Abstract: Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Africa on December 1, 2015 aroused the attention of news media in South Africa (SA). Based on this opportunity, the SA broadsheets published multiple articles on Sino-Africa relationship. This paper used Appraisal Theory, Lexis Nexis Academic data and the analytic tool of Wmatrix to explore the news reports of the weekly state visit by the three SA broadsheets, i.e. The Star, Cape Times and Cape Argus. The findings are that “helping” is a key semantic domain of this event, and that the appraisal linguistic resources in terms of capacity, propriety, reaction and valuation are mostly positive. Moreover, there is a high frequency of the Chinese and African leaders and scholars, while there is a lower frequency of the Western scholars and news media, which highlights the local voices of African media. African media’s active involvement in the reports on the state visit helped the international audience to construct the objective and rational perceptions of Sino-Africa relations. Leaders and scholars in Africa are against the propaganda that China is a coloniser in Africa. On the contrary, they appreciate China’s help and hold a positive attitude towards Sino-Africa relations. This corpus-based study revealed the voices of local Africa media, which has implications for the future media practices both in China and Africa.

Keywords: broadsheets in SA; President Xi's visit to Africa; Wmatrix; semantic domain; Appraisal Theory

摘要： 习近平主席2015年12月1日至5日的非洲之行引发了南非媒体的热议。南非报界以此为契机发表了大量报道，阐述了对中非关系的态度。本文运用评价理论、Lexis Nexis Academic数据库及Wmatrix语料分析工具，对南非三大报刊《星报》、《开普时报》和《开普守卫者》在习主席访问非洲前后一周的报道进行定量的语义域赋码分析。研究发现，“协助”成为报道的重要主题，基于“协助”语义域出现频率最高的形符索引行和扩展语境，从“协助”主题的评价者和评价内容看，做事才干、行为正当性、反应和价值等评价资源呈积极倾向；中非国家领导人和专家出现的频次较高，西方专家较低，也较少转引西方媒体来源，突显了非洲本土媒体的立场和声音，非方反对西方鼓吹的中国在非洲殖民地论调，肯定了中国对非洲的大力帮助，对中非合作前景积极乐观。

关键词: 南非大报, 习主席访问非洲, Wmatrix, 语义域, 评价理论