Interpersonal Meaning Of Chinese Public Service Advertising Discourse From The Perspective Of Systemic-functional Grammar

Public service advertisement refers to the non-commercial advertising that serves for the public interests and social morals without profit purpose. As a newly emerged discourse type, public service advertisement is usually launched by governments or utilities, aiming to convey government policies, promote desirable social morals and lifestyle, thus evoking the public’s consciousness to various social issues and stimulating them to standardize their behaviors. The systematic study to interpersonal meaning is mainly based on the metafunction proposed by Halliday. As one of the metafunctions, interpersonal function refers to the function which can express the speaker’s identity, status, attitude and motivation, focusing on how the speaker uses language to establish and maintain interpersonal relationship with the listeners, to influence their attitudes and behaviors.Based on the theoretical framework of systemic functional grammar, this thesis aims to explore the realization of interpersonal meaning in Chinese public service advertising discourse. The corpus of105samples in total are collected from CCTV and Internet. Deep analysis of mood, modality and person system are carried out to explore their functions in realizing the interpersonal meaning.According to the data analysis on mood system, it is found that declaratives, which are used to give information, account for an overwhelming proportion in Chinese public service advertising texts. Interrogatives make the advertising discourse more intcrractive, increasing the communication between the advertiser and audience. Besides, the use of imperatives indicates the authoritative identity of the advertiser. The study of modality system reveals that the modal expressions of modalization are applied more frequently than modulation, which demonstrates that the advertisers incline to avoid the tone of command but giving information instead. In addition, the frequency of modal expressions of obligation ranks only second to that of possibility, and most of them are in the form of negatives, implying the unequal social status between the advertiser and audience. As for the person system, the frequent use of inclusive "wo men" facilitates the establishment of equal relationship. The second person "ni" intensifies the interaction between the advertiser and audience, while "nin"conveys much respect and politeness so that enables the intimacy and harmony between them.The thesis consists of seven chapters. Chapter1is an introduction, which briefly introduces the research background, research significance and also the ways to conduct the research. Chapter2reviews previous studies on the interpersonal meaning, advertising and public service advertising at home and abroad within the framework of systemic functional grammar. Chapter3introduces the theoretical basis of the present paper and the realization forms of interpersonal meaning, such as mood, modality and person system, laying foundations for the subsequent analysis. With data analysis and specific examples, chapter4to6explore the realization of interpersonal meaning in Chinese public service advertising texts from the aspects of mood, modality and person system. Chapter7is the conclusion of the thesis, which briefly sums up the analysis above, including the findings and limitations of the research, and states the relevant problems for further research.