| In this thesis, I take Obama's inaugural address delivered on January 20,2009 as the research object to make discourse analysis within the framework of the Appraisal Theory. The Appraisal Theory is the new development of the interpersonal meaning under the framework of Systemic-Functional Linguistics. It is a breakthrough in studying interpersonal meaning. It provides us with a new theoretical framework to interpret interpersonal meanings in this discourse. Obama's inaugural address is full of attitudes and appraisals. The Appraisal Theory presents the author with an ideal framework to interpret the interpersonal meaning in Obama's inaugural address. In this thesis, we adopt both quantitative and qualitative approach to investigate the features of the distribution of appraisal resources——attitude, engagement, and graduation in this discourse to reveal the functions they serve. Appraisal resources include attitudinal resources, engagement resources and graduation resources. It is found that attitudinal resources are massively applied in this discourse, and those attitudinal resources are unevenly distributed. The judgement resources prevail in the attitude system, followed by appreciation resources, and affect resources in the discourse is not very prevailing. Positive attitudinal resources outnumber the negative ones, while explicit attitudinal resources outnumber the implicit ones. Under engagement, in this discourse, contractive resources are much more than expansive resources. With respect to graduation resources, it is found that Obama prefers to use force-raising and focus-sharpening resources. This thesis proves the feasibility of the Appraisal Theory in the analysis of the special political speech——American presidential inaugural address, enriches the study of American presidential inaugural address, and provides some enlightenment for scholars home and abroad to write related academic paper and construe their appraisal meaning efficiently. |
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