On The Interpersonal Meaning Of Political Speeches--With Clinton's Speech In Beijing As A Demonstration

Mainly based on the theories of Halliday's systemic functional grammar and those of discourse analysis and pragmatics,the dissertation uses Clinton's speech as an example to demonstrate how interpersonal meanings are generally realized in a political speech. Through a systematic analysis of linguistic elements on different levels,the lexical,the sentential,and the discoursal,it is found that modal auxiliaries,tense,imperative structures and personal system are the elements usually used in political speeches to achieve different interpersonal meanings.These elements in political speeches not only possess the general functions of attracting hearers' attention,maintaining the two parts' relationship and aspiring the audience as most public speeches do,but also have the specific functions such as conveying multiple aims and enforcing strong power on the hearers.It is hoped that the study may serve to show how interpersonal meanings are usually realized in the discourse of political speeches. Apart from that,it is also intended to be a challenge to traditional studies of speeches,which pay too much attention to the content and beautiful sentence structures of the speeches. It points out that an appropriate choice of the interpersonal elements of a language,such as pronouns,may help a speaker to deliver a successful speech.