An Analysis Of Obama's Counterterrorism Speeches From Appraisal Theory

The event of September 11 th,2001 takes terrorism to the international political stage.The terrorism activities have disrupted the international community and the terrorism has become the tumor disease of international community.Counterterrorism is regarded as an important security goal by many countries.Therefore,the counterterrorism is unfolding gradually in the world.After the “9.11”event,the United States has launched several wars against terrorism.American president Obama has delivered about 35 speeches on counterterrorism and the counterterrorism is especially vital and outstanding in Obama's foreign policy.Counterterrorism has become a hot topic.Therefore,the speeches of counterterrorism are attracting an increasing number of attentions of linguists(Hodge & Rose,2001;Sherman & Nardin,2006;Edwards,2003).In systemic functional linguistics,three metafunctions were proposed by Halliday(1994): ideational function,interpersonal function and textual function.Among these three metafunctions,interpersonal function involves that the speakers' attitude will be expressed through their own words and the listeners' attitude and behavior will be influenced.Interpersonal function can be revealed via mood and modality.Mood and modality can reveal the intimacy and remoteness of interpersonal relationship,but the evaluation of the speakers on things can not be clarified,which exposes the limitation.Therefore,Martin(1999)further developed the systemic functional linguistics and put forward appraisal theory in the 1990 s.According to Wang Zhenhua(2001),Appraisal Theory is also called appraisal system,and it is focused on the positive or negative attitude of the speakers or writers to the people,place,event,phenomenon and the ways of the writers or speakers' negotiating and indicating the personal attitude and stance.Appraisal Theory expresses stance and connects with the readers or listeners by evaluating the people,emotion or behavior that is involved in the texts.In political speeches,Appraisal Theory is usually used to analyze presidents' speeches,campaign speeches and so on,but the analysis of the speeches about counterterrorism is not much.Although Li Xiaokang(2009)made an analysis of Bush's counterterrorism speeches from the perspective of attitude under the framework of the appraisal theory,the researches of Obama's counterterrorism speeches haven't been paid much attention to from the perspective of Appraisal Theory.Therefore,in this thesis,the distribution of evaluative resources in Obama's counterterrorism speeches will be revealed from the perspective of the Appraisal Theory,and the application of different evaluative devices will be explored to show Obama's attitude and personal stance to gain the support from the common people,which is to encourage,inspire the people in a positive way.Then all of the people are confident and get together to fight against the terrorism.This study is based on the theoretical framework of Appraisal Theory and the three elements of the Appraisal Theory are applied to systematically analyzing Obama's counterterrorism speeches and the theoretical extension and its feasibility in discourse analysis will be revealed.This study aims to answer the following research questions:(1)What are occurrences and distribution of appraisal resources in Obama's counterterrorism speeches?(2)What are the realizations of the different evaluative devices in Obama's counterterrorism speeches?(3)What are the ideologies and personal stances revealed in Obama's counterterrorism speeches?Obama's five typical counterterrorism speeches are chosen to be studied.Both qualitative and quantitative analytic approaches are applied to the analysis of Obama's counterterrorism speeches.The qualitative method is adopted to describe the appraisal resources appearing in Obama's counterterrorism speeches in detail;The quantitative method is used to make a detailed analysis and interpretation of the frequencies of appraisal resources.The research procedures are as the following: firstly,different appraisal resources involved in five counterterrorism speeches will be figured out.Next,the frequencies and distributions of evaluative resources will be calculated and listed in the tables.Finally,the analysis and the study results will be showed according to the different distribution feature of the evaluative resource.There are altogether five chapters in the thesis,and three questions above will be discussed in detail in these chapters.The organization of the thesis is as follows:Chapter One is the introduction.The research background,aim,significance of the thesis will be introduced.Chapter Two is the literature review,which concerns the theoretical studies of Appraisal Theory,including its origin,theoretical framework,the studies of Appraisal Theory abroad and at home.An overview and the studies of the counterterrorism speeches will be reviewed as well.In Chapter Three,the research questions,data collection and procedures,and research methodology will be stated.In Chapter Four,five typical counterterrorism speeches of Obama will be analyzed in details from the perspective of Appraisal System(which includes attitude system,engagement system and graduation system)firstly.And then Obama's personal stance and ideology will be revealed through the analysis above.Chapter Five is the summary,which presents the major findings and limitations of the present study and the prospect of further work.Through this study,some findings can be discovered as the following: firstly,in appraisal system,the graduation system occupies the highest percentage(41.44%).Then the attitude system occupies 33.67%,and the last one is engagement system(24.89%).The speakers want to convey the positive force and confidence to the listeners.In the attitude system,the affect resources occupy the highest percentage(50.17%),and then the judgment resources are second with the percentage of 31.44.The smallest part is the appreciation system(18.39%).Then the positive attitude resources account for 54.18%.It indicates that the speakers prefer to use the positive attitudinal resources to convey the positive energy.In the engagement system,the speakers prefer to establish the consistent relationship with the listeners by using the disclaim resources.In the graduation system,the force resources take up 78.53% while the focus resources occupy 21.47%.It shows that the speeches will be easily accepted by the listeners by using the force resources.Secondly,different evaluative devices in Obama's counterterrorism speeches can be realized through different words or groups.Finally,Obama's ideologies and personal stances can be revealed by analyzing the positive and negative words or groups which are used in Obama's counterterrorism speeches.Through Obama's speeches,the American people can be comforted and inspired.They will build up the confidence to counter the terrorism.