A Contrastive Analysis Of Chinese And American Film Acceptance Speeches From The Perspective Of Transitivity

Halliday, the founder of systemic-functional grammar, proclaims that language is a product of human social activities. As the primary approach for human communication, language has numerous functions. According to the systemic-functional grammar, there are three meta-functions of language, namely, ideational function, interpersonal function and textual function. One of the meta-function, the ideational function is substantially realized by experiential function, which means the function for conveying our own experience of the world, including the worlds in our own minds. As a primary discourse analysis model, transitivity system has been widely employed in the analysis of various discourses, such as literature, news and so on. Generally speaking, transitivity system includes six types of processes, namely, material process, mental process, relational process, verbal process, behavioral process and existential process.Choosing the transitivity system as the theoretical framework, this thesis employs the qualitative research methods in order to explore the realization of transitivity system of American and Chinese film award acceptance speech discourses and further testify whether the transitivity system could be realized through the quantitative analysis of speech discourse simultaneously. And ultimately it will assist to figure out the similarities and differences of both American and Chinese speeches from the perspective of transitivity.Acceptance speech discourse belongs to spoken discourse, and through the analysis of American and Chinese film acceptance speeches, the following conclusions have been made. Mental process is the striking feature of acceptance speeches and is employed most frequently, which is mainly attributed to express the winners’ inner thoughts, appreciation and excitement. Material process usually is used to state the efforts and contribution made by celebrities, like the actors, directors and relative film maker. Relational process tends to be adopted to praise the celebrities, show recognition to their performance and achievements and break the ice in the ceremony at the same time. Most addressers of verbal process are the winners, themselves, to express their appreciation.Of all the processes in the film acceptance speech discourse, mental process are adopted most frequently, followed by material and relational processes, while the other three processes, behavioral, existential and verbal processes are less applied. However, in Chinese film acceptance speeches, the frequency of material process is relatively high, while in American film acceptance speeches, relational process is higher.