A Contrastive Study Of Barack Obama’s Autobiography And Biography Based On Appraisal Theory

Appraisal Theory is a further development of interpersonal meaning in Systemic Functional Grammar. It includes three sub-systems:attitude, engagement and graduation. It is widely used to analyze the interpersonal meaning in various types of texts.As a common literary genre, biography is used to record the main events happening in one’s life. U.S. President Barack Obama has attracted attention from all over the world. Thus, this thesis tries to analyze his autobiography and biography under the framework of Appraisal Theory.By using UAM Corpus Tool, this thesis employs both quantitative and qualitative approaches to study the following three questions:(1) How are appraisal resources distributed respectively in Barack Obama’s autobiography and biography in terms of attitude system?(2) How are appraisal resources distributed respectively in Barack Obama’s autobiography and biography in terms of engagement system?(3) How are appraisal resources distributed respectively in Barack Obama’s autobiography and biography in terms of graduation system?The findings of this study are as follows:Some significant differences are found between the autobiography and the biography. In attitude system, affect ranks first in the autobiography, while judgment ranks first in the biography. Besides, the autobiography employs more negative attitudes than the biography. In engagement system, significant differences exist in attribute and entertain. In dialogic contraction, the biography employs more disclaim resources than the autobiography. In graduation system, there are differences between them in the three types of quantification. Moreover, the biography employs more up-scale resources than the autobiography. In focus, soften resources are more often used in the autobiography than in the biography.The autobiography and the biography also share some similarities.In attitude system, both of them adopt more positive than negative attitudes. In judgment, they both employ more social-esteem resources. Besides, reaction ranks first in appreciation. In engagement system, both of them employ more dialogic contraction resources. Moreover, disclaim strategy is more often used in both of them. In graduation system, they both use more force resources than focus resources. Besides, both of them employ more intensification than quantification.This study makes a contrastive analysis of the distribution of appraisal resources between Obama’s autobiography and the biography. It studies the interpersonal meaning of biography text and enriches the linguistic study of biography genre.