The Study Of The Interpersonal Meaning Of Deontic Modality Metaphor In Business Negotiation English

Business negotiation as one of the most important business communications plays an important role in the development of economy. There are rich interpersonal meanings in business negotiations. Some scholars have done some researches on the interpersonal meanings in business negotiation discourses. However, few have done research on deontic modality metaphor.This thesis is based on the theories of Halliday's Systemic Functional Grammar and both qualitative and quantitative methods are adopted. The author selects 30 pieces of business negotiation conversations from the internet and the textbook. This thesis is intended to explore the use of deontic modality metaphor and the interpersonal meanings it can realize in business negotiation, and to analyze the reasons of using deontic modality metaphor.Through analyses, the author discovers that deontic modality metaphor has been used widely in business negotiations. Moreover, deontic modality metaphor can help the speaker express different interpersonal meanings, such as showing politeness, protecting oneself, objectifying the speaker's opinion, and shortening distance. In addition, the author analyzes the reasons of using this kind of expression from the three perspectives:business negotiation characters, functions of deontic modality metaphor, and social psychological factors.