A Comparative Study Of Chinese And American Leaders Lecture From The Perspective Of Metafunction Theory

This paper aims at a contrastive study of the Chinese and the American leaders’lecture. It is under the guidance of the Contrastive Linguistics and the Systemic&Functional Grammar, especially based on M.A.K.Halliday’s threeMatefunction——Ideational Function, Interpersonal function and Textual Function,and by the means of Qualitative&Quantitative research method, to do thecomparative analysis on8Chinese and English speech text. The analysis reveals thefunctional features of speeches as a unique type of literature. And among all thespeeches there are really some similarities and differences. It also tries to find out thechoice of what kinds of linguistic means the speakers, which leads to a bettercomprehension and a better grasp of the characteristics of the speeches. Through thecomparative analysis it tries to find out the differences and similarities of the Chineseand the American leaders’ lecture in language level, and the cultural and ideologicaldifferences of the Eastern and Western under surface layer of the language, tounderstand the deep meaning hidden in the speech Text.