A Study On Appraisal Resources In President Xi's Speech On Celebrating 40th Anniversary Of China's Reform And Opening-up

Political speech is a kind of speech in which a politician takes a stand,clarifies his views and promotes his views on a country's domestic affairs and foreign relations.Its basic characteristics are realistic,motivating and strategic.At the conference on celebrating the 40 th anniversary of reform and opening-up,Chinese leader Xi Jinping pointed out that in the past 40 years,China has achieved a historical transition from closed and semi-closed to all-round opening,actively participated in the process of economic globalization,and made great contributions to the common development of mankind,which has fundamentally changed the future and destiny of the Chinese nation,greatly changed the pattern of world development,and contributed Chinese solutions to solving human problems.President Xi's speech,with its distinctive Chinese characteristics and style,showcases the speaking skills and charisma of contemporary Chinese leader and effectively conveys the China's voice to the audience.Taking President Xi's speech on celebrating 40 th anniversary of China's reform and opening-up as the corpus,this paper analyzes the frequency and distribution characteristics of the appraisal resources in Xi's speech,explores the appraisal themes passed on in his speech so as to better understand the profound meaning behind his speech and explore the ways to realize political propaganda and build positive national image in his speech.Based on Martin and White's appraisal theory,this paper uses attitude,engagement and graduation under the framework of appraisal theory to analyze the realization of the appraisal resources and their functions in political speeches by Chinese President Xi.The corpus of this study is President Xi's political speech on celebrating the 40 th anniversary of reform and opening-up on December 18,2018,with a total of 13,251 words.This study uses UAM statistical tools 3.3 to conducts detailed quantitative and qualitative analysis on the following three main research questions: first,what are the distribution feature of appraisal resources in the speech of 40 th anniversary of reform and opening-up;second,how are the appraisal resources in the 40 th anniversary speech of the reform and opening-up are concretely realized in terms of lexical choice;third,what are the appraisal themes of Xi's speech on celebrating 40 th anniversary of reform and opening-up.The research results show that: first,the three subsystems of appraisal theory,attitude system,engagement system and graduation system are all embodied in President Xi's speech on the 40 th anniversary of the reform and opening-up.Judging from the attitude system,the proportion of judgement resources is the highest;from the perspective of engagement system,the proportion of entertain resources is the highest;Xi uses modal system more to express his determination,intention,inclination and obligation;as for graduation system,the process intensification resources occupy the largest proportion,indicating that Xi emphasizes more on the verbal process in his speech.Second,the vocabulary selection of appraisal resources is realized through the three subsystems of the appraisal theory.In appraisal system,attitude resource is the most important appraisal resource in President Xi's speech.Xi shows his attitude and standpoint through his attitude resources and creates a good image of himself and the social group he represents,thus forming a discourse community with the audience.Secondly,it is graduation resources.Xi uses more modifiers and repetition to emphasize listeners to pay attention to the speaker's key points and deepen his impression,enhance the effect of publicity.Finally,it is the engagement system.Xi's speech not only has contraction resources of discourse but also has resources for expanding dialogues to presuppose potential audiences.Third,Xi's speech embodies three themes of appraisal: first,domestic achievement made by reform and opening-up in China;second,contribution of reform and opening-up to the world;third,the historical experience of 40 th anniversary of China's reform and opening-up.Through the analysis of specific appraisal resources,it can be known that the appraisal resources used in Xi's speech on celebrating the 40 th anniversary of reform and opening-up conveyed a clear political stance and realized the construction of a positive image of China.The study shows that Xi's speech on the 40 th anniversary of the reform and opening-up contains abundant appraisal resources and effectively constructs a variety of appraisal significance.Through the analysis of this political speech,it is helpful to grasp the realization way of political discourse significance from the perspective of appraisal theory,which enriches the research of political discourse.On the other hand,it helps to better understand the characteristics and techniques of Chinese leader Xi's political speeches,and it helps to develop China wisdom,convey China voice,and take the responsibility as a major country in international arena.