Positive Discourse Analysis Of THREE DAYS TO SEE From The Perspective Of Appraisal Theory

As an English essay,THREE DAYS TO SEE is a masterpiece of Helen Keller,who is a contemporary American writer.She advises people with a healthy body to cherish life and everything that God gives from the perspective of a disabled but strong woman.The spirits of perseverance,self detachment,pursuing beauty,and sublimity bring emotional influence and ideological shock to people.Therefore the spirits have given people inspiration and strength,which is beneficial to enhance happiness and build a more harmonious society.In this thesis,a combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis method are used to analyze the positive discourse of THREE DAYS TO SEE through the appraisal theory.The results show that the engagement system occupies the highest proportion in the appraisal system,followed by the attitude resources.Concerning the engagement system,it turns out that the number of expanding resources is close to the number of contracting resources,which successfully leaves space for the readers to think of the messages the author wants to convey.The author applies expressions with contracting resources to indicate a sharp contrast between a disabled human body and a strong will,which will enable the readers to ponder on their listless life attitude when they are not able to make full use of their faculties to appreciate the world and people,which eventually awakens the people to their acknowledgment of negative attitudes.Regarding the attitude system,the author uses a large number of the resources of the attitude system to create an image of optimism,positiveness,erudition and caring for others.It indicates the appreciation of beauty,love of life,desire for healthy senses,and cherishing of life.The author uses attitude resources very frequently.It is the core system of this essay.Among them,the appreciation resources take up the most,followed by affect resources.Findings show that the vast majority of affect resources are positive ones.The author tends to directly use positive resources to influence the readers,while negative resources work as contrasts to the bad effect or reality to encourage the readers to be optimistic.Concerning the graduation system,the author uses quantification of force resources extensively,which indicates its good design and successfully constructs a limited time as a background in which the readers are easy to immerse into the background of a limited time of three days.All of these resources will ultimately pass strong positive meaning to the readers and make them feellots of positive energy.