| Society, language and thought are inseparable, and the language plays the role ofbridge connecting society and thought. China military power reports virtually passed theauthor s thought to the international community. In recent years, the U.S. governmenthas annually released China military power report. And the main contents of Chinamilitary power report are the introduction to the Chinese military movement, weaponsdevelopment and so forth. China military power report is designed to provide a referencefor its Congress, which lays foundation for diplomatic and military decisions. The authorof the report has to determine the specific language form to achieve certain linguisticfunctions. Halliday s systemic-functional grammar provides a complete theoreticalframework for discourse analysis.The author adopts methods of both quantitative and qualitative analysis and mainlydiscusses transitivity, mood and modality, and theme in military power report from thepoint of three metafunctions of systemic-functional grammar. During the exploringprocess, the author firstly found that military power report focuses on description and thelarge quantity of material processes is one of its features, while the use of other processestakes up a small quantity. Secondly, the author maintained that the use of specific moodtype and modal verbs helps to establish communication between the author of the reportand its readers. Finally, the author believes that both the extensive use of simple theme,which is closely related to China, and a few marked themes serve the purpose ofcanvassing the Congress. What s more, the use of multiple themes mainly serves theorganization and smoothness of the report.The author hopes to further understand the language features of military power reportby the discourse analysis under the framework of Halliday s systemic-functionalgrammar. The analysis of the report not only helps us to have a better understanding ofthe report, but provides reference for future work. |
