Interpersonal Meanings In Nobel Prize For Literature Acceptance Speeches-an Analysis From Appraisal Perspective

Appraisal theory, first proposed by J.R.Martin and his colleagues in 1990s, extends Halliday's SFL model of the realization of interpersonal metafunction and plays an important role in the interpersonal meanings. This thesis draws upon the theoretical basis of Systemic Functional Grammar, particularly its context theory, employs Martin's Appraisal theory as the basic analytical tool and extends the interpersonal function to the Appraisal theory. It reviews the formulation and development of the Appraisal theory, introduces the three sub-systems of the Appraisal theory, Attitude, Engagement and Graduation in detail and makes a discussion about how Appraisal resources help texts realize interpersonal meaning.This thesis selects three well-known NPFLAS as the analyzing material, which are respectively made by William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway and John Steinbeck. Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech is one kind of acceptance speech, which is the comments and opinions of the foremost writers in the world literature towards creating works. It takes quantitative analysis, firstly, according to three sub-systems of the Appraisal theory, respectively identifies those words and grammatical structures expressing values of attitude, engagement and graduation in analysing material. Then a statistical research is done to the percentage of each kind of value. It is hoped to find those prominent means and features indicating interpersonal meaning. In the meantime, combined with Halliday's SFL, it gives an interpretative explanation of the preference of the data.The study aims to testify the operationality and practicability of Martin's Appraisal theory towards the exploration on the interpersonal meaning and the distribution rules of Appraisal resources in NPFLAS. In the thesis, the author will ground our analysis and discussion on three problems to be tackled. (1) How interpersonal functions are achieved by evaluation in NPFLAS? How the relationship are built and maintained between the addressers and the addressees in NPFLAS? (2)How are the addressers adopting positive and negative attitudes and how are they negotiating these attitudinal resources with the addressees? (3) Which type of appraisal resources is expressed more frequently in NPFLAS in particular? Why is the occurrence of each value in NPFLAS different? By analysing three samples in effect, several features are found out in NPFLAS. Firstly, the statistics of the distribution of Appraisal resources reveal that the values of attitude, engagement and graduation are all used to construct the evaluative stance in NPFLAS. However, their occurrences are different. Secondly, in Attitude System of Appraisal resources, the interpersonal function is mainly realized by the prosodic structure in NPFLAS; in Engagement, the speaker negotiates and establishes alignment and solidarity with the audience with tolerance for divergent viewpoints; in Graduation, the values of evaluation can be considered as polishing of interpersonal meaning crossing through the whole Appraisal system. Thirdly, the sum of positive Attitude is more than negative Attitude. However, positive Affect appears less than negative Affect.The study is an application of Appraisal theory to the study of interpersonal meaning in NPFLAS. Such a research is meaningful in that: It proves the significance of the interpersonal meaning of appraisal resources in NPFLAS. It also provides a new approach to appreciate NPFLAS other than rhetoric—the traditional approach. Such an approach can be introduced into the domain of text analysis within SFG.