Interpersonal Meaning Analysis Of Trump's Conflict Talk With The Media

Based on the Systemic Functional Grammar and Appraisal theory,this thesis has analyzed the interpersonal meaning of Trump's conflict talk with the media since Trump was elected as president.Based on Ran Yongping's classification,this thesis finds that Trump's conflict talk can be analyzed through three linguistic devices,namely blaming,verbal attack and negative evaluation.This thesis shows the distribution of Mood and Attitude resources in each device,and analyzes the prominently distributed resources and the interpersonal meaning they show.After detailed analysis,the main findings are as follows.As for Mood system,among the three linguistic devices,blaming ranks first,followed by negative evaluation and verbal attack.In blaming,the declarative mood is the most commonly used mood,followed by the exclamative mood,then the imperative mood,and finally the interrogative mood.In verbal attack,exclamative mood is most commonly used.In negative evaluation,Trump primarily uses declarative mood.As for the Attitude system,among the three linguistic devices,verbal attack ranks first,followed by blaming and negative evaluation.In blaming,Trump uses Dissatisfaction and Unhappiness resources to influence readers' attitude judgment and shape the negative image of the media.In Judgment resources,Trump uses negative Normality,Veracity and Propriety resources to blame the media.In Appreciation resources,negative Valuation resources are the largest.In verbal attack.Trump expresses dissatisfaction through Dissatisfaction resources in Affect resources.In Judgment resources,the obviously distributed resources are negative Capacity,Veracity and Propriety resources.In Appreciation resources,the negative Valuation resources account for the largest proportion.In negative evaluation,interpersonal meaning is mainly reflected in Dissatisfaction and negative Capacity resources.By analyzing the characteristics of Trump's conflict talk,we also find that Trump's conflict talk with the media has three purposes.The first is venting negative emotions,the second is mitigating face threat,the third is establishing powerful identity.