A Study Of Nobel Peace Prize Press Release From The Perspective Of Engagement

According to Halliday,there are three metafunctions of language: ideational metafuncction,textual m etafunction and in terpersonal metafunction.J.R.Martin studies the interpersonal meaning at a discourse and semantic level and puts forward Appraisal Theory.Appraisal Theory is us ed to explain how pe ople use language to make evaluation,express attitude and cons truct interpersonal relationship.There are three subsystems of Appraisal Theory: Attitudinal system,Graduation system and Engagement system.At present,a few linguists study the press release from perspectives of translation,pragmatics(self-reference)and cognitive linguistics.This study attem pts to employ Engagement system to study th e Nobel Peace Prize press release that belongs to political discourse.In doing so,this study endeavors to show how Engagement resources are used.Therefore,it enriches the body of Appraisal Theory.The present study analyzes 16 years' press releases,with 5750 words,from the perspective of Engagem ent system.UAM CorpusTool is used to m ark the Engagement resources.Then the present study analyzes the press release by using the qualitative and quantitative m ethods.The qualitative analysis is done to explain the usage and understanding of Engagem ent resources.The quantitative analysis is done to reveal the distribution of Engagement resources.Major findings are as fol lows: firstly,it shows that there are 235 Engagem ent resources in all.There are 100 expand res ources and they account for 42.55% of all the Engagement resources.The distribution and usage of the Engagement resources are different in the 16 press releases.Secondly,there exist seven types of Engagement resources in the press releases: deny+w ar/weapon,counter+difficulties/poverty,the Nobel Committee+pronounce+fact,endors e+human right,endorse+peace,endorse+action,entertain+cooperation,ente rtain+accomplishment,entertain+human right or democracy/peace,acknowledge+dem ocracy,acknowledge+human right or democracy/peace,acknowledge+cooperation.These types of Engagement resources are used to realize the Engagement meaning.Lastly,expand resources are used to open space with hearers and show the Comm ittee's political ends.In order to show ideas clearly and estab lish authority,contract IVresources are used.P ronounce of contract is used to directly show idea a nd establish au thority.In the press releas e pronounce and endorse are used to directly show that th e Committee expects for peace and takes respon sibility for building a peaceful world.Deny res ources in the press release do not increase interpersonal cost.This is b ecause the objects of deny resources are factors that are harmful to peace,such as war and weapon.It shows that the Nobel Committee hates war and pursues pe ace.In this study,deny resources are used to show that winners suffer from many difficulties and much danger when they make contribution to p eace.This will defin itely encourage hearers to take part in promoting peace.Appraisal Theory can be used to help hearers understand political discourse.At the same time,it can be used to u ncover political ideology.Finally,it will prom ote studies on interpersonal meaning.