Comparing China And America’s Statements In The United Nations’ General Debates(1972-2021):A Corpus-based Systemic Functional Analysis

The United Nations holds a General Debate every year to discuss the most important issues in the world.General Debate statements,as the primary carriers for speakers to present their opinions,are important sources of information about how speakers use language to frame their topics and communicate with their audience.To explore the ideational,interpersonal,and textual meanings of China and America’s statements,guided by Halliday’s Systemic Functional Grammar,this study conducts a corpus-based discourse analysis of China and America’s statements in United Nations General Debates from 1972 to 2021.This paper divides the time period into three phases: 1972–1991,1992–2008,and 2009–2021.Specifically,this paper investigates the linguistic features and examines the underlying ideational,interpersonal,and textual meanings of China and America’s statements in each period,and then goes on to make a comparison between them.The ideational analysis suggests that the material process is frequently used by speakers from both countries to highlight their government’s achievements and show their government’s responsibility for maintaining international peace and security.In addition to commonly mentioned issues,in the first period Chinese speakers mainly focus on the elimination of old orders while American speakers focus more on issues of peacekeeping.In the second period Chinese speakers mainly center on the topics of peace and development,especially for developing countries.In contrast,American speakers underline the importance of tackling threats and tensions.In the third period Chinese speakers emphasize Chinese new thinkings related to mutual development,while American speakers are more concerned about security interests.All of the statements help the speakers to win recognition from their audience with the use of persuasive facts.The interpersonal analysis shows that throughout the three stages,both nationalities of speakers frequently use first personal pronouns and median value modal auxiliaries to establish interaction with the audience.There are differences,however,in that Chinese speakers use a larger proportion of third personal pronouns,reflecting the objectivity of China’s statements,while American speakers use a bigger percentage of second personal pronouns to communicate directly with the audience.As for modal auxiliaries,Chinese speakers use a larger proportion of median value modal auxiliaries,which are more related to an offer to the audience,while American speakers use a bigger proportion of high value modal auxiliaries,showing their underlying command to different entities with comparatively strong emotions.The textual analysis shows that speakers from both countries use different topic Themes to highlight the importance of their statements from multiple perspectives.Specifically,in the three stages respectively the Chinese speakers explain the importance of eliminating old orders,achieving peace and development,and adopting Chinese new thinkings,while the American speakers focus on the significance of peacekeeping,tackling threats,and protecting security interests.This thesis offers a detailed discourse analysis of China and America’s General Debate statements,extending previous analyses focusing on General Debate statements by highlighting the roles of different linguistic features in such statements.The study reveals the ideational,interpersonal,and textual meanings of China and America’s statements in General Debates,enriching the literature on Systemic Functional Grammar.Finally,the study employs corpus-based discourse analysis which offers insights for studies in political communication.