A Functional Appraisal Of The Interpersonal Meanings In Obama's Political Speeches

One of the important social functions of language is its interpersonal function, which refers to the exchanges of information and negotiation between the speakers and the listeners. Many researches on interpersonal functions have been conducted from different perspectives, among which Halliday's Systemic-functional Grammar is more popular. According to this system, there are three meta-functions in language. Among them, interpersonal meta-function focuses on the analysis of the realization of various interpersonal meanings. Functional Grammar argues that interpersonal meanings can be realized from mood, modality and person system. This Grammar, however, was restricted to grammatical level, which focused on the analysis of clauses. Apparently, this deficiency leads to the establishment of the Appraisal Theory by Martin. Although this system bases itself on the Functional Grammar, its focus has been shifted to the semantics of language with the research subject being a whole discourse. The Appraisal Theory is comprised of three sub-systems, namely, attitude, engagement and graduation. And attitude can be further divided into affect, judgment and appreciation. Engagement refers to the addresser's involving his/her attitudes in the evaluation of the others or events through the use of language. Graduation deals with degree of the clearness of attitude and of the strength of engagement. And among them, attitude is the core.In this thesis, three political speeches by Obama have been selected. Based on the interpersonal function from Halliday's Systemic-functional Grammar and Martin's Appraisal Theory, further exploration to the realization of the interpersonal meanings has been conducted. As we know, every political speech carries its political purpose. The effect of being contagious in Change Has Come to America, The Change We Need and It's Time to Turn the Page comes not only from their special historical background, but the rich interpersonal meanings which lie in the speeches. With the combination of two angles, grammar and semantic, the thesis finishes its exploration into the process of realization of the interpersonal meanings in Obama's political speeches.In the beginning, the thesis states the causes and significance of conducting the present study. After that, it lays emphasis on the notions of interpersonal meaning and political speeches together with the relevant researches. And meantime, their features are also presented. Then, the paper depicts, in detail, the related theoretical bases---Interpersonal modal and Appraisal theory:the former is realized from three perspectives: mood system, modality system and person system. And the analysis of the latter involves three factors:attitude, engagement and graduation. What follows is that data collection and research methods are made clear. Based on that, the realization of the interpersonal meaning of Obama's political speeches is analyzed from the following perspectives: mood, modality, and person system, and as well as attitude, engagement and graduation of the Appraisal Theory. In the end, the paper, through the research, concludes that interpersonal meanings such as persuasion, encouragement and mobilization have been realized both grammatically and semantically in Obama's political speeches.