A Systemic Functional Analysis Of Multimodality In 2016 US Televised Presidential Debates

With Appraisal Systems,the way in which presidential candidates convey their opinions of and attitudes towards some events can be interpreted.Meanwhile,how they build specific social identities and coordinate interpersonal relations can be discovered.In addition,discourses are seen as staged,goal oriented social processes in the framework of genre theory.This thesis aims to qualitatively analyze the appraisal resources used by the two candidates in three 2016 televised presidential debates in U.S.A in the framework of Appraisal Systems and genre theory.Televised presidential debates in U.S.A.are multimodal in essence.Speakers' body language can also be considered as an appraisal resource.Thus,it is reasonable to analyze speakers' interpersonal meaning through focusing on the verbal resources and body language.Only in this way can the way in which speakers use appraisal resources to get alignment with audience be discovered.This thesis attempts to discover the appraisal patterns of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.Each debate was classified into three stages: orientation,debating and conclusion.Furthermore,the debating stage is further divided into four phases: statement of issues,statement of solutions,attack and refutation.The subtle change of candidates' linguistic patterns across different phases will be presented through the analysis of appraisal resources.Besides,Antconc(3.2.1)and Multimodal analysis software are used in this study.The major findings of this thesis are as follows: Firstly,as for attitudinal resources,judgement is most extensively used in candidates' utterances.More specifically,tenacity,capacity and propriety are three aspects which candidates concentrate on.The amount of affect and appreciation resources are close.In addition,Trump prefers to use reaction while Clinton prefers valuation.Secondly,engagement is most extensively used in both the two candidates' debates.Heteroglossic resources take up the majority in both candidates' debates.In addition,disclaim,proclaim and entertain are major heteroglossic resources used by the two candidates.Furthermore,both candidates prefer to employ contract to challenge or fend off dialogically alternative positions and voices.Clinton prefers to use counter while Trump prefers the deny.Thirdly,force accounts for overwhelming majority in graduation resources.In general,both candidates are more willing to employ intensification which is lack of enough objectivity compared with quantification.In general,both Trump and Clinton employ vast quantities of upscaling formulations to construe themselves as maximally committed to the value position being advanced and thus as strongly getting alignment with audience into that value position.Fourthly,as for body language,Clinton is more proficient in interacting with audience in that she spent much more time on directly gazing at audience.Whereas Trump treats this debate as a personal talk on the ground that he prefers to gaze either at the opponent or the moderator.In addition,each time both candidates attempt to enhance the degree of intensity,their hands will be in tense.The downward palm which can fend off the dialogically alternative positions and voices on the whole takes up the majority of engagement gesture resources.These findings can be used to summarize each candidate's debate strategies from the perspective of multimodal appraisal.In addition,this study can provide other scholars with some research approaches in multimodal appraisal.