A Study Of Interpersonal Meta-function On The Documentary English Commentary

In the 1950 s and 1960 s,Halliday proposed three major meta-functions of language,that is,ideational meta-function,interpersonal meta-function and textual meta-function.Interpersonal meta-function(also interpersonal meaning)refers to the function of language through which a speaker can interact with the hearer so that the speaker can express attitudes and judgments,and affect the attitudes and even behaviors of the hearer.Meanwhile interpersonal meta-function can also reflect the degree of intimacy between the speaker and the hearer.Regarding the realizations of interpersonal meta-function,Halliday mainly explained from the grammatical level of mood and modality.However,the way to achieve interpersonal meta-function is not limited to these two aspects.At present,many domestic scholars use systematic meta-functional grammar and evaluation theory to study interpersonal meta-function.From the collected literature,the construction of interpersonal meta-function theory is mainly carried out from five aspects: mood system,modal system,person system,interpersonal grammatical metaphor or evaluation theory.These five systems are used individually or simultaneously.Regarding the construction of interpersonal meta-function theory,most studies have integrated mood,modality,and person system,but they have rarely been combined with interpersonal grammatical metaphor.In addition,it?s worth mentioning that interpersonal grammatical metaphor is proved to be an effective way to realize interpersonal meta-function in discourses of the presidential speech,advertisement,drama or novel.This study is attempting to discover interpersonal meta-function of the interpersonal grammatical metaphor in the discourse of the documentary English commentary.Therefore,this thesis develops four aspects: mood,modality,person system and interpersonal grammatical metaphor to study interpersonal meta-function.Documentaries are becoming more and more popular with audiences and have become an important means of spreading historical,cultural and social values.Through commentary,documentary creators can convey their attitudes and ideas to the audience.Therefore,the commentary is an important text to study interpersonal meta-function of the documentary.At present,many types of discourse involve the analysis of interpersonal meta-function,such as advertisement,news,political state-of-the-art address,speeches,literary works,etc.,but the analysis of interpersonal meta-function of the documentary commentary is less.A Bite of China has been popular at home and abroad,setting a new benchmark for China?s documentary creation.Therefore,this study employs systematic functional linguistics,from the grammatical level,that is,the four aspects of mood,modality,person and interpersonal grammatical metaphor,taking the first season of the documentary A Bite of China as an example,using quantitative and qualitative methods to study interpersonal meta-function,that is,how the documentary interacts with the audience through the commentary and how to successfully convey the idea to the audience.Through quantitative analysis and qualitative discussion,this study found that there are a large number of language resources representing interpersonal functions in the commentary of the documentary: Firstly,the basic purpose of the documentary is to convey information to the audience.The use of the present tense,declarative sentences and modality metaphors makes the commentary objective.Secondly,the documentary aims to convey its values to the audience through the commentary and affect the audience?s attitudes and ideas.The use of the second person in the person system involves the audience;low-value modal words and interrogative sentences as metaphors of modality express courtesy to the audience.Finally,the food culture and humanistic spirit contained in A Bite of China are the factors for its great success: through imperative sentences,the commentator writer presents the process of the food;the rich history described in the past tense causes the audience emotional resonance;the first person and the third person attract the audience?s attention to the general public.