Interpersonal Functions In Obama's Weekly Address

American Presidents'Weekly Address is an important political text. In the speeches, complex political struggles are the most important issues that the President has to face. How to deal with the relationships of the people involved in the speeches (the President and the common Americans, the Party that the President represents and the opposite Party) is the main way for the President to achieve his goal. In this thesis, Halliday's theory of interpersonal meaning is applied as the main framework, and America's incumbent President Barack Obama's Weekly Address is analyzed from the three aspects of mood, modality, and personal pronouns. It is aimed to find out the language features in Obama's addresses by the realization of interpersonal meaning in the speech and the language features when Obama builds up and maintains the relationships with other people.In order to make the study objective, thirty Obama's weekly addresses are chosen as the data for the study. Quantitative and qualitative methods are both employed to make the research specific. First of all, a brief introduction to metafunctions of language, interpersonal functions and the study on interpersonal functions and the realization of interpersonal functions at home and abroad is introduced. Then there is the theoretical framework of the thesis. This dissertation mainly studies the realization of interpersonal functions by mood, modality and personal pronouns. Afterward, Obama's weekly addresses are analyzed from the three facets of mood, modality and personal pronouns.In the analysis of mood, first of all the thesis identifies the mood types in the addresses and it turns out that the number of the imperative and interrogative clauses is very small and the predominant mood type in Obama's addresses is declarative. Then the reason why the declarative mood dominates the addresses is given. Afterward, the three speech roles of giving information, giving goods-&-services and demanding goods-&-services found in Obama's addresses are introduced and a result that the speeches are informative is concluded. In the analysis of modality, this dissertation examines the interpersonal meaning of modality in Obama's weekly addresses from the angle of modal operators in terms of their value and modal verbs in the two types of modality. To be specific, modal operators of three levels in the addresses are outlined and it is found that modal verbs of median level are far more than those of high and low levels and the number of the modal operators of high level and low level is almost the same. By using modal operators of high value, Obama stresses his authority, gives irresistible advice or command or exalts America's status in the whole world. Moreover, the use of median value modal verbs is mainly to express futurity (Obama's future plans, the effective effects that will take place if Obama's proposals are adopted), Obama's promises, and his attack on Republicans. Low level modal operators are used to achieve the uncertainty and low possibility. Besides, low value modal verbs are also used to express Obama's intention to cooperate with the Republicans. In the aspect of personal pronouns, the personal pronouns in the speeches are counted and it is concluded that plural forms of the first personal pronoun take up the largest amount, followed by the third personal pronoun; the singular first pronoun and the second personal pronoun are the last resort. Then interpersonal meanings of the first and the second personal pronouns in the speeches are analyzed.Following that is the connection of the linguistic devices realizing interpersonal meaning with the theories of ideology and context, which proves the validity of the statements describing their relationships. The results of the research show that the language in Obama's weekly addresses is informative, persuasive, cooperating and eclectic. To sum up, these three aspects effectively reveal the interpersonal meaning in the addresses and display Obama's adoption of many linguistic choices to build up and maintain his relationships with the common Americans and the Republicans.The research proves the varied kinds of realization of interpersonal meaning in President's speeches and the application of the theory of interpersonal functions in political speeches and reveals the general language features in Presidential speeches.