Attitude Analysis Of President Obama’s Speeches In Swing States Of2012Campaign Event Under The Appraisal Theory

The paper is the attitude analysis of President Obama’s Speeches which hedelivered in the swing states in2012Campaign Event. Although President Obama’sSpeeches have been studied by many scholars, few conducted the attitude analysisfrom appraisal perspective.The framework of this paper is Martin’s appraisal theory. It is a relatively newtheory which studies how the speakers convey a greater or lesser view, stand orattitude through the use of appraisals words. There are3systems in the appraisaltheory—attitude, engagement, graduation. Attitude system is the core which focuseson resources for constructing evaluation. Content analysis is conducted on10Obama’s campaign speeches in swing states which refer to the states in which nocandidate has overwhelming support. Quantitative investigation is used to find out thedistribution of the attitude appraisals and qualitative investigation is used to make adeep attitude analysis of the speaker.The findings support that appraisal theory is an effective way to study theattitude inflected in the speeches. It is found that the attitude appraisal resources arequite rich in these speeches. And with the help of three kinds of attitude—affect,judgment and appreciation, Obama successfully delivered campaign speeches toachieve his political goal. This study will help us better understand Obama’scampaign speeches and learn some strategies of delivering a political speech.