An Analysis Of Appraisal Functions Of Pragmatic Presuppositions In TED Talks

TED talks have been attracting many hearers since the first show,and the inspiring effect of the speech has caught many language researchers to study how the speakers express their views and how to make the inspiring effects.This study based on the previous studies of pragmatic triggers,nominalization presupposition and so on,is constructed from two perspectives,explicit pragmatic presupposition and implicit appraisal pragmatic presupposition.Scholars also found that the integrating degree between the properties of pragmatic presupposition and the three sub-systems of appraisal theory is relatively high.In this study,we choose 30 discourses from TED inspiring talks and two research methods are applied into this research.The first method is the combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis.The second method is the comparative study,which is applied into the relationship study between explicit and implicit pragmatic presuppositions in realizing the appraisal functions.This research aims to explore the appraisal functions of pragmatic presuppositions.The study has the following findings.First,the study found that in Ted inspiring talks,although the number of explicit pragmatic presuppositions is more than implicit one,there is no big difference between the absolute numbers,which refers to the numbers of pragmatic presuppositions possessing appraisal functions.The percentage of explicit pragmatic presupposition possessing appraisal functions is 39.37%,and the percentage of the implicit one is 90.11 %.Second,the two types of pragmatic presupposition interact with each other to produce appraisal functions and they provide existing conditions for each other.The appraisal functions are mainly realized by the lexical level of the two types of pragmatic presupposition.Third,pragmatic presuppositions which can realize engagement function is 3695,with dialogical contraction 1318,35.67%,and dialogical expansion 2377,64.33%.The number of pragmatic presuppositions which realize attitude function is 3102,with affect 661,21.31%,judgment 981,31.62%,appreciation 1460,47.07%.And the number of the pragmatic presupposition is the least in realizing graduation,which is 2505,with force 1511,60.32%,focus 994,39.68%.The amount order of the three functions is engagement >attitude>graduation.Referring to the engagement function,dialogical expansion > dialogical contraction.Referring to attitude functions,appreciation > judgment >affect.Referring to graduation,force>focus.The study enriches the traditional presupposition theory,providing support for the public speakers to achieve the appraisal functions by using pragmatic presuppositions.Besides,the readers and hearers can also better understand the speaker's intention by unscrambling the pragmatic presuppositions in the speech discourses.