A Comparative Study Of Interactional Metadiscourse In Chinese And American Political Speeches

Political discourse, as the media of political activities has gained attention from language analysts for long. Its linguistic study was mainly done in rhetoric strategies, stylistic features, etc. Only a few Chinese linguists had such research in perspective of metadiscourse. As an essential part of discourse, metadiscourse is widely used in both oral and written language. Its major functions are explaining and facilitating hearers’or readers’ understanding of discourse. As an essential part of metadiscourse, interactional metadiscourse aims at establishing bonds between speaker and hearer. A research in this perspective will shed some light in enhancing the effects of political speeches.Based on Hyland’s classification, two small corpora each composing 30 speeches delivered by Chinese and American political leaders on same or similar conferences such as G20 and APEC from 2008 to 2015,interactiona metadiscourse was analyzed comprehensively, major findings are as follows:(1) Though American politicians used interactional metadiscourse more frequently than Chinese politicians, it’s widely used in both corpora. Engagement markers are the most frequently used, while hedges are the least repeatedly used in both political speeches corpora.(2) Similarities of its use are mainly due to the same genre, same register and similar speaker-hearer relationship, while the differences are mainly caused by language and grammatical gaps between Chinese and English, speakers’personal styles of speaking and ideological divergences between the two countries.(3)The existing interactioal metadiscourse strategy gap in political speeches in two corpora remind us that metadiscourse strategy use is more than a language problem itself, it’s of great strategic importance in shaping national image and building up soft power. It can help enhance the effectiveness of political discourse, thus improve dominance and influence of a country in diplomatic affairs. Hence, we should pay due attention in taking proper metadiscourse strategy while delivering political speeches towards audience from different countries.According to these findings we can get two inspirations to enhance aimed effects in political speeches:(1) Interpreters of political speeches shall take the differences of interactional metadiscourse usages into consideration to adjust their wording in order to deliver our thoughts and political appeals in a more amicable way.(2) Public speakers can make full use of more interactional metadiscourse such as questions and engagement markers in their speeches to capture and retain attention from hearers, interact with them and prepare them for the aimed political appeals.