A Study On Attitudinal Resources In “FLTRP Cup” National English Debate Competitions

“FLTRP Cup” National English Debate Competition has attracted great attention since it is launched, and has a big influence on college students. The contestants perfectly show their international vision, critical and creative thinking in their debate. Due to the unique charm of debate, it sets off a spoken English learning and English application upsurge. “FLTRP Cup” National English Debate Competition is abundant with appraisal resources. Appraisal Theory proposed by Martin in the early 1990 s focuses on the Affects, Judgments and Appreciations of the speaker. Appraisal Theory can be sub-classified into Attitude, Engagement and Graduation systems.The present study is conducted with both quantitative and qualitative analysis methods on the 32 pieces of transcripts of the “FLTRP Cup” National English Debate Competition based on the theoretical framework of attitudinal system, which is the core of Appraisal Theory. In this thesis, UAM Corpus Tool is adopted to annotate attitudinal resources, namely, Affect, Judgment and Appreciation resources. Meanwhile Chi-Square Test is carried out to examine the difference of the distribution features of attitudinal resources. Then qualitative research method is applied to analyze the attitudinal resources in debate discourse from Affect, Judgment and Appreciation aspects respectively. This study aims to address the following issues:(1) What is the frequency of attitudinal resources used in the “FLTRP Cup” National English Debate?(2) What are the similarities and differences of the distribution of attitudinal resources and why?(3) How do Affect, Judgment and Appreciation resources realize their attitudinal meanings and what effect do they have on the results of debate?The results can be summarized into the following three aspects:(1) In the 32 pieces of “FLTRP Cup” debate discourses, the frequency of Judgment resources ranks first, Affect second and Judgment third.(2) Both Affirmative side and Opposition side in debate competition apply more positive attitudinal resources than the negative ones. The Opposition side employs more Judgment resources while fewer Affect resources than the Affirmative side and almost the same frequency of Appreciation resources are used by both sides.(3) Affect, Judgment and Appreciation play different roles in realizing their attitudinal meanings in debate competition. The contestants apply Affect resources to express their feelings in order to evoke empathy of the listeners. The debaters employ Judgment resources to show their assessment on human behaviors or affairs according to social standards, thus their statement becomes more persuasive and influential. By using Appreciation resources, the contestants insinuate their aesthetic values into the minds of the audience.The author aims to analyze debate discourses on the basis of Appraisal Theory, proving that Appraisal Theory is an effective tool to analyze the attitude of the speaker, which can help listeners understand the statement of the speaker more easily and deeply. Meanwhile, the thesis hopes to provide insights for Chinese English users to make their language more powerful and purpose-oriented so as to make communication more effective.