A Study Of Interpersonal Function In Business Speech In Light Of Appraisal Theory

New products release conference has become vital for cell phone companies.It helps companies promote their products,establish a good image and increase sale.To some extent,a successful business speech can achieve some influential effects.In recent years,studies of interpersonal meaning of various discourses are quite prevalent and corresponding achievements are remarkable.However,studies of interpersonal meaning of business speech is relatively rare.This paper takes Martin's Appraisal Theory as the theoretical framework,and analyzes the distributions and interpersonal meanings of Appraisal resources from three sub-systems of the Appraisal Theory.The purpose of this study is to explore how Cook utilizes appraisal resources to form alliances with his audience.Under the framework of Appraisal Theory,Cook's business speech in 2015 Apple New Products Release Conference is chosen as the research sample.His business speech is written down on Word document.And 282 appraisal resources are identified.Finally,the distributions of each kind of resources and their specific interpersonal meanings in the business speech are revealed according to the results of data analysis.Through the qualitative and quantitative analysis,the author reaches the following conclusions:There exist a large number of evaluation resources in Cook's business speeches,and the positive attitude resources take up the biggest part.In the sub-system of attitude,appreciation resources are the most prevalently used.In the sub-system of engagement,Cook tends to adopt dialogic contraction,so an authoritative image of the company can be established.The speaker could subtly express his firm positions and convince his audience to accept his opinions.Graduation runs through Cook's whole speech,because it up-scales the speaker's attitude and opinion and help the speaker to build stronger alignment with his audience.Figure 4;Table 12;Reference 40.