| Home diplomatic speeches can use home advantages to gain more international discourse power,so as to better tell the story of China,convey China’s voice and attitudes,and build a harmonious society.Taking the Appraisal Theory as the theoretical framework and UAM Corpus Tool as the research instrument,this thesis makes a positive discourse analysis of ten home diplomatic speeches delivered by President Xi from 2017 to 2019 by using qualitative and quantitative research methods,hoping to explore the distribution of appraisal resources and the characteristics of attitude expression and positive information transmission in President Xi’s home diplomatic speeches.The major findings are as follows:The distribution of appraisal resources that are embodied in three subsystems of the Appraisal Theory presents an unbalanced trend in President Xi’s home diplomatic speeches.Among them,attitudinal resources account for the largest proportion(52.03%),followed by engagement resources(28.25%)and graduation resources(19.72%).In the attitude system,judgment resources are used most frequently(41.14%),followed by appreciation resources(35.72%)and affect resources(23.14%).Almost all the attitudinal resources are positive(96.06%).President Xi uses judgement resources in his home diplomatic speeches to speak highly of people’s outstanding abilities and unremitting efforts.Appreciation resources are employed by President Xi to evaluate the achievements made by people.Affect resources are applied to express President Xi’s welcome to the audience and his confidence in a prosperous future.In the engagement system,expansion resources take up 71.89% and contraction resources occupy 28.11%.The use of expansion resources expands the dialogue space of the home diplomatic speeches,which shows the inclusiveness,negotiability and interactivity of the Chinese government.Although the contraction resources contract the dialogue space and limit the existence of other voices,they also convey China’s positive attitudes towards international affairs and establish the image of China as a responsible power.In the graduation system,the proportion of force resources(91.84%)is much larger than that of focus resources(8.16%).The force resources are applied by President Xi to strengthen his attitudes and show the great achievements made by China and other cooperative countries.The employment of force and focus resources enhances the objectivity and persuasiveness of President Xi’s home diplomatic speeches and improves people’s confidence in China.This thesis expands the research field of the Appraisal Theory and positive discourse analysis,which is helpful for domestic and foreign readers to better understand the positive information conveyed in the home diplomatic speeches and make better use of appraisal resources in communication. |
