A Study Of President Obama's Victory Speech From The Perspective Of Appraisal System

In western democratic countries, presidential victory speech is very noticeable and influential in political and social life. As a formal and well-prepared speech, it fully represents the president's positions and policies on domestic and external affairs.The Appraisal System was firstly developed by James Martin and Peter White in the 1990s under the framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics. Appraisal System concerns how various resources are applied to convey attitudes and negotiate relationships. The Appraisal System comprises three sub-systems:Attitude, Engagement and Graduation.In the present thesis, the researcher attempts to analyze President Obama's victory speech from the perspective of Appraisal System. The thesis aims to discover how resources of Attitude, resources of Engagement and resources of Graduation are applied to fulfill different communicative purposes in this victory speech. To be specific, the researcher tries to explore how Barack Obama use various appraisal resources to rebuild public confidence, attenuate hostility, appeal to the public for national solidarity and rally the country to challenges ahead.In Obama's heartfelt victory speech, he spoke movingly to his audiences in very plain but very persuasive language. He frequently emphasized the themes of change, hope, renewal and the American Dream. Although disquiet and scare can be felt, an air of confidence, optimism and joy pervades the whole victory speech. On the one hand, he tries to make his viewpoints more authoritative and compelling; on the other hand, for the sake of achieving congruence with audiences, Obama consciously maximizes common ground with his audiences while reserving differences.Attitudinal meanings constitute the largest proportion and the realizations are as follows:First of all, the president uses resources of Affect to rebuild public confidence and foster national unity. The president shows his optimism in his country's future in spite of temporary frustrations and difficulties. He reminds the audience to realize and fulfill the great potential rooted within his nation and his people. He displays confidence in the remarkable creativity, enduring courage and persistence of his people and his team. The president shows his firm belief in democracy, liberty, equality, the American Dream and American ideal. Secondly, by means of resources of Judgement, he manages to arouse people's enthusiasm for reform and stimulate audiences'longing for harmony, democracy, prosperity and progress. He justifies the cause of promoting peace, democracy, equality, prosperity and progress and condemns the viciousness and immorality of tyranny, violence, terrorism, and discrimination. In this way, he successfully arouses righteous indignation about these social evils among the audiences. He also speaks highly of American people's perseverance and creative capacity. Thirdly, by means of resources of Appreciation, he emphasizes the importance of patriotism, responsibility, self-reliance and national unity in embracing a more prosperous future.84.5% of resources of Engagement are dialogistic contractive while 15.5% of them are dialogistic expansive. By means of contractive resources of Engagement, Obama tries to make his voice more authoritative and compelling. By means of resources of Deny, the president emphasizes his confidence and strong willpower. By means of resources of Proclaim, the president manages to foster a strong sense of responsibility, a strong sense of belonging and a strong sense of national solidarity among American people. Therefore, he manages to align American people closely with him so that the future administration can more effectively deal with the problems the nation faces.Among resources of Graduation, resources of intensification are used with the highest frequency to reinforce feelings, emphasize attitudes, stir public passion, minimize discrepancy, achieve agreement with people and arouse resonances among the audiences.