A Study Of Appraisal Resources In The Keynote Speeches At The BFA From The Perspective Of Positive Discourse Analysis

This thesis attempts to make a positive discourse analysis on the keynote speeches at Boao Forum within the framework of Appraisal Theory,so as to analyze appraisal resources in diplomatic speeches.This study chooses the keynote speeches from the Boao Forum(2014-2018)as the research corpus.Besides,the appraisal resources are annotated and counted by UAM Corpus Tool,and then the distribution features and linguistic features of the three subsystems of Appraisal Theory in diplomatic speeches are obtained.The specific findings of this thesis are as follows:The distribution of the three subsystems of appraisal resources in the corpus is unbalanced.Attitudinal resources account for the largest proportion,graduation resources account for the second proportion,and engagement resources account for the third proportion.Their distributions are respectively 46.38%,30.26%,23.36%.Among the attitudinal resources,affect,judgment and appreciation resources are all distributed.Appreciation resources account for the largest proportion and affect resources account for the smallest proportion.In affect system,security/insecurity resources account for the largest proportion.In the judgment system,the proportion of social esteem resources is higher than that of social sanction resources.Among the resources of social sanction,the proportions of capacity resources and tenacity resources are approximately equal,which are higher than that of normality resources.In the appreciation system,the proportions of composition and reaction are similar,which are higher than that of valuation.The data above show that the content of diplomatic speeches is objective.Speakers are concerned about the safety of the environment and the capacity and tenacity of the people.In the attitude system,the proportion of positive vocabulary is higher than that of negative vocabulary,which shows the positive meaning of diplomatic speeches.Among the engagement resources,this study mainly focuses on the application of hetero-gloss resources in diplomatic speeches.Besides,the proportion of dialogicexpansion resources in the corpus is much higher than that of dialogic contraction resources.The speaker tends to give the audience space to express their views,which reflects the speaker's friendly attitude.In addition,by reducing the dialogue space,the speaker expresses his or her stance and attitude.Among the graduation resources,the proportion of force resources is higher than that of focus resources.Speakers use force resources to highlight the positive meaning expressed in their speeches.By using focus resources,mainly sharpening resources,the speaker shows a clear attitude,which makes the content of the speech clear.In addition,in this way,the theme or purpose of the speech is presented to the audience directly.Based on the data and analysis above,three functional features of appraisal resources in diplomatic speeches can be drawn: to show the stances and viewpoints of the country,to construct the society,and to show a good national image.Although there are some shortcomings in the analysis,the positive discourse analysis of the keynote speeches at the Boao Forum has important theoretical and practical significance.Especially,it is enlightening when people choose appropriate vocabulary and sentences to “tell the Chinese story well”.