An SFL-based Critical Discourse Analysis of John McCain’s Withdrawal Speech_英语论文

摘要

政治演说是指有关政治内容和政治活动的演说，是代表着一定政治立场和团体利益的一种演说。有关政治演说的研究文献很多，不少学者已经从系统功能语言学的角度去分析政治演说，但是对退选演说的分析关注较少。退选演说是候选人在竞选失败后发表的演讲，其特别之处在于候选人要通过该演说去感谢和安抚一直支持自己的人，巩固自己的势力，并表明自己的政治立场，与新总统从竞争的关系转化成友好合作的关系。为了了解政治人物是如何通过语言在退选演说中达到上述目的的，本文将从批评话语分析的角度对约翰麦凯恩的退选演说做一些探索，研究发现：（1）在及物性方面，约翰麦凯恩更倾向于使用物质过程而不是其他及物性过程来表达自己的观点，使得语言更具客观性。（2）中值情态动词既能有效传达演说者的信息，又不会产生将演说者的意图强加于听众的感觉。（3）第一人称代词单复数的使用有利于加强听众对演说者的信任，使演说者与听众建立友好的关系。

关键词：批评话语分析  退选演说  概念功能  人际功能

Abstract

There is much research literature on political speeches, and many scholars have analyzed political speeches from the perspective of systemic functional linguistics, but insufficient attention has been paid to the withdrawal speech. The withdrawal speech is a speech delivered by the candidate after the election failure. What is special about it is that the candidate would appreciate the persons who have always supported him to consolidate his own power, and show his political position to change the relationship with the new president from the relationship of competition to the relationship of friendly cooperation. In order to figure out how politicians achieve the above objectives through language, this study will conduct a critical discourse analysis of John McCain’s withdrawal speech. We can find out that: (1) In terms of transitivity, John McCain prefers to use material processes rather than other transitivity processes to express his views and make the language more objective. (2) In the modal aspect, the speaker uses the intermediate magnitude modal words, being able to express one’s own opinions do not create the feeling of imposing one’s own views on others. (3) The use of the first person pronouns is conducive to enhancing the audience’s trust in the speaker and enabling speaker to establish a friendly relationship with the audience. 

Key words: Critical Discourse Analysis  withdrawal speech  Ideational Metafunction  Interpersonal Metafunction

Contents

Chapter One  Introduction 1

1.1  Research Background 1

1.2  Purpose of the Thesis 2

1.3  Structure of the Thesis 3

Chapter Two  Literature Review 4

2.1  Introduction 4

2.2  Previous Researches on Political Speeches 4

2.3  Previous CDA-based Researches 8

2.4  Comment 10

Chapter Three  Theoretical Framework 11

3.1  Introduction 11

3.2  Fairclough’s Three-Dimensional Model 11

3.3  Halliday’s Systemic-Functional Grammar 13

3.3.1 Ideational Metafunction 15

3.3.2 Interpersonal Metafunction 16

3.3.3 Textual Metafunction 17

3.4  The Relationship Between CDA and SFL 18

Chapter Four  Data Analysis 19

4.1  Introduction 19

4.2  Analysis under the Ideational Function 19

4.3  Analysis under the Interpersonal Function 22

4.4  Summary 26

Chapter Five  Conclusion 27

5.1  Major Findings 27

5.2  Limitations and Suggestions for Future Study 27

Bibliography

Acknowledgements