An Appraisal Approach To Premier Wen's Press Conference In 2010 During NPC And CPPCC Sessions

Appraisal theory can provide us with a systematic and comprehensive framework for analyzing interpersonal meaning in different discourses. In this thesis, the author decides to choose appraisal theory as the tool to analyze the appraisal meaning in the speech given by Premier Wen in the press conference during the 2010 NPC (National People's Congress) and the CPPCC (Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference) sessions. And no one else has done this research before.The Press Conference during NPC and CPPCC Sessions is held by the government leaders or the NPC members every year. During the press conference the government leaders will answer the questions from the journalists. The year of 2010 is quite a special year. China has been facing great challenge solving many problems influenced by the USA's subprime crisis and many problems that exist in China's society.This thesis is trying to find out which kinds of appraisal resources are used more frequently in the speech to show the appraisal meaning and how the sub-resources are distributed in the speech. And since Appraisal Theory is based on the interpersonal meaning within SFL, we can also find out how the interpersonal meaning is shown in the speech.The author carefully studied the speech, collected the data and managed the data analysis. In data collection and analysis, the author has found many thoughtful findings. For example,"affect"resources are mainly used in the topic about the Copenhagen Conference. And one form of expression takes a great part that is"I / we hope…"The"Disclaim"takes a great part in the contraction. Many questions the journalists have raised are against the facts. And Premier Wen chooses a gentle way to express his own opinion. So he would say something at first with a"but"behind. It is a kind of counterexpectancy, which belongs to a way of achieving the goal of introducing additional voice into the text. We know that in English it has more resources for turning the volume up than down. In the speech, there are many words like"very, firmly, high, always, fully, best, strong"that the Premier used to illustrate the situation of every topic. And from this we can see that in Chinese, sometimes we use more resources to turn the volume up too. And in"attribute"we can see that the space left for negation in domestic background is bigger than the space left for negation in the world background.Finally, the research is helpful for people's deep understanding of this kind of text, and is also of great help for the choice of different resources in formal writings. Moreover, it enriches the application of AT in this special kind of text.