Value Orientation And Discourse Strategies

The president’s welcome speech is a significant part in the opening ceremony in the university.Presidents will convey the necessary information and express expectations to the students through the speeches,which embody the educational ideologies of universities.Based on Halliday’s Systemic Functional Grammar,this thesis makes a comparative analysis of the welcome speeches of Chinese and American university presidents in terms of three meta-functions: textual,interpersonal and ideational functions.Then,this study tries to explore the linguistic features contained in presidents’ welcome speeches and analyze the educational ideologies implied in educational discourse.According to the up-to-date university rankings put out by Times Higher Education,the author chooses 50 presidents’ welcome speeches,including five top Chinese and five top American universities from 2016 to 2020,adding up to 42425 English words and 56436 Chinese characters.In this study,the author uses one corpus tool to annotate the transitivity processes,mood types and thematic structures and utilizes the other to retrieve modal verbs.The qualitative method will be used to explain how Halliday’s three meta-functions reflect the linguistic features and educational ideologies of Chinese and American universities in the selected texts.The comparative analysis has found that in the ideational function,the material process accounts for the largest percentage in Chinese and American university presidents’ welcome speeches.In the interpersonal function,the declarative mood takes up 81.11% in Chinese university presidents’ welcome speeches and 87.34% in American university presidents’ welcome speeches.In addition,the imperative mood is in the second place,which can directly show the presidents’ expectations to the students.In modality system,Chinese presidents’ welcome speeches employ more low value modal operators,while in American university presidents’ speeches,the median value modal operators are at the top.In terms of textual function,unmarked themes possess a large proportion,in whether American or Chinese presidents’ welcome speeches.Meanwhile,this thesis also reveals the resemblances and differences in educational ideologies between Chinese and American universities.First,the presidents in both America and China lay emphasis on the ability of innovation and the spirit of exploration.Second,the universities from the two countries all encourage students to communicate with other people.Meanwhile,there are some discrepancies between American and Chinese educational ideologies.Chinese universities like to discuss the subject that develops students as the builders of socialism and enhancing patriotic education.American universities attempt to foster the students’ social responsibilities.What’s more,American universities stress personal liberty,democracy and equality,namely,individualism,while Chinese universities call on collectivism.Last but not least,American universities stress mutual respect between teachers and students,while Chinese universities highlight the respect for teachers.All in all,through the comparative analysis between Chinese and American university presidents’ welcome speeches,the language features and implied educational ideologies of the presidents’ welcome speeches can be summarized,then the two countries’ universities can benefit from each other’s strengths.