A Genre-Based Approach To British And American Leaders' Addresses For Christmas Celebration

Discourse analysis has undergone great developments over the past half a century. Genre analysis, in particular, incorporates and often goes beyond the immediate context of situation, enriching our understanding of a given discourse. In fact, genre studies in both China and abroad have yielded fruitful results in terms of description of language use, which constitutes one of linguists'primary concerns.This thesis draws on the fundamental principles of Systemic Functional Linguistics proposed by M. A. K. Halliday and J. R. Martin's genre theory featuring an overarching functional tenor and a stratified model concerning the relationship between genre, register and language. By adopting the above-mentioned theoretical framework, the research intends to combine generic analysis and traditional field, tenor and mode analysis so as to offer a full picture of actual discourse and establish a comprehensive analytical framework for further genre studies. More specifically, the thesis aims to verify Martin's stratified model by providing empirical evidence as to how the model works in actual text types, thus making contributions to the development and application of the genre theory based on Systemic Functional Linguistics.The data are selected from British and American leaders'addresses for Christmas celebration, which fall into the category of commemorative public speech, a kind of political public speeches less studied in comparison with informative and persuasive ones. Both qualitative and quantitative analysis is conducted to identify the schematic structure and its linguistic realizations, thus providing guidance for the use of linguistic choices appropriate to the context of commemorative public speeches.