A Contrastive Study Of Interpersonal Functions Between Chinese And American Commencement Addresses

The theory of metafunctions of language proposed by Halliday is one of the core ideas of Functional Grammar. He proposes that language has three metafunctions:ideational, interpersonal and textual functions. The interpersonal function herein enacts social relationships. People communicate, set and keep relationships, express their attitudes and views with language. Interpersonal function, one of the important research-subjects in discourse analysis, is reflected by mood and modal systems.Based on Halliday’s theory of interpersonal function, this thesis makes a contrastive analysis on Chinese and English commencement addresses with qualitative and quantitative research methods. In this study, the author finds that there are common features and also differences in realizing different interpersonal functions. In mood system, declaratives are mostly employed in both American and Chinese addresses, and more interrogatives and imperatives are used in Chinese addresses. In modality system, both American and Chinese speakers use more low-scale modal operators. Chinese speakers use more high-scale modal operators, and American speakers use more median-scale modal operators. In person system, Americans use more first person, while the frequencies of the first and second persons used in Chinese addresses are almost equal. This actual discourse analysis enriches the functional research, and provides a workable mode for English learners to study and use Functional Grammar. This contrastive research also provides a new perspective for the research of cultural difference and diversity.