Dijk (2011), this paper proposes a theoretical framework of positioning effects for the analysis of news discourse of war. Within the framework, this study further explores how war news discourse mediates between two sides through a trinity mechanism of “evaluation-positioning-alignment” to achieve the positioning effects of constructing “enemies”, legitimizing war and aligning with readers.
Key words: news discourse of war; attitudinal stance; stance-taking; positioning effects
