Interpersonal Grammatical Metaphor In American Presidential Inaugural Addresses

This dissertation aims at analyzing the interpersonal function appeared in American Presidential Inaugural Addresses by applying Halliday's theory of Interpersonal Grammatical Metaphor. Halliday points out that language possesses three metafunctions: ideational metafunction, interpersonal metafunction and textual metafunction, and divides Grammatical Metaphor into ideational Grammatical Metaphor and interpersonal Grammatical Metaphor. Interpersonal Grammatical Metaphor refers to the metaphorical phenomenon that occurs in the interpersonal communication event. Presidential addresses are an important part of the inauguration ceremony, in these addresses, presidents employ many a tactful language devices to realize their intentions, such as interpersonal Grammatical Metaphor, which is of great value for our discourse study. Therefore, this dissertation will analyze interpersonal function realized through mood metaphors and modality metaphors.