Appraisal Analysis Of English Political Public Speech

As a sub-genre of political public speech, the presidential campaign speeches attract increasing attention because of its uniqueness. Via speeches, candidates aim to set forth their political stances, viewpoints, administrative programs and intend to set up the alignment with voters so as to win their preference.Within Systemic Functional linguistics (SFL), informed by Bakhtin's dialogism and heteroglossia, Appraisal Theory mainly concerns the research of the semantics of evaluation and inter-subjective positioning on the plane of lexis, compensating the neglect of SFL in interpersonal metafunction. Appraisal system is currently being used as theoretical framework to examine different genre types, for instance, narratives, conversations, literary, media, etc.Based on selected political speeches given by Barack Obama in U.S.2008 presidential campaign, this thesis is done from an Appraisal point of view, meaning that the study focuses foremost on the candidate's word choices relate to Martin's three means of Appraisal resources:Attitude, Engagement and Graduation, and find out how the candidate uses appraisal devices to present his campaigning policy, to persuade his audience and to adjust interpersonal relationship. Mainly in a qualitative method, together with some quantitative method, there are three primary findings are drawn as follows:Three sub-systems of Appraisal are to collaborate, and the one that is most amply present throughout the speeches is Attitude. With attitudinal resources, the candidate arouses the empathetic feelings among the audience. With dialogic contractive resources, the candidate tends to present his definite viewpoint and build his authority. With force resources, the candidate strengthens the feelings and sharpens the power of persuasion.By Appraisal analysis of Obama's campaign speeches, the thesis, to some extent, highlights the universality and validity of appraisal resources in English political public speech, helping to evaluate some prominent features, such as stance or linguistic strategies.