The Study Of Identity Salience In American Presidential Debates From Perspective Of Appraisal Theory

In American presidential debates, candidates try their best to construct desired image to win the election by showing their identity salience, which includes social identity within social structure and contextual role in the communicating context.This paper makes the appraisal analysis of social identity and contrastive analysis of contextual role correspondingly, taking the debates of Obama and Romney in2012Presidential Debates as analyzing materials.Upon detailed analysis, findings are concluded:(1) evaluative recourses function in exhibiting one’s emotional attachment towards the certain social group and stating attributes that define the membership of one social group, based on which social identity of the two candidates is salient.(2) According to the analysis of contrastive contextual roles, similarities of the two candidates’appraisal features correspond to their common contextual role as a candidate while differences are in accordance with contrastive contextual roles:Obama as an incumbent and Romney as a challenger. For Attitude, positive Attitude is overwhelmingly utilized by both candidates to acclaim their deeds, future plans and their own personalities, while negative Attitude is used to attack their opponents. A detailed analysis and study demonstrates that what Romney assesses positively turns out to be where Obama’s positive values are, and vice versa, In the model of Engagement, abundant Denial resources and Modality as Inclination are both employed by two candidates to attack, defend and express the hope towards future. Obama intends to conduct his debating by Pronounce, Deny to defend and Modality as Probability while Romney uses Endorsement, Deny to attack and Modality as Obligation. In the Graduation analysis, Repetition and Number are favorably applied by the two candidates to achieve their persuasive purpose. Obama uses more to intensify the power of his acclaim on past policy as incumbent while Romney takes it for strengthening the attack on Obama in order to challenge the position.The result of the thesis concerning the function of appraisal resources in social identity salience and the contrastive distribution of appraisal resources in contextual role salience is significant not only for the speakers of debates, but for the speakers or authors of any type public discourses to achieve persuasiveness.