A Comparative Study Of Presidential Election Speeches In USA In 2016 In Light Of Appraisal Theory

Political speeches are delivered by the political speakers to announce their viewpoints,their positions as well as the policies about the current political situation at home and abroad.In order to persuade the public to accept their points of view,their stances as well as their attitudes,speakers usually adopt some speech strategies when giving speeches.Thus,political speeches play an essential role in western political life,and also attract the whole world's attention.The Appraisal Theory,also known as the Appraisal Systems,is an extension of interpersonal meaning in Systemic Functional Linguistics and it is also a newly developed theoretical framework for evaluating resources in discourse.In the linguistic domain,the Appraisal Systems can be divided into three subsystems,namely,Attitude,Engagement and Graduation.The specialty of the theory lies in that it is more inclined to study the evaluative meaning of the speaker to the language,i.e,to analyze the evaluative language from the aspect of lexis instead of grammar.This thesis also aims to analyze the chosen texts in terms of lexis in detail.The texts analyzed in this thesis are speeches by the 58 th presidential candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.The author combined the qualitative method and quantitative method together to analyze the data.These ten speeches(five for each candidates)are analyzed from the perspectives of Attitude,Engagement,and Graduation,after which the thesis comes to the conclusion.The results show that these two candidates have something in common in the distribution of the appraisal resources,and meanwhile,they still differ from each other in the proportion of appraisal resources and strategic selection.The results can be summarized as follows:(1)As for the analysis of Attitude,Mr.Trump is more likely to use his influential mood to show his happiness and energy to attract people's attention.Then,show his authority.Meanwhile,he attributed the sense of security to himself and the American people.He gave people hope and told them if they work together,they can make their country rich,safe and stronger.While for Ms.Clinton,she used more words to judge herself and show how capable she is.She likes to attribute the sense of security to herself and to her party.(2)With the Engagement resources concerned,the distribution of Heterogloss resources in both of the speeches is higher than the Monogloss resources.However,when comparing these ten speeches,it is found that Mr.Trump is more likely to show power and solidarity with the audience.The Monogloss resource in Mr.Trump's speeches is 9% higher than that in Ms.Clinton's speeches.While Ms.Clinton is more likely to negotiate with the audience.The Heterogloss resource in Ms.Clinton's speeches is 9% higher than that in Mr.Trump's speeches.(3)In terms of Graduation,both of the candidates used much more Force than Focus in all of their speeches.As for Force,Mr.Trump used more than Ms.Clinton did.He paid more attention to express his strong determination as well as desire by using Force.This thesis clearly proves the Appraisal theory is an effective tool for speakers to show their political opinions,attitudes and stances.It is a good way for the audience to have a better understanding of the speeches.Moreover,it is of certain value for students to be good public communicators and also has certain guiding significance in English teaching.