Discourse Analysis Of State Of The Union Address From The Perspective Of Systemic Functional Grammar

The present thesis ventures to make an analysis on the stylistic features of State of the Union Address from the perspective of the three metafunctions within the theoretical framework of Halliday's Systemic Functional Grammar.In this thesis, both quantitative and qualitative approaches are employed to ensure that reasonable conclusion is reached through in-depth analysis on reliable data. To achieve this effect, four State of the Union Addresses are downloaded from the official website for examination in order to find out: (1) how are the three metafunctions realized in this particular kind of speeches? (2) what are the prominent language devices used in realizing the three metafunctions and to what effects? The thesis consists of five chapters. The first chapter is a general introduction to the research background and research design. The second is literary review. The third constructs a theoretical framework for the thesis. The fourth chapter focuses on a detailed analysis of the realization of ideational, interpersonal and textual meaning. The last chapter gives an overview of the major findings and reflects on the limitations of this thesis.It is found in the analysis that the most salient transitivity features in State of the Union Address lie in the abundant use of materiel process and a considerable amount of relational process. Mental process is the least frequently used process of the three major process types. The conveyance of interpersonal meaning is marked by the predominance of declarative mood and frequent use of first person pronouns and modality expressions of median and high value. And the thematic analysis reveals that a combination of frequent use of unmarked theme and moderate use of marked theme makes for variation of the speech and easy comprehension.