An Analysis of Malala Yousafzai’s 2014 Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech from the Perspective of Interpersonal Function_英语论文

摘要

根据语言学家韩礼德的系统功能语法，语言主要有三个元功能，即概念功能，人际功能和语篇功能。其中，人际功能在语言学研究中占有重要地位。通过人际功能，讲话者使自己参与到某一情景语境中来表达其态度和推断，并与其他人互动，建立社会关系，由此影响听话者对待事物的态度或行为，以实现讲话者的社会目的。

目前，国内外学者对不同类型文本的人际意义进行了广泛的研究，如广告词、演讲稿、文学作品等。而演讲稿中以政治类演讲为主，如奥巴马演讲、特朗普竞选、就职演讲或其他国家总统演讲等。此类讲话者均身居要位、威高权重。虽然本文的研究文本也为政治演讲，但研究对象与上述人物不同的是，其为当时尚未成年的小女孩，在其生活的社会大环境可谓是人微言轻。而她在获得诺贝尔奖时的发表演说时，她是一个全世界都知晓的名人。而彼时她的社会话语权发生变化，无论有无意识，她的演讲言语选择和她的社会角色相关联。

本研究结合对演讲会话的观看与其演讲文稿的研究，旨在分析研究演讲者通过人际功能意义达到其演讲的目的，以及人际功能要素如何有效互动，以准确地表达演讲者的观点和诉求，与听众建立情感同盟，在演讲中形成和谐团结的氛围，进而达到理想的号召能力。本研究将对演讲者语气系统、情态进行分析研究，将从意态等其他方面来全面考察马拉拉获奖演讲中的人际意义。

关键词：语篇分析  人际功能  人际意义  语气  情态

Abstract

According to Halliday's systemic functional grammar, language has three metafunctions: Ideational metafunction, Interpersonal metafunction and Textual metafunction. Among them, the Interpersonal metafunction takes a significant role in the fields in linguistic studies. With the realization of function, the speaker can express his attitude, interact with audiences, and establish social relations with them, thus affecting the audiences' attitude or behavior towards things, in order to achieve the speaker's social purpose.

So far, scholars at home and abroad have conducted extensive research on the Interpersonal meanings of various types of texts, such as advertising words, speeches, literary text and so on. And the speeches mainly focus on political speeches, such as Obama's speeches, Donald Trump's campaign speeches and inaugural speeches, or other presidents' speeches and so on. Such speakers are in prestigious positions with great authority. On the contrary, the research object of the dissertation is a young girl when the speech was delivered. She is no longer a little girl with no name, but a celebrity known all over the world instead. At that time, her social speaking right changed. Whether she is intentional or not, her selection of discourse pattern was related to her social role. This thesis attempts to use the Interpersonal Metafunction to analyze the prize acceptance speech given by Malala Yousafzai from the aspect of mood, modality, polarity, and so on, and how these factors interact effectively, so as to express the speaker’s position and viewpoint clearly, establish an emotional alliance with the audience, and then eventually achieve the ideal appeal and result. 

By using these linguistic devices, Malala effectively delivered the interpersonal significance of the discourse, realized the shift between a leader of supporting women and children’s equal rights and one of the victims whose right of education was deprived, finally reached the purpose of the speech, appealing for peace, fairness and equity of Pakistani women and children.

Key words: Interpersonal metafunction  Mood  modality  Halliday  speech

Contents

Chapter One  Introduction 1

1.1  Purpose of This Thesis 1

1.2  Significance of This Thesis 2 

1.3  Structure of This Thesis 2

Chapter Two  Literature Review 4

2.1  Introduction 4

2.2  Achievements of the Previous Studies on SFL 4 

2.3  Limitation of the Previous Studies 5

2.4  Previous Study of Political Speech from The Perspective of The interpersonal metafunction 6

Chapter Three  Literature Review 8

3.1  Introduction 8

3.2  The Interpersonal Metafunction 8

3.2.1 The Mood System 9

3.2.2 Types of Modality 10

3.2.3 Orientation of Modality 11

3.2.4 Values of Modality 12

3.2.5 The Function of Polarity 14

3.3  Political Speech 14

3.3.1 Definitions of Political Speech 14

3.3.2 Features of Political Speech 15

Chapter Four  Discourse Analysis and Discussion 17

4.1  Introduction 17

4.2  Introduction of Malala Yousafzai 17

4.3  Research Method of This Thesis 18

4.4  The Function of Mood in Malala’s Speech 19

4.5  Analysis of The Function of Modality 20

4.6  Analysis of The Function of Polarity 23

Chapter Five  Conclusion 25

Bibliography

Appendices

Acknowledgements