A Contrastive Study Of Engagement Resources In Chinese And English TED Speeches Based On Appraisal Theory

The Appraisal Theory is concerned with the interpersonal in language,and it is an approach to explore and illustrate how language is employed or used to evaluate,to adopt stances,and to maintain interpersonal position and relationships(Martin 2001).Within the Appraisal Theory,the Engagement system is concerned with the communication between writer/ speaker and potential reader/ audience.This indicates the Engagement system could be used as a theoretical framework to explore interpersonal communication like public speeches.Although many studies have been conducted on public speeches,there are a few studies focusing on the engagement resources in Chinese and English public speeches,especially TED speeches which are quite hot and influential in recent years.Based on the status quo mentioned above,this thesis explores the hetero-glossic resources(including contract and expand)in Chinese and English TED speeches,and aims to answer the following three questions: 1)how are the engagement resources distributed in Chinese and English TED speeches corpora respectively? 2)what are the similarities and differences between Chinese and English TED speeches in terms of frequency and distribution of the engagement resources? 3)what are the reasons for such similarities and differences in employing the engagement resources in Chinese and English TED speeches?Therefore,we collect 30 pieces of speech drafts from the website of TED and TEDx respectively,which focus on social and educational issues,and then annotate the corpora based on the Appraisal Theory put forward by Martin & White(2005),two weeks later,we annotate them again for accuracy.When the annotation is completed,we export the corpora into UAM Corpus Tool,summarize the frequency and distribution of the engagement resources in two corpora,and aim to explore the similarities and differences between two corpora and reveal the reasons behind them.The results shows: First,the data of the engagement resources is counted and an overview of the distribution of the engagement resources in two corpora is displayed respectively.Second,With regard to the major similarities,(1)disclaim resources are preferred over proclaim resources in two corpora(Disclaim 85.83% and Proclaim14.17% in Chinese corpus;Disclaim 85.65% and Proclaim14.35% in English corpus).(2)Under the category of Proclaim,Pronounce has the highest percentage in both Chinese(43.51%)and English Corpus(43.08%).As for the major differences,(1)the percentage of Deny accounts for 61.22% in Chinese Corpus while 58.01% in English corpus.Thus Chinese is more likely to use deny resources than westerners.(2)Under the category of Proclaim,in the Chinese corpus,Concur has the second highest percentage(40.91%),followed by Endorse(15.58%),while in the English Corpus,Concur has the lowest percentage(24.90%).Third,With regard to the reasons for similarities,one is the characteristics of public speeches shared by both Chinese and English TED speeches which belong to the category of public speeches,and the other is the purpose of TED speeches which contributes to the strategic deployment of the engagement resources.In terms of the reasons for differences,they are explained from two perspectives,that is,word formation and culture background.From the perspective of word formation,since English has more various ways to express negation than Chinese,and some of those ways are not identified as Deny according to Martin and White(2005);From the perspective of culture background,Chinese who value Confucianism and collectivism prefer employing Concur over Endorse whereas most westerners who have faith in Christianity and individualism tend to use more Endorse.This study will be of both theoretical and practical significance.From the theoretical perspective,it will expand the application scope of the Appraisal Theory by bringing a new insight to linguistic study.From the practice perspective,it is expected to make educators notice the frequency and distribution of the engagement resources in public speaking,and thus give targeted instruction to students.Meanwhile this study will help speakers to understand how to use the engagement resources to express them better and help the audience get what the speakers mean better.