The Persuasive Functions Of Appraisal Resources In Product Launch Presentations

Fueled by the development of science and technology,promotion is no longer limited by time and space.As a new way of promotion,product launch presentations can be broadcast to audiences around the globe and thus widen the audience scope.Therefore,an increasing number of companies have been seen to promote their new products and services by means of product launch presentations.During the process of product launch presentations,presenters have the responsibility to persuade their audiences through language.It is reported that appraisal resources are a useful tool for persuasion,however,little related research is found in the genre of product launch presentations.In this regard,learning how to use appraisal resources to convince audiences in product launch presentations is significant.With the guideline of Martin and White’s appraisal system and Aristotle’s rhetoric model,this study conducts research on authentic product launch presentations of Apple Company to explore the distribution pattern of appraisal resources in product launch presentations,interpret the way how these appraisal resources realize persuasive functions in product launch presentations and explain the reason why speakers choose these appraisal resources in product launch presentations.The results show that,firstly,appraisal resources are frequently applied in product launch presentations.Within the appraisal system,it is found that the three kinds of appraisal resources are spread unevenly,with attitude taking up the most proportion,graduation the middle,and engagement the least.Although attitude resources can be positive or negative,only a very few negative attitudinal resources are found in the corpus.Secondly,it is found that persuasive functions can be achieved through appraisal resources in different ways.Pathos can be realized through attitude and graduation resources because these kinds of resources can stir up and strengthen audiences’ emotional feelings.Ethos can be achieved by attitude,engagement,and graduation resources since these resources can be deployed to show a credible and authoritative image of presenters and a competent and reliable image of the company.And logos can be realized through engagement resources as these resources can help audiences to reason and infer presenters’ words logically,inviting audiences to better align with presenters.Lastly,field and mode in register theory are considered as two elements influencing the choices of appraisal resources in product launch presentations.The promotion essence of product launch presentations leads to frequent use of attitudinal resources and little use of negative resources.And the informality of the channel of product launch presentations leads to the use of some special engagement resources.It is believed that this thesis has both academical and practical significance.Academically speaking,this paper proves the feasibility to analyze persuasive functions through appraisal resources in product launch presentations.Practically speaking,the findings of this paper may provide some enlightenment about how to better convince audiences through linguistic strategies for those product launch presentation speakers.