An Analysis Of The United States Federal Reserve Chairman’s Speech From The Perspective Of Appraisal Theory

As the central bank, the Federal Reserve of the United States plays a dominant role in the country’s financial system, and carries a big weighty in the global economy. Since the2008global financial crisis, the Federal Reserve of the United States has been exerting indispensable influences on the economic growth recovery of the United States and the world as a whole. Among all of these efforts, speeches delivered by the Chairman Ben Bernanke on various occasions have played a major role in introspecting misconducts in the previous stage, restoring confidence of all circles and guiding the economic growth ways forward.Great efforts have been made by lots of scholars in linguistic analysis of public speeches, which nevertheless concentrate on political ones, especially speeches by president of the United Sates. On the other hand, few researches have been conducted in financial public speeches, let alone the linguistic analysis of speeches delivered by Chairman of the Federal Reserve of the United States. For the audiences, a proper understanding of the Chairman’s speeches can helps them not only to acquire the relevant policy developments, but to have a better awareness of the macroeconomic situation as well.Based on J. R. Martin’s Appraisal Theory under functional linguistics, the present paper aims to reveal the position, attitude and perspective in the speeches of the chairman of the Federal Reserve. In view of the relative repeatability of contents and the length of political figures’speeches, this paper selected three speeches which were delivered by the Chairman Ben Bernanke in year2009,2010and2011respectively after the2008financial crisis. In this study, both quantitative and qualitative methods are applied. The quantitative method is employed to analyze the distribution and frequencies of various appraisal resources. Concerning the qualitative method, the thesis focuses on how the speaker tactically expresses attitudes towards relevant events and seeks solidarity with the audiences.The present paper is divided into five chapters. Chapter one serves as the introduction of the thesis, the research background, the purpose and significance of this research, the research methodology and the overview of this research are provided in this chapter. Chapter two reviews the development and application of appraisal theory, and previous studies on public speeches. In chapter three, the framework of appraisal theory is provided, and the three sub-categories of attitude, engagement and graduation are introduced. Chapter four is the analysis and discussion of speeches delivered by Bernanke. Chapter five concludes the major findings of the whole thesis, points out limitation of the present research and suggestions for further studies.Through study on the selected speeches under the framework of Appraisal Theory, the present paper is in an attempt to help relevant financial practitioners and people who are interested in finance to better comprehend the features and information in such discourses. Furthermore, it is hoped that this research can shed some light on people who teach, learn or prepare for such financial speeches.