Contrastive Research On Graduation Resources In Government Work Reports And State Of Union Addresses: An Appraisal Theory Perspective

Government Work Reports(GWR)and the State of the Union Addresses(SOUA)are typical political discourse,summarizing the achievements of Chinese and American leaders in the past year and putting forward good expectations for the future year.In two types of political discourses,the two countries’ leaders express their national political stands and attitudes by relying on various ways to achieve interpersonal significance.Although many scholars have studied these two political discourses from multiple perspectives,few scholars have studied GWR and SOUA from the standpoint of graduation resources.This thesis uses qualitative and quantitative research methods to contrast the20-year GWR and SOUA between China and the United States based on graduation resources in order to reveal the differences in cultural backgrounds and customs between China and the United States.The results show that they have significant differences in the distributions of force and focus resources in two types of political discourses.Namely,the frequency of force resources in GWR is higher than force resources in SOUA;the Chinese government pays more attention to positive expressions,while the U.S.government concentrates on enhancing semantics to convey the message.The major findings in detail are as follows:(1)There are significant differences in the use of intensification resources.The Government Work Report uses process resources more frequently than process resources in the State of Union Address.The Chinese government emphasizes experience and feeling during the development process,while the U.S.government thinks highly of results and seeks immediate impact.There is no significant difference in the use of quantification resources in these political discourses.Both the Chinese and American governments tend to use quantification resources to convey their attitudes so that the audience quickly grasps the content of the speech and policy guidelines.Regarding the presentation mode and direction of graduation resources,they have significant differences between isolating and infusing resources.Still,it has no significant difference between upscale and downscale resources.The U.S.government wants to express ideas directly through grammatical modifiers,and the Chinese government conveys messages implicitly.(2)There are significant differences in the use of focus resources.The Government Work Report primarily uses soften resources,and the State of Union Address uses sharpen resources.The U.S.government uses sharpen resources to enhance language power and blur focus to improve speech effect,which the Chinese government uses soften resources to make the views clear and attract the audience’s support.GWR and SOUA have their characteristics in the use of graduation resources.Based on graduation resources,this thesis studies the interpersonal meaning and the reasons for interpersonal meaning revealed by graduation resources in these two types of political discourses to discuss the dissimilarities in cultural backgrounds,ways of thinking,and language characteristics between China and the United States.The thesis also provides a new research perspective to analyze these political discourses.In addition,this study is conducive to strengthening the understanding of the political discourse between the Chinese and American people and helping the two countries to strengthen knowledge and achieve cooperation.