A Contrastive Analysis On Modality In English And Chinese Political Speeches From The Perspective Of Systemic Functional Linguistics

Political speeches belong to the speech genre, which have been the main research sourcesfor many linguistic researchers and scholars abroad and at home. The studies of politicalspeeches in China are mainly based on Systemic Functional Grammar and Appraisal Theory.But few attempts have been made to contrast and analyze the English and Chinese politicalspeeches. The present thesis is aimed to explore the modality and mood structures in Englishand Chinese political speeches from the perspective of Systemic Functional Grammar.This thesis is conducted under the framework of Halliday’s Systemic FunctionalGrammar. By contrasting the modal verbs and mood structures in fifteen pieces of Chineseand English political speeches, we are supposed to find the specific styles of English andChinese political speeches. The analysis of modal verbs is carried out from the perspectives oftype, value of modality, orientation and polarity. And the study of mood structures isconcerned with declarative, imperative, interrogative and exclamative mood structures. Theresearch sources consist of fifteen pieces of American Presidents’ speeches and Chinesepolitical leaders’ speeches. They are of similar length and are aimed at the domestic citizens.The study adopts both qualitative and quantitative methods in order to conserve the scientificquality and objectivity of the study.The results reveal that in English political speeches there are more modal verbsexpressing possibility; while in Chinese political speeches there are more modal verbsexpressing obligation, inclination and usuality. In terms of the value, more median-valuedmodal verbs appear in Chinese political speeches; while more high-valued and low-valuedmodal verbs occur in English political speeches. Besides, there are more explicit subjectiveand implicit objective modal verbs in English political speeches. In contrast there are moreimplicit subjective and explicit objective modal verbs in Chinese political speeches. Thepercentage of modal verbs expressing positive meaning in Chinese political speechessurpasses those in English ones. As for the mood structures, American leaders exceed Chinesecounterparts in the use of declarative and interrogative mood structures. In contrast, more exclamative and imperative mood structures are adopted by Chinese political leaders.Therefore, we can conclude that Chinese political speeches tend to stress obligation andinclination, with a median but inspiring tone. They tend to express positive meanings in animplicit way. Contrastively, American political leaders put emphasis on speech politeness andinteraction with the listeners, with both high and mild tones. They favor expressing subjectiveattitudes in a more direct way. This study will enhance the English-major students’understanding of both Chinese and English political speeches and thus improve their ownspeaking skills.This thesis is made up of seven chapters. Chapter One introduces the researchbackground, research question, research aim and the content and structure of the thesis.Chapter Two presents the literature review. Related studies concerning modality and politicalspeeches abroad and at home are critically reviewed. Chapter Three gives an introduction tothe research theory. It is devoted to the explanation of modality type, value, orientation andpolarity and the mood structures in Systemic Functional Grammar. Chapter Four is about theresearch method, which includes the data collected for this study and the steps to deal with thedata. In Chapter Five, we present our research results and make a preliminary analysis of theresults. Chapter Six is the discussion part. Based on the previous statistical analysis, weexplore the different types of modality, modality orientations, modality values, modal polarityand their communicative functions in political speeches. Chapter Seven concludes thefindings of the thesis. The limitations and suggestions for further study are also stated.