功能語言學論文

1、The Study of “I Am Prepared to Die for An Idea” in the light of Appraisal TheoryAbstract: The Appraisal Theory is developed on the basis of the interpersonal function which is the one of the three meta-functions of systemic-functional linguistics. It is a new development of functional linguistics an

2、d offers us a decent way to analyze the interpersonal function of discourses. This essay tries to study Nelson Mandelas address- “I Am Prepared to Die for An Ideal” in the light of Appraisal Theory and find out why it becomes one of the world-renowned addresses in term of its language. Thus we could

3、 give suggestions to addresses of the same kind made in the future.Key Words: Appraisal Theory; Nelson Mandela; Suggestion1. IntroductionThe appraisal theory was first put forward by Martin. It is a development of the interpersonal function of systemic-funcional linguistics. Engagement, Attitude and

4、 Gradation are the three evaluation resources in the text. And these resources reflect the speakers standpoint, perspective and attitude, which are also the evaluation parameters in the text.Political addresses always attract widespread attention among the public. It presents standpoints, perspectiv

5、es and attitudes to the audiences publicly aiming to arouse resonance among them. The addressers always utilize multiple appraisal means during the process explicitly or implicitly.Nelson Mandelas world-renowned speech “I Am Prepared to Die for An Idea” is a very successful one of its type. In the f

6、ollowing pages I am trying to analyze the address from its language in the light of Appraisal theory and find out how Mr. Mandela showed his standpoint, perspective and attitude against war, hatred and apartheid and his ideal for justice, democracy and unity.2. Appraisal theory and its developmentTh

7、e appraisal system consists of three subsystems: Engagement, Attitude and Gradation, which is also called Appraisal resources. But these subcategories are not an end themselves. Engagement can be further divided into monogloss and heterogloss; Attitude can be further divided into affect, appreciatio

8、n and judgement; Gradation can be further divided into force and focus. Among all the three subsystems of Appraisal Theory, the Attitude system appear central to the system, and the Affect system appear central to Attitude system. Only when someones emotion is affected will he make judgement to othe

9、rs behavior or appreciation to objects, events.3. Case study3.1 Study from the perspective of EngagementMartin believes that texts bear interactivity. According to his theory, texts are considered as the authors explicit or implicit negotiation of meaning with readers. The construction of meaning is

10、 regarded as social instead of individual. Every text, to some extent, is believed to have responded to other factual or possible texts. As mentioned above, Engagement can be further divided into monogloss and heterogloss. Monogloss refers to discourse which totally comes from the speaker himself. H

11、e chooses to reject communication with others and is considered to take the full responsibility of his own words. On the contrary, Heterogloss helps the speaker to escape some or all of the responsibility of the text by bringing in conversation with others, thus add objectivity to the text. Heterogl

12、oss can be further divided into “disclaim”, “proclaim”, “entertain” and “attribute”.“Disclaim” means that the claim in the text is opposite to some other opposing idea or ideas. “Proclaim” means that the claim in the text presents its proposition in a way that seems undeniable, Thus driving other id

13、eas out. “Entertain” means that the claim in the text presents the propositions by its association with other propositions; therefore the claim appears to be just one example of several similar ideas, thus producing conversation. “Attribute” means that the propositions presented in the text comes fr

14、om the outside of the text; therefore the claim appears to be just one example of several similar ideas, thus producing conversation.Firstly, one of the significant features of this speech is Mandelas frequent use of the first-person pronoun “I”. After calculation I find that this word has been used

15、 for 28 times. This is a good example of monogloss. Mandela used this word to show his strong emotion and standpoint. He chose to shut out others voices and shoulder full responsibility for his own words. In a country that is full of hatred and fight, Mandela tried to use his own particular charm to

16、 win a position for his ideal for peace and understanding, and to appeal to the public to fight for a united, nondiscriminatory South Africa. Another feature that is worth noting is that the address includes many first-person plurals or corresponding words as the themes, such as we, our, ourselves,

17、all persons, the people, in every corner of the world, all political, etc. The addresser wanted to make clear that he did not merely view the whole situation from his own perspective; instead he spoke on behalf of the whole nation, all of its people, and even the whole world, in which way he could a

18、rouse resonance and win support from them.Secondly, as far as heteroloss is concerned, Mandelas address frequently used “disclaim” and “proclaim”. Lets have a look at the following sentences first:(1).The sacrifice of the frontline states will be remembered by South Africans, black and white, recogn

19、ize that apartheid has no future.(2).Negotiations cannot take placeNegotiations cannot take place above the heads or behind the backs of our people.(3).It has to be ended by our own decisive mass action in order to build peace and security.(4).The mass campaigns of defiance and other actions of our

20、organizations and people can only culminate in the establishment of continent is in calculable.(5).It is our belief that the future of our country can only be determined by a body which is democratically elected on a non-racial basis.Sentence (1) and (2) are good examples of “disclaim”. As mentioned

21、 before, “disclaim” means the authors voice coexists with opposing voices. Mandela had showed his ideas directly using “deny”(one of the subcategories of “disclaim”). “has no future”， “cannot take place” clearly suggests his claim that “apartheid” is not allowed, and negotiations cannot be made stea

22、lthily. Sentence (3), (4) and (5) are good examples of “proclaim”. As stated above, “proclaim” means that the claim in the text presents its proposition in a way that seems undeniable. In this address, Mandela always presents his claims in a way that seems self-sufficient. Although he knew that othe

23、r voices exist, he chose to shut out them to win certainties for his claim: “It has to be ended by our own decisive mass action”, “can only culminate”, “the future of our country can only be” Mandela used these sentences to emphasize the importance of “action”, “establishment of continent”, “democra

24、cy” and “non-racial basis”. In other words, without “mass action” or “democracy” the situation will not improve at all.From what we have discussed above, we could easily draw the conclusion that, in terms of language use, Mandelas speech is not that tolerant to communication, since the first-person

25、word takes large proportion of the address, and the way he used to convey his idea is usually nonnegotiable. This is understandable considering his experience and the background of this address. As we know, this address was made not long after his release from prison, and he merely spoke as an indiv

26、idual by his own experience. Therefore, this address is comparatively personal and full of emotion.3.2 Study from the perspective of AttitudeAs we know, Attitude consists of Affect, appreciation and Judgement.Affect refers to positive or negative feelings: sadness or happiness; confidence or anxiety

27、; interest or hatred. Roughly speaking, Affect can be further classified into the following three subcategories: instant behavior, mental state, and relationship status. “Instant behavior” means a sudden action. For example, “He smiled”. It might involve change of feelings. “Mental state” means a st

28、able feeling towards someone or something. For example, “he love playing basketball”, this affection is stable and not easily be changed. Another feeling needs to be differentiated from “mental state” is “relationship status”. Where the two differ is that “relationship status” is a feeling caused by

29、 a “Trigger”, as Martin & White called it. For example, “shes happy about the result”. Here “the result” is the Trigger for the feeling. Still, affect can also be graded as lower, middle, and higher levels. But due to the length of this paper, I cannot give further details here.Here are some exa

30、mples from the address:(6).I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony with equal opportunities.(7).I feel duty bound to make the point that a leader of the movement is a person who has been democratically elected at a national conference

31、.(8). I pay tribute to the many religious communities who carried the campaign for justice forward when the organizations of our people were silenced.Sentence (6) and (7) are Affect that belongs to “mental state”, which we could easily tell from the two phrases “cherish the ideal” and “feel duty”. A

32、s is seen, the two phrases show Mandelas stable feelings and hope for a democratic society and a country whose leader is elected democratically. This helps Mandela to show his strong affections.Sentence (8) is an example of “relationship status”. Judging from the content of the sentence, we can see

33、that Mandelas “tribute” was “triggered” by “the many religious communities who carried the campaign for justice” For this reason we can not regard it as a “mental state”, but “relationship status” instead.Judgment refers to meanings that can be categorized into positive or negative according to soci

34、al conventions. Judgment can be further divided into “social sanction” and “social esteem”. “Social sanction” is connected to legal and ethnics, thus our evaluations could be “honest”, “moral”, “illegal”, etc. “social esteem” is related to convention, ability and tenacity, thus our evaluation could

35、be “unusual”, “competent”, “cowardly”, etc. Next lets see the traces of “judgment” from the address. Here are some sentences.(9).Your tireless and heroic sacrifices have made it possible for me to be here today.(10).You remain the most dependable force in the struggle to end exploitation and oppress

36、ion.(11).There must be an end to white monopoly on political power and a fundamental restructuring of our political and economic systems to ensure that the inequalities of apartheid are addressed and our society thoroughlyIn all the sentences above, Mandela used several words bearing the function of

37、 evaluation to facilitate his presentation of his voices. In sentence (9), he used the word “tireless” and “heroic”, which belongs to the “ability” and “toughness”. By using these words Mandela showed his great appreciation for those South Africans who help with his release. The use of “dependable”

38、in sentence (10) is another example “social esteem”. By using this word Mandela speak highly of the movements made by the working class. The use of “inequalities” in sentence (11) is an good example of “social sanction”. Mandela used this word to show his claim against apartheid.3.3 Study from the p

39、erspective of GradationThe final part of this analysis comes to “Gradation”. Literally speaking, “Gradation” refers to the degree to which evaluation is strengthened or weakened. It does not belong to any categories of Appraisal system. Instead it exists in every subsystems of the system. The system

40、 can be further divided into “force” and “focus”. In terms of “force”, the value of the evaluation changes from higher, middle and lower level. While in terms of “focus”, it can be divided into “clear” and “vague”. As far as “possibility” is concerned, we could rank the model verbs according to its

41、value: Possibly/may (low value); probably/will (middle value); definitely/must (high value).As Mandela used lots of model verbs to show his ideas in this address, we will mainly focus on this part of Gradation to analyze the speech.After comparison I find that Mandela used high-value positive or negative form of modal verbs frequently. Those phrases include “must”, “cannot”, “can o