A Contrastive Analysis Of Chinese And English Political Speeches In 2000s Based On SFG

Systematic Functional Grammar always acts as one of the most influential linguistic schools. Though much work about discourse analysis has been done before, little attention has been paid to the specific type of discourse—political speeches. Additionally, previous contrastive linguistic studies between Chinese and English mainly focused on stylistic features. There are few studies that apply SFG theories in the field of contrastive linguistics. Therefore it is necessary to conduct present research and make integrated applications of SFG theories into contrastive studies of political speeches, and it would be a new attempt.This thesis intends to do contrastive studies of Chinese and English political speeches on the basis of Halliday's Systematic Functional Grammar, including metafunctional framework and cultural contextual theory. The research is done in order to explore the differences and similarities between political speeches in the two languages.In this thesis, sample selection is narrowed down to ten political speech discourses, five in Chinese and five in English. In order to guarantee the latest features of the study, all the speeches chosen for the research are delivered by American and Chinese political leaders during the first decade of 21st century. Quantitative comparisons between Chinese and English samples are done according to the three metafunctions. For ideational function, six processes of transitivity system and voice are involved. In terms of interpersonal function, contrastive studies are done on the basis of mood and modality. As for textual function, comparisons about cohesive devices are engaged in. In cultural contextual aspect, contrastive studies are mainly about discourse layout, expressions and culture resources reflected in the samples.The comparisons reveal that there are remarkable differences as well similarities between the two groups of political discourses. The differences could be explained by different cultural backgrounds and the similarities come from common features of political speeches. The thesis proves the validity, feasibility and reliability of SFG theories in contrastive linguistics.It is expected that the studies could supply us with theoretical and practical implications about cross-cultural communication, language teaching and translation practice.