Abstract

The ceremony speech that Xi Jinping delivered in the B20 summit is of great importance not only for the meeting itself, but also for China’s international image. This thesis aims to analyze how the personal attitude and emotion and the position of the government are conveyed by the speech from the perspective of graduation resources in Martin and White’s appraisal theory (2005) The results of the analysis are presented as follows: (1) the upscaling resources accounts for a large proportion, while the frequency of the downscalings is quite limited. The application of the upscaling resources intensifies both the speaker’s attitude and emotion directly and puts an emphasis on what they modify; (2) the resources of force type takes up the leading role, among which, those of intensification appear more frequently than those of quantification. Through various forms of the resources in intensification including verbs, adverbs, adjectives, modalities, comparatives, superlatives and so on, the speaker can attract the audience’s attention more easily to understand and accept his views; (3) the numbers of the quantification resources are usually used to illustrate a fact or describe a present situation in the speech, which seems to be more exact and convincing to some extent; (4) the mere focus words all belong to sharpening, which imply the speaker’s intention. Overall, the thesis proves that the graduation system, as an effective tool, can enable us to have a better understanding of the speech text and the speaker’s mind.   

Key words: Appraisal Theory; graduation; ceremony speech; attitude; emotion 

Contents

Abstract

摘  要

1. Introduction-1

1.1 Research Background-1

1.2 Purpose and significance of the Study-2

1.3 Methods of analysis-2

1.4 Organization of the Thesis-2

1.5 Theoretical Framework-3

2. Literature Review-5

2.1. appraisal theory and Graduation Resources-5

2.1.1 Studies of the appraisal theory Abroad-5

2.1.2 Studies of the Appraisal Theory at Home-5

2.1.3 Studies of Graduation-6

2.2 Studies of the Public Speeches-7

3. Graduation Resources in Xi Jinping’s Speech at the Ceremony of B20 Summit-8

3.1 The Distribution of the Graduation Resources in the speech-8

3.2 Features of the Graduation Resources-9

3.2.1 Force-9

3.2.2 Focus-16

4. Conclusion-17

4.1 Findings of the Study-17

4.2 Limitations of the Study-18

4.3 Suggestions for Further Study-19

References-20

Appendix-22