A Comparative Study On Chinese And American Leaders' Speeches From The Perspective Of Appraisal Theory

In the 1990 s,Martin and White develop systemic functional linguistics and propose appraisal theory based on interpersonal meaning.The appraisal theory examines the various attitudes presented in the discourse,including the three systems of attitude,engagement and graduation,which lays a theoretical foundation for the study.Political speech is a form of public speaking.Speakers can communicate political views and national policies to the public.Therefore,political speech plays an increasingly important role in domestic and international political life.Political speech contains a wealth of evaluation resources.These evaluation methods play an important role in the expression of the speaker's position and the construction of interpersonal relationships.Moreover,due to differences in cultures and values of different countries,speakers naturally differ in their expression of attitudes.In view of this,it is necessary and meaningful to use the appraisal theory to compare the political speeches of Chinese and American leaders.There are 20 political speeches from President Xi Jinping and President Trump as corpus in the study.UAM Corpus Tool is used to count the distribution and frequency of evaluation resources in political speeches.Then appraisal theory is adopted to compare and analyze the political speeches of leaders of the two countries.It aims to reveal the distribution patterns of appraisal resources in their political speeches,in order to find out the similarities and differences in their appraisal resources and reveal the reasons,and to explore the role of appraisal resources in political speech.This study attempts to address the following three questions: first,what appraisal resources are adopted in the political speeches of Chinese and American leaders? Second,what are the similarities and differences of distribution of appraisal resource s in their political speeches? What are possible reasons? Third,what roles do the appraisal resources they adopt play in political speeches?The study finds that: firstly,Chinese and American leaders adopt three kinds of appraisal resources of attitude,engagement and graduation to enrich their political speeches.Secondly,Chinese and American leaders have something in common in the employment of appraisal resources.Both are willing to adopt more attitude resources,and the positive attitude is used more frequently than the negative attitude,which can emphasize positive values and improve the confidence of the people's struggle;the adoption of engagement resources in both political speeches is the least.Thirdly,Chinese and American leaders have different opinions on the adoption of appraisal resources,which can be explained by differences in cultures and values.Finally,Chinese and American leaders adopt a large amount of appraisal resources in political speeches,which not only can highlight the attitudes towards different events,reflect the country's concern for the people,but also shape the country's good image and create a harmonious and friendly interpersonal atmosphere.It can gain more support from the domestic and international people.This study makes a comparative analysis of the appraisal resources in the political speeches of Chinese and American leaders with the help of appraisal theory.It is hoped that the application scope of appraisal theory in discourse research can be expanded and the research on application theory of appraisal theory can be enriched.In addition,this study analyzes the similarities and differences in the distribution of appraisal resources between Chinese and American political speech and explores the potential reasons,which helps to deepen the Chinese audience's better understanding of American political speeches,thus effectively promoting the exchanges between the Chinese and American.Finally,this study helps students adopt their appraisal resources correctly for successful presentations.