| Metadiscourse is very important in our daily communication and writing.This research takes the interactional metadiscourse in speech as the research object,aims to explore the characteristics and interpersonal functions of interactional metadiscourse in speech.Taking Biden’s speech as the corpus and Spencer-Oatey’s rapport management theory as the theoretical foundation,and based on Hyland’s(2005)definition and classification of metadiscourse,the author proposes the following two research questions:First,what are the frequencies of interactional metadiscourse in Biden’s speeches and how do different types of interactional metadiscourse distribute in Biden’s speeches?Second,how does interactional metadiscourse in Biden’s speeches influence the rapport management through face and right?This study adopts quantitative and qualitative methods to analyze the above research questions.In the quantitative analysis part,this study makes a descriptive analysis of the annotated interactional metadiscourse with the help of AntConc.It is found that the most frequently used interactional metadiscourse in Biden’s speech is engagement markers,in which the most frequently used word is "we";the second is self mentions,in which the most frequently used word is "I";the frequencies of hedges,boosters and attitude markers are similar.In the qualitative analysis part,this study analyzes interactional metadiscourse in specific contexts with the help of rapport management theory from the perspective of quality face,identity face,equity right and association right,and summarizes the mechanism of how interactional metadiscourse affects rapport management.The mechanisms are as follows:First,speakers maintain the interpersonal relationship with the audience by using hedges to affirm the audience’s ability or soften their request.Second,speakers maintain interpersonal relationships with the audience by using boosters to enhance the audience’s contribution or quality,the emotional or interest convergence between themselves and the audience,or to enhance face-threatening behavior for themselves.Third,speakers use positive attitude markers to express affirmation and respect to the audience or use negative attitude markers to describe themselves to narrow social distance with the audience.Fourth,speakers narrow social distance by using self mentions to express their gratitude or make fun of themselves.Fifth,speakers use engagement markers that include both sides of the communication,such as "we,our",to show that they stand on the same side as the audience,or use special engagement markers such as interrogative sentences to create communication opportunities for the audience.In conclusion,this study has implications for speakers and speech teaching.After knowing the mechanism of how interactional metadiscourse affects rapport management,speakers can select appropriate interactional metadiscourse to achieve rapport management,and teachers can teach speech purposefully.Besides,this study also provides a new perspective for the research of metadiscourse in speech. |
