A Study Of Interpersonal Meaning Of English War-declaration Speeches

With the development of Psychological Operation, the boundary of weapon and the boundary of battlefield are constantly expanding. Along with such development, language as a weapon has achieved the effect that the traditional weapon cannot. Present researches on Psychological Operation at home and abroad have mainly focused upon exploring the efficiency of it from the perspective of psychology, while linguistic theories have just been mentioned but still not yet applied to a detailed study. There have been few stylistic studies of the speeches that are delivered for the purpose of military propaganda, especially the English war-declaration speeches. However, the accomplished studies of Psychological Operation are of great significance, because they have employed the psychological science and the feedback from the theater to demonstrate what kinds of effect are required in the Psychological Operation, including the war-declaration speech. Therefore, the current study will make use of the linguistic theories, the statistics and the guideline of Psychological Operation to probe into the English war-declaration speeches.With a discussion on the previous studies of public speeches and the Psychological Operation, this thesis points out a note-worthy aspect in the study of public speeches, that is, the war-declaration speech in Psychological Operation, which has long been ignored by the community of linguists as well as the scholars interested in the Psychological Operation. Aimed to make an explorative study of how the war-declaration speeches achieve its effects, especially its effect of Psychological Operation to the audience, the current study mainly employs one important component of systemic-functional grammar, the interpersonal function, which has been regarded to be highly practical in exposing the relation between language, speaker and hearer.In the analysis of the grammatical structures of text, the theory of interpersonal function has the advantage to clearly reveal how and in what ways the language users try to achieve his/her purpose through the particular organizing of ideas and the specific selection of words in the diction. This theory considers that language can be used by people in daily communication not only to describe the world around them but also to interact with each other so as to establish and maintain appropriate relations between them. The interpersonal orientation takes a more prominent position in speeches, especially war-declaration speeches, because the communication purpose of such speeches is to influence the audiences'attitude towards war and even their action in war. Based upon the preliminary observation of the target speeches, four aspects of grammatical realization of interpersonal meaning are selected for further discussion, namely modality, evaluation, mood and person system.In order to figure out the prominent grammatical features to realize interpersonal meaning of English war-declaration speeches, the current study is designed to make comparison between English war-declaration speeches and other English speeches. The author selected a group of English war-declaration speeches, which are denominated as target speeches, and two groups of other speeches, which are denominated as reference speeches. The comparison is generally divided into five stages. (1) According to the systemic-functional grammar and the overall understanding of the target speeches, clarify the possible linguistic devices that can convey interpersonal meaning in English war-declaration speeches. (2) Calculate such linguistic devices in the target speeches and the reference speeches. (3) Perform T-Test to figure out which features of the target speeches are different from the reference ones. (4) Analyze the results of T-Test and the general calculations. (5) According to the guideline of Psychological Operation, make a detailed analysis of the most dominant linguistic devices by citing examples from the target speeches.Subject for the present research is divided into three groups—one group of target speeches and two groups of reference speeches. As the psychological warfare was first performed on a large scale in the Second World War, this paper focuses upon the English war-declaration speech since that time. Additionally, in order to secure the representativity of target speeches, this paper has particularly selected those possessing the explicit purpose of declaring war, the extensive influence, and the satisfying public recognition, which were all delivered by premiers or presidents, namely Churchill, Roosevelt, Bush, W. Bush and Blair. The reference speeches in the first group are those formal political speeches made by the identical speakers. Comparison between these two groups is to illustrate what special grammatical structures are preferred in the war-declaration speeches by the identical speakers. The reference speeches in the other group are five speeches of different themes and styles, concerning with economics, politics, religion, sports and the like. Still, all of them have been historically regarded to be highly persuasive. This reference group is employed to help to discover the differences between the war-declaration speeches and other common speeches.The detailed study of the three groups of speeches has arrived at the finding that in order to accomplish the interpersonal meaning of propagandizing the justice of the speaker's side to win supports from the audiences and magnifying the injustice of the enemy to isolate the enemy from the audiences'supports, the speaker has shown different degrees of preference of modality, evaluation, mood and person system.As for modality, the choice of different valued modal operators can help to establish and maintain certain interpersonal relationship between the speaker and the audience. The use of grammatical metaphor of modality reflects the speaker's commitment to his statement. English war-declaration speeches show particular fondness of the modal operators of medium value and avoid those of high value. Particularly,"will"is much more frequently used, by which the speaker has succeeded in expressing his determination to win the war and his promise to the audiences after the war. Moreover, the identical speaker has employed much more grammatical metaphors in war-declaration speech, which is different from that in his political speech. Particularly, the subjective-oriented grammatical metaphor is favored in the target speeches. It helps to greatly strengthen the speaker's commitment to his words, and utilize the speaker's status as president or premier to gain more psychological superiority.As for evaluation, the evaluative lexis of the good/bad value can help to express the speaker's attitude and inclination to the two warring sides, while the evaluative lexis of certainty value can help the speaker to control his tone. Much more evaluative lexis of good/bad value are used in the target speeches than that in the reference speeches. Through the careful modification of the two sides, the speakers have managed to state that they have represented the justice, while the enemies have conducted the evil things. Furthermore, about half of the adjectives and adverbs have been embedded with certainty value in the target speeches. That degree of amount is much more than that in reference speeches. This may be the most important method to express the speaker's determination to win the war. Additionally, the certainty expressed by evaluative lexis sounds affirmative but the tone is not so tough as that expressed by the modal operator of high value.The interpersonal meaning realized by mood is closely dependent upon the speech roles conveyed by them, such as the role of giving information, the role of demanding action and the role of offering promise. In the war-declaration speeches, the declarative mood takes the absolute dominant place and the imperative mood follows. The preference of mood structures of target speeches do not significantly differ from that of reference speeches, except that the declarative mood is a bit more preferred in target speeches. Such phenomenon reflects that the speaker has intended to use the formal tone to declare a war. Some speech roles, which are commonly expressed by the interrogative mood or imperative mood, have been purposefully coated with the declarative mood structure.The interpersonal meaning conveyed by pronouns is closely linked to the implication of the pronouns. In target speeches, the first person pronouns are most frequently used and the second person pronouns are least used, which is a common fact in various other types of speeches. Still the first person pronouns have played a significant role in expressing interpersonal meaning in the target speeches. The first person single form can help to establish the speakers'personal authority and exert their superiority in social status, while the plural form can help to mobilize the audiences. Additionally, the interpersonal meaning is also dependent upon what or whom the pronouns are referred to. The most typical example is that the speakers have used the first person pronouns to refer to their side, and use the third person pronouns especially the single form to refer to the leader of the adversary country, which can convey to the audiences the psychological hint of distancing the enemy.The current study has made a contribution to refining the understanding of the stylistic features of the war-declaration speech. In turn it also further works as part of the preliminary audience analysis for tactic Psychological Operation and serves to better the understanding of the war-declaration speeches for strategic Psychological Operation. Some significant implications can be obtained by the current study, including: (1) this research has revealed that it is powerful for a state leader to deliver war-declaration or other military speech as a measure to perform strategic Psychological Operation; (2) this research has revealed the psychological effects of some key features that make such speech more acceptable by the English-speaking audiences; (3) this research has revealed that it is of validity and necessity to make a linguistic study of Psychological Operation and other military affairs.The most significant innovation in the current study is the attempt of probing into the internal correlation of war-declaration speeches, interpersonal meaning and Psychological Operation, employing the guideline of Psychological Operation to deepen the interpersonal analysis of target speeches and applying the conclusions of the current study to the performance of Psychological Operation. The current study has discovered that the theory of interpersonal meaning is feasible and reliable to study English war-declaration speeches and it even enlightens on other language product in Psychological Operation.