Construing The World Through Attitudinal Meanings

By bridging Appraisal Theory (AT) and Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT), this dissertation analyzes the conveyance of attitudinal meanings in political speeches at both lexical and conceptual layers, with the aim to improve the linguistic approach to discourse analysis in terms of studies on attitudinal meanings. To achieve this goal, the dissertation progresses in the following steps.First, this dissertation reviews the three most widely-used approaches to political discourse, namely, rhetorical, discourse analysis and conceptual metaphor approaches. The time-honored rhetorical approach to political discourse is largely restricted to stylistics and neglects social functions reflected by discourse, i.e., identity, ideology and power of the speaker. Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), the most prominent approach of discourse analysis, makes a good linkage of language, power and culture. However, with no specific research device, CDA always goes together with other linguistic means, among which Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) is the most frequent adoption. Conceptual metaphor approach to political discourse focuses on the functions of metaphor, which is argued to be effective in realizing the speaker's underlying goal of persuasion. However, centering on concept and idea, this approach lacks effective means to quantify discourse analysis.Second, this dissertation is based on Appraisal Theory, which is argued to be an effective framework to evaluate attitudinal resources negotiated in discourse. Developed from interpersonal function of Halliday's SFL, AT explores the relationship between the addresser and the addressee, how interpersonal meanings are conveyed and to what extent the addresser can influence the addressee. AT is composed of one main system, Attitude and two attendant systems, Engagement and Graduation, and the focus of this dissertation is on Attitude system, which, in turn, contains three subsystems, namely, Affect, Judgement and Appreciation. Affect is concerned with the set of resources employed to construct the positive or negative emotional responses and dispositions of human beings. Judgement refers to the assessments of human behaviour by reference to social rules or customs and Appreciation is the evaluation of nonhuman objects in terms of the form, appearance, composition, impact, etc. By applying AT to political discourse, the author witnesses a clear and powerful demonstration of attitudinal meanings at the lexical layer. Third, the major contribution of this dissertation lies in its complement of AT with Conceptual Metaphor Theory to study attitudinal meanings. Effective as it is, AT is largely restricted within the lexical layer and neglects the important role played by concept in the attitude conveying process. Rooted in Cognitive Linguistics (CL), CMT opens another window for viewing how the speaker constructs and conveys attitude with a macro device– concept. By mapping from source domain to target domain, conceptual metaphors successfully build firm cognition through concretion and visualization. The reinforcement of attitude construction at the conceptual layer can hardly be done by AT.With two useful tools at hand, this dissertation combines Attitude System in AT and CMT in CL to form a new model– Extended Attitude Model (EAM)– to explore attitudinal meanings in political speeches. EAM is virtually an integration of AT and CMT under the umbrella of attitude. In this model, AT and CMT function independently, but both are conducive to the understanding of attitudinal meanings. The two approaches to attitude from the lexical and the conceptual layer ensure a more complete and clearer analysis of the speaker's attitude conveyed in discourse. In EAM, Attitude serves as the connection between AT and CMT, while the different focuses of AT and CMT are the basis of mutual complementarity.Fourth, EAM is applied to the discourse analysis of Bush's ten speeches on fighting terror. The lexical approach reflects the abundance of attitudinal words in the corpus with Judgement as the lead. The attitudinal terms facilitate the construction of Bush's desired world, in which America leads the war against terrorism. The conceptual approach focuses on structural metaphors utilized in Bush's speeches. The result shows a deliberate and delicate disposition of metaphors, among which the most preferred ones are conflict, journey and building metaphors, contribute to a faster and smoother conveyance of Bush's attitude. EAM integrates both quantitative lexical study and qualitative conceptual approach to find out that the overall attitude of Bush's speeches has been successfully constructed and conveyed by the speaker's skillful maneuver of building an opposition between two parties: we for the United States, the US-led allies and any other country that condemns terrorism; they for the Al Qaeda group, other terrorists and their supporters. In this way, a front line of anti-terrorism has formed.This dissertation attempts to study attitudinal meanings in political discourse by combining AT and CMT. Based on the combination, the author has established a preliminary model– EAM to complement and improve the original Attitude System in AT on one hand, and display the important role of conceptual metaphors playing in attitude conveyance on the other. The combination of AT and CMT also paves the way for a possible connection of two background fields– SFL and CL– in the future study.