A Comparative Study Of The Resources Of Dialogic Contraction In U.s. And Chinese Leaders’ Speeches At Universities In Intercultural Contexts

Political leaders are representatives of their countries, and their speeches at universitiesin intercultural contexts play a significant role in international communication. Although theirspeeches have been studied by many scholars, most of the scholars have studied them fromthe perspectives of stylistics, Systemic Functional Linguistics (before the appearance ofAppraisal Theory) and Critical Discourse Analysis. The present research tries to conduct acomparative study of Chinese and United States (U.S.) leaders’ speeches at universities inintercultural contexts from the perspective of dialogic contraction within Engagement (theengagement system).Engagement is concerned with the resources which the speaker/writer employs toexpress his/her stance in the backdrop of different alternative voices and to negotiate with thepotential addressee. It is divided into dialogic contraction (contract) and dialogic expansion(expand). Contract acts to challenge, fend off or restrict the scope of dialogically alternativepositions.In current study, fourteen speeches at universities made by Chinese and United Statesleaders during their mutual state visits were selected from the official websites and books ofofficial publications. Seven speeches are from Chinese leaders and the rest are from UnitedStates leaders. With the help of UAM Corpus Tool V2.8.12, both quantitive analysis andqualitative analysis were conducted to study the distributions of the resources of dialogiccontraction in Chinese and United States leaders’ speeches respectively, the similarities anddifferences of the distributions, and the possible reasons for the similarities and differences.The major findings are:The similarities are as follows: within the contract system, disclaim subtype is preferredby both leaders to proclaim subtype. And in proclaim subtype, concur resources occur themost frequently. The reasons for the similarities may lie in similar purposes of political publicspeeches and the consistent mechanism of the contract system.Differences include: within the contract system, Chinese leaders tend to adopt moreendorse resources to make their propositions undeniable. In the mean time, they also use more deny resources to correct some misconception held by the addressee. While United Statesleaders tend to employ more counter resources. The possible reasons for the differences maylie in the differences of cultures, ideologies and foreign policies between the U.S. and China.The current study gives a comparative study of Chinese and U.S. leaders’ speeches atuniversities in intercultural contexts from the perspective of dialogic contraction. It not onlycontributes to the application of dialogic contraction within Engagement in discourse analysisbut also provides pedagogical implications to the reading and writing of speeches.