| Modality and appraisal are two important components in systemic-functional linguistics. Traditionally, modal meaning is mainly realized through lexical-grammatical devices; while the evaluative meaning is often presented at the lexical level. As a result, researchers both home and abroad usually do their researches singly on modality or appraisal. Comprehensive studies concerning both of the two factors are fairly rare. However, there is a continuum rather than an impassable gulf between modality and appraisal.From the perspective of traditional grammar, researches on modality mainly focus on the modal verbal operators which convey modal meanings. But, modal verb, or the congruent form, is just one kind of the devices to express modal meanings. In daily communication, people often resort to some metaphorical forms of modal meaning to highlight or disguise the source of modality. The present study emphasizes the metaphorical expressions of modality. Halliday defines the phenomenon that modal meaning is realized via mental process projecting clauses as modality metaphor. But the author thinks that seriously speaking, the forms (except for modal verbal operators) which can express modal meanings can all be termed as modality metaphor, including modal adjectives, modal adverbs, nouns or nominalizations that convey modal meaning, prepositional phrase, tense and so on. As for appraisal, Martin's appraisal theory is the cornerstone for researches concerning evaluative meaning. There are three systems under this framework, namely attitude, engagement and graduation. Under each system, there are subsystems. Since modality is people's attitude or comment on person or event, it must convey a certain kind of evaluative meaning. Starting with this point, this study chiefly explores how the evaluative meaning of modality metaphor is realized by corresponding to the subsystems of appraisal theory.Televised presidential debate is a deciding stage in U.S. election. In debates, the debaters may use some special linguistic strategies to either disguise or highlight their political views, which are closely related to modality metaphor. This study will collect those three televised presidential debates between Senator Obama and Senator McCain in 2008 as our data, and do both a quantitative and qualitative analysis of them. According to our working definition of modality metaphor, we will use software Antconc 3.2.1 and the "research" function of Word 2003, followed by manual check, to calculate the frequency of modality metaphors in the whole three debates. Based on the calculation, we attempt to analyze how the evaluative functions of modality metaphor are realized and explore whether certain kind of modality metaphor can cause the change of evaluative meaning. By illustrating examples, this study proves that modality metaphors are frequently used: both Obama and McCain adopt this linguistic strategy at varying degrees. The researching result proves that:there are differences among the frequency of different modality metaphors, with projecting clause and nominalization the two most favored forms. On the other hand, Obama and McCain have different preferences to modality metaphors. Modality metaphors which convey the modal meaning of probability, obligation and inclination correspond to the judgment of social sanction and judgment of social esteem under the attitude system; and the dialogic expansion and dialogic contraction under engagement system can also be realized through certain modality metaphors; the value of modality metaphor reflects the graduation of appraisal in a macro view. Additionally, this study also finds out that what the formulation "It is important/ vital/critical that…" expresses is not only the evaluation of importance, but it is rather an implication of appropriateness and necessity. This form thus causes the change of evaluative meaning; therefore, it is an evaluation metaphor.This study aims to provide a new perspective for studies on modality and appraisal, i.e. it is not confined to researches at a single level. At the same time, this study proposes to place evaluation metaphor as a principal element in studies of evaluative meaning. In doing so, Martin's Appraisal theory will be improved. Besides, this study also has some indications for enhancing people's understanding and appreciation of political discourses. |
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