A Corpus-based Comparative Study Of Interpersonal Meaning In Chinese And American Presidents' New Year Speeches

It is gradually a custom each year for Chinese and American presidents to deliver a New Year speech.While the New Year speech is not just a form,it attempts to express something as well.A series of political goals could be achieved by these speeches such as shortening the distance between the leader and the citizens,clearing misunderstandings between them,winning much more trust and support,etc.Thus it has gained the attention of more and more scholars.However,similarities and differences lie in the New Year speeches delivered by the leaders of different countries,especially the language resources used to achieve interpersonal meaning.Based on Appraisal Theory,this thesis makes a comparative analysis of the New Year speeches recently delivered by Chinese and American presidents.Proposed by Australian linguist James R.Martin,Appraisal Theory is an extension of interpersonal function in systemic functional grammar,focusing on the resources of expressing attitudes and opinions.The three major systems: Attitude,Engagement and Graduation constitute the system of Appraisal Theory.The New Year speeches are divided into two groups: Chinese group and American group.Therefore,with the help of the linguistic software UAM CorpusTool,based on Appraisal Theory,the present thesis combines qualitative and quantitative research methods,attempting to make a comparative analysis of 34 New Year speeches delivered respectively by Chinese and American presidents from 2002 to 2018,in order to find out:(1)the distribution features of the appraisal resources in the two groups;(2)the similarities and differences of the appraisal resources adopted to realize interpersonal meaning between the two groups;(3)the reasons for the differences of the appraisal resources between the two groups.The following conclusions have been drawn from the comparative analysis of the data: First,a larger proportion of Attitude resources are adopted in American president's speeches though both presidents use a lot.Within the Attitude system,Affect resources are preferably used in both Chinese and American president's speeches.Second,the presidents of two nations adopt roughly equal Engagement resources in number,although the proportion of Engagement resources in American presidents' speeches is a little bit higher than that in the Chinese presidents' speeches.Finally,Graduation resources employed in Chinese presidents' speeches outnumber those used in American presidents' speeches.These differences above to a great extent can be attributed to different culture and history between China and America.The results demonstrate that Appraisal Theory can be applied to the analysis of the discourse type of New Year speeches.It is hoped that this study can provide some reference for the future research of both Appraisal Theory and New Year's speeches.However,due to some intrinsic subjective factors of the theory itself and the author's limited knowledge,the study needs further development and improvement in the future.