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Abstract According to Halliday, systemic functional grammar can provide a theoretical framework for discourse analysis due to its properties of multi-level and multi-function. The study on interpersonal metaphors can trigger off our comprehensive understanding and analysis to a text. Luckily, it has attracted some scholars’ attention both at home and abroad. However, few of them employ the interpersonal grammatical metaphor for discourse analysis. Most scholars pay more attention to the study of its classification and ways of judgment instead of the study of interpersonal grammatical metaphor in discourse, especially, in a specific discourse. Interpersonal grammatical metaphor has not been attached enough importance.However, we also see that some scholars are beginning to show their interest in researching interpersonal grammatical metaphor in discourse，such as Fan Wenfang (2000),Chang Chenguang (2001).There are some graduate students such as Yu Xiaoman (2003), Wang Aihui (2005), Zhang Zhixiang (2006), Zhao Yufang (2007)who began to investigate the functions of interpersonal grammatical metaphor in specific discourse.
Owing to the important roles of interpersonal grammatical metaphor in discourse and the deficiency of the study on interpersonal metaphor in president’s weekly radio speech, this study is intended to probe into the abundant existence of interpersonal grammatical metaphor in weekly radio speech, and provide teachers and English learners with deeper insights into the interpersonal grammatical metaphor and their function on helping the president realize communicative purposes. Two research questions are formulated in this thesis: 1. what are the occurrence and frequency of interpersonal grammatical metaphors in Obama’s weekly radio speeches? 2. What are the functions of interpersonal grammatical metaphors in the discourse accordingly?
The study is carried out on the basis of Halliday’s model of interpersonal grammatical metaphor. Thirty samples are downloaded from www.putclub.com, dated from January 24, 2009, to August 22, 2009,from Obama’s first weekly radio speech after his inauguration to my beginning of this thesis, without any particular selection.Through quantitative analysis, the occurrence and frequency of the interpersonal metaphor in the corpus are counted and compared. Moreover, through qualitative analysis, the author probes into the application of interpersonal grammatical metaphors by examining their functions in helping the president achieve his communicative goals.#p#分页标题#e#
The major findings are summarized as follows: First, through quantitative analysis, it is found that the speaker in weekly radio speech achieves his communicative purposes by tactically adopting a lot of metaphors of mood or metaphors of modality. Second, in weekly radio speeches, a lot of statements clarifying the policies are realized by the let me structure of imperative mood to show the speaker’s authoritativeness as a president. A metaphor of mood issuing commands with declarative mood is also widely used to shorten the distance between the president and the audience so as to gain their understanding and support. Some statements realized by interrogative mood are adopted to convey the speaker’s implications or form an atmosphere of intercommunication, depending on the situation. In addition, there are few questions realized by declarative mood to show the speaker’s respect to the audience with the final goal of establishing a harmonious relationship with the audience and getting their support. Third, in weekly radio speeches, a large number of explicit subjective metaphors of modality are adopted to emphasize the speaker’s strong belief so as to present the president’s good image of being confident and being willing to take responsibility. By contrast, explicit objective 本站提供指导Essay，指导Assignment，请联系QQ：949925041 metaphors of modality and nominalization are adopted to disguise the source of the modality so that the speaker can shirk the responsibility for his personal judgment. At the same time, the speaker uses many explicit subjective metaphor of modality to express his uncertainty in an attempt to show his caution and carefulness.
These findings bear significant pedagogical implications. The author proposes that this study enables us to have a better understanding of how interpersonal metaphors work in weekly radio speeches; on the other hand, it will facilitate the teaching of advanced listening and speaking and improving non-native English learners’ listening, speaking and writing so that they can develop their communicative competence more effectively.
Key words: interpersonal grammatical metaphor; metaphor of mood; metaphor of modality; weekly radio speech
摘要
韩礼德认为系统功能语法为语篇分析提供了一个多层次、多功能的理论框架。作为此框架中的一个重要组成部分，人际语法隐喻的研究在语篇分析中有着重要作用，它能激发我们对文本的综合理解和分析。这种现象已引起了国内外一些学者的注意。然而，大多数学者对人际语法隐喻的研究都集中在探讨其隐喻的体现形式和分类上，很少有人把人际语法隐喻应用于语篇分析中，尤其是对一特定语篇的分析。人际语法隐喻并没有受到足够的重视。但是，我们也看到了少数学者（如范文芳，2000；常晨光，2001等）已经开始关注人际语法隐喻在语篇分析中的作用。也有一些中国的研究生（如余晓曼，2003；王爱会，2005；张志祥，2006；赵郁芳，2007等）开始了对特定语篇中人际语法隐喻功能的探讨。#p#分页标题#e#
鉴于人际语法隐喻在语篇分析中的重要作用，以及总统每周电台演讲中人际语法隐喻功能探讨的空白，本研究旨在揭示总统每周电台演讲中人际语法隐喻的广泛存在，分析人际语法隐喻在帮助总统实现交际目的过程中的重要作用，同时，为广大英语教师和英语学习者提供对人际语法隐喻的深刻理解。本研究主要围绕以下两个问题展开：1.人际语法隐喻在每周电台演讲中出现的频率和分布情况怎样？2.人际语法隐喻在每周电台演讲中的作用是什么？
本研究以www.putclub.com 网站下载的美国总统奥巴马的30篇电台演讲为语料，鉴于奥巴马总统上任时间不长及作者须在规定时间内完成研究的限制，语料选择从2009年1月24日奥巴马上台后的第一篇电台演讲到2009年8月22日作者开始论文研究为止，共30篇，并没有经过随机抽样。本文以韩礼德的人际语法隐喻模式为理论基础，采用定量分析和定性分析相结合的研究方法。通过定量分析，统计和比较了人际语法隐喻在语料中的频率和分布情况，回答了第一个研究问题。通过定性分析，探讨了人际语法隐喻在帮助总统实现交际目的过程中的作用，回答了第二个研究问题。
经过综合分析，本研究主要有以下发现：1.在每周电台演讲中，演讲者巧妙地采用了大量语气隐喻和情态隐喻来实现它的交际目的；2.在语气隐喻方面，演讲者采用较多的let me…结构来代替阐述政策的陈述语气，从而树立其作为总统的权威；大量使用陈述语气来发布命令有利于缩短与听众的距离从而赢得他们的理解和支持；根据情况，用疑问语气来表达陈述，有助于隐蔽地传达观点或形成与听众之间的互动；此外，也使用了少量的陈述语气来表达疑问，有利于建立与听众之间的良好关系。3.在情态隐喻方面，大量运用显性主观隐喻或强调演讲者的信念，或表达演讲者的不确定，有利于树立总统自信、负责、谨慎的良好形象；同时运用显性客观隐喻，演讲者可以掩饰情态的主观来源，从而为自己的个人判断推卸责任。
本文的研究进一步证实了系统功能语法能够为语篇分析提供一个多层次、多功能的理论框架的观点，有助于深刻理解人际语法隐喻在每周电台演讲中的运作，促进英语高级听说课的教学，提高英语学习者听、说、写的技能，从而有效培养他们英语交际的能力。
关键词：人际语法隐喻；语气隐喻；情态隐喻；每周电台演讲#p#分页标题#e#
Chapter One Introduction
1.1 Research background
It is the great ancient Greece thinker, Aristotle, who begun the study of metaphor as early as more than two thousand years ago. Since then, a lot of other scholars from different academic fields had approached metaphor from different perspectives and put forward a series of important theories, but most of which are concerned with the metaphorical expressions at the lexical level of language while seldom the grammatical level . Later, there are also some researchers such as Richards(1965), Max Black(1979), Lakoff＆Johnson(1980) who started to study metaphor from the cognitive perspective. However, not until the 1980s, 本站提供指导Essay，指导Assignment，请联系QQ：949925041 did the study of grammatical metaphor really begin to arouse the researchers’ great interest. The first article about grammatical metaphor is written by Alford entitled The Grammatical Metaphor: A Survey of Its Use in the Middle Ages in 1982.
However, the real beginning of conscious study of grammatical metaphor in the sense of our present research begins from Halliday, because he is the first linguist who formally declares the existence and importance of grammatical metaphor.Represented by Halliday (1985, 1994), Revelli (1998), Martin (1992), Mathiessen(1995) and Thompson(1996) are among the most important ones to introduce and carry on a continuous study of grammatical metaphor.#p#分页标题#e#
According to Halliday, systemic functional grammar can provide a theoretical framework for discourse analysis due to its properties of multi-level and multi-function. The study on interpersonal metaphors can trigger off our comprehensive understanding and analysis to a text.However, few of them employ the interpersonal grammatical metaphor for discourse analysis. Most scholars pay more attention to the study of its classification and ways of judgment instead of the study of interpersonal grammatical metaphor in discourse, especially, in a specific discourse. Interpersonal grammatical metaphor has not been attached enough importance.
Political speech has drawn more and more attention from many scholars. However, the studies are scarcely based on systematic investigation of linguistic data; few studies deal with the grammatical metaphor in the political speeches, the combination of interpersonal grammatical metaphor and president’s weekly radio speeches is even a blank.
In fact, president’s weekly radio speech has been a very important tool to help the president to build and maintain his good personal public image. In the speech, the president will clarify the political policies, state his political opinions, anticipate their future, or make his grand promise so that he can make up the divergence, arouse the morale of the public and persuade people to accept and support his policy. In order to realize these purposes, the president will employ all kinds of language skills. One important strategy is to exploit the interpersonal grammatical metaphor to reach their communicative purposes and make the speech more effective.
1.2 Research questions
In this thesis, I will make a practical research on the application of interpersonal grammatical metaphor in Obama’s weekly radio speeches downloaded from www.putclub.com, dated from January 24, 2009, to August 22, 2009.Through quantitative analysis, I attempt to explore the differences in application of metaphor of mood and metaphor of modality, comparisons are made in the frequency of these two interpersonal grammatical metaphors. Moreover, through qualitative analysis, I probe into the application of interpersonal grammatical metaphors by examining their functions in helping the president achieve his communicative goals. Both of the research results are supposed to shed light on theoretical study and pedagogical practice.#p#分页标题#e#
The research questions to be addressed in the research are generalized as follows:
1. What are the occurrence and frequency of interpersonal grammatical metaphors in Obama’s weekly radio speeches?
2. What are the functions of interpersonal grammatical metaphors in the discourse accordingly?
1.3 Overall structure of the thesis
This thesis falls into six chapters.
Chapter one presents an overview of the research background against which the present research is made, followed by a brief introduction to the study carried out in this thesis.
Chapter two is a literature review which covers the previous and present studies on grammatical metaphor at home and abroad as well as the theoretical framework of interpersonal grammatical metaphor. Then the related public speaking and weekly radio speeches are elaborated. Chapter three outlines the research methodology of the study carried out in this thesis. The collection of data and the method of analysis are described in detail.
Chapter four and five are the main parts of this thesis. Chapter four discusses the identification of interpersonal grammatical metaphor. Chapter five deals with the results of this study, followed by a discussion based on the data analysis本站提供指导Essay，指导Assignment，请联系QQ：949925041 of Obama’s weekly radio speeches.
Finally, in chapter six, the major findings, the pedagogical implications, the limitations as well as areas for further research are suggested.
The present chapter attempts to scrutinize the former studies of grammatical metaphor and political speech to conclude that grammatical metaphor is widely used and plays an important role in discourse; meanwhile, political speech has been a hot spot of discourse analysis and is attracting more and more attention from the linguists. In addition to a critical review of the previous literature on these topics, I also put forward the theoretical framework for the analysis of how interpersonal metaphors realize their functions in political speech discourse.
2.1 Grammatical metaphor
2.1.1 Halliday’s study on grammatical metaphor
Most people agree that the real beginning of conscious study of grammatical metaphor begins from Halliday, because he is actually the first linguist who formally declares the existence and importance of grammatical metaphor. He first brings forward the concept of grammatical metaphor by making an analogy between the rhetorical transference in lexis and in grammar in his book An Introduction to Functional Grammarin 1985, and this clearly indicates the establishment of the theory of grammatical metaphor.
Halliday (1985) expresses his ideas about the nature, function and classification of grammatical metaphor. He proposes that “lexical selection is just one aspect of lexicogrammatical selection, or wording, and that metaphorical variation is lexicogrammatical rather than simply lexical” (Halliday, 1985.p.341). Then, he continues to state that “Many metaphors can be located in lexical expressions, but even with these there is often grammatical variation accompanying them” (ibid: 341). Finally, he gets a conclusion:
“There is a strong grammatical element in rhetorical transference;本站提供指导Essay，指导Assignment，请联系QQ：949925041 and once we have recognized this we find that there is also such thing as grammatical metaphor, where the variation is essentially in the grammatical forms although often entailing some lexical variation as well.” (Halliday, 1985.p.320).#p#分页标题#e#
Before Halliday, linguists regard metaphor as something taking place at the lexical level, namely, a word is used with a transferred meaning. But now we can conclude that as a kind of variation, metaphor not only occurs at the lexical level, but also at the grammatical level. He insists that “we are looking at metaphor not ‘from below’, as variation in the meaning of a given expression, but ‘from above’, as variation in the expression of a given meaning; the concept of ‘literal’ is therefore nor very appropriate, and we shall refer to the less metaphorical variant as ‘congruent’”(Halliday, 1985.p.342).This tells that lexical metaphor involves how the same word is used, while grammatical metaphor involves how the same meaning is expressed. The following figure 1 showed by Halliday (1985.p.342) illustrates the contrast between the two perspectives.
Figure 1 Two perspectives on metaphor
seen “from above”
many people [protested]
a large number a flood
[of protests] [of protests]
congruent metaphorical
#p#分页标题#e#seen “from below”
literally metaphorically
“a moving mass of water” “a moving mass of feeling or rhetoric”
flood
In order to clarify the term “grammatical metaphor” clearly, Halliday (1994) also brings into the concept of congruence, as the opposite of incongruence or metaphorical expression, used to refer to the nominal expression of the real world. In his opinion, “for any given semantic configuration there will be some realization in the lexicogrammar---some wording---that can be considered as “CONGRUENT”, there may also be various others that are in some respect ‘transferred’, or METAPHORICAL.” (Halliday, 1994.p.342). He gives a definition of “congruence” in the following way:
“It is possible that metaphoric variation has been inherent in the nature of language from the very beginning…; we are able to recognize the congruent forms from what they are, as the typical way in which experience is construed…; the ‘typical’ might be the way you first learn to say something in your mother tongue, or the way it is most commonly said, or the way it is said in the absence of any special circumstances” (Halliday, 1994.p.343).
This term is further explained by Halliday’s views about the stratification of language system. According to his opinion, language is a multi-level system composed of semantics, lexcicogrammar and phonology. The relationship between the levels is that of realization. Therefore, language as a multiply-coded system could be described in the following figure 2 (Taken from Halliday, 1994).
Figure 2 Language as a multiply-coded system#p#分页标题#e#
Semantics
Realized by
Lexcogrammatical
Realized by
Phonology
Theoretically speaking, the process of realization concerns free variations, i.e. one meaning can be expressed by several different forms at the lexicogrammatical level, and one form can express several different meanings.
Based on this language phenomenon, Halliday puts forward two types of realization relationship between grammar and semantics, respectively named “congruent” and “incongruent”. Congruent realization just means the natural relation between semantics categories and grammatical categories. On the other hand, incongruent realization refers to the unnatural relation between semantics and grammatical categories. In fact, Halliday’s study on grammatical is that of incongruent realization. However, he also admits that “there is no clear line to be drawn between what is congruent and 本站提供指导Essay，指导Assignment，请联系QQ：949925041 what is incongruent” (Halliday, 1985.p.327). He prefers to use the term “grammatical metaphor” instead of “incongruent”. In this thesis, I will also adopt his preference.
According to Halliday, language is a resource for making meaning and it serves three grammatically relevant language functions, namely the ideational, the interpersonal and the textual function, together termed as metafunctions. However, he identifies two types of grammatical metaphors, “metaphors of mood (including modality) and metaphors of transitivity. In the terms of the model of semantic functions, these are respectively, interpersonal metaphors and ideational metaphors” (Halliday, 1994.p.343). #p#分页标题#e#
Now that Halliday brings forth the concept of grammatical metaphor completely without reference to any theoretical source and origin, he can neither give an explicit definition of grammatical metaphor nor make a clear distinction between congruent and incongruent. This implicit explanation of the two concepts can be regarded as the biggest defect of the grammatical metaphor theory and leaves much room for further study.
2.1.2 Other foreign linguists’ study on grammatical metaphor
Halliday’s idea of grammatical metaphor actually opens up a new realm of metaphor study, however, the theory proposed by he is still imperfect and has its own limitations. From then on, many other foreign systemic-functionalists have engaged in this topic and made great contributions to it.
Ravelli is one of Halliday’s earliest followers, and she discribes grammatical metaphor as “a grammatical phenomenon, in that two different grammatical categories---such as a verbal group and a nominal group---may realize largely the same thing.”(Ravelli, 1985.p.5). In her opinion, grammatical metaphor can happen to different grammatical categories. But in her later studies, she narrowly defines grammatical metaphor as “an alternative lexical realization of a choice in the semantics” (Ravelli, 1988.p134-135). Ravelli’s idea of grammatical metaphor is actually similar with Halliday’s and is only different expressions of the same thing. So it is still too general to define grammatical metaphor.
Martin also makes a distinction between congruent and incongruent (metaphorical) realizations. He states that “a congruent relationship is one in which the relation between semantic and grammatical categories is natural; people, places, and things are realized nominally; actions are realized verbally; logical relations of time and congruence are realized conjunctively and so on” (Martin, 1991.p.328).He also claims that “unnatural relationships are those actions realized as nouns, and logic relations are realized as verbs. Accordingly, all meanings have more than one form of realization, either congruently or incongruently. Grammatical metaphor is the process whereby the meanings are multiply-coded at the level of grammar” (Martin, 1991.p.329).Even if his theory is important, he mainly put emphasis on the different relationships between semantic and grammatical words classes. Martin’s another attempt is to add the term textual metaphor, and holds a detailed discussion about ideational, interpersonal and textual metaphor. Despite Martin’s great contribution to Halliday’s original model, his theorization about textual metaphor is not convincing enough and never gains much recognition even among the systemic functional linguists (Yan Shiqing, 2000.p.47), so there is still much room for a further research.#p#分页标题#e#
Matthiessen (1992) studies grammatical metaphor from the perspective of textual metafunction. He regards grammatical metaphor as a “second-order” use of the grammatical resources: one grammatical feature or a set of features are used as a metaphor for another feature or a set of features; and, since features are carried out by structures, one grammatical structure begins to stand for another (Fan Wenfang, 2001.p.25). Matthiessen researches the motivation of using grammatical metaphor rather than giving a definition and he discovers that textual organization is achieved by the second-order resource of grammatical metaphor. This suggests Matthiessen is not perceptive enough to realize that textual metafunction is only one of the multi-motivations provided by ideational metaphor.
Thompson tries to distinguish congruent from incongruent and he regards the congruent way of expressing the meaning as being closer to the events in the external word. Accordingly, the term congruent can be interpreted as “closer to the state of affairs in the external world” (Thompson, 1996.p.164).Thompson provisionally defines grammatical metaphor as “the expression of a meaning through a lexico-grammtical form which is originally evolved to express a different kind of meaning” (Thompson, 2000.p.165).In his opinion, there is no virtual difference between lexical and grammatical metaphor, and the lexical one can be looked on as a sub-category of grammatical metaphor. Similar to Martin, Thompson admits the existence and significance of textual metaphor, which is unmentioned by Halliday.
Goatly seems to diverge a lot from Halliday and other systemic-functionalists talked above. He holds that “grammatical metaphor can be conceived as simply one form of markedness” (Goatly, 1997. p.237). He claims that “the typical, the unmarked form, in an English declarative is one in which Theme, Subject and Actor are conflated into a single element, while in the passive there can never be conflation of Actor and Subject” (Fan Wenfang, p.2001.26). His interpretation broadens our horizon on grammatical metaphor; however, it presents a problem. It is true that there is an implicit connection between the unmarked and the congruent mentioned by Halliday. But to say a connection between markedness and metaphor is not the same as saying that markedness is metaphor (Fan Wenfang, 2000.p.27). In fact, the phenomenon of grammatical metaphor is far more complicated than markedness.
2.1.3 Some Chinese linguists’ study on grammatical metaphor#p#分页标题#e#
Influenced by metaphor study abroad, some Chinese scholars also came to have a tentative study on it. They not only introduce some influential books abroad and the latest theories of metaphor study in west countries, but also began to challenge foreign linguists in their own insightful views.
Hu Zhuanglin (1996) points out that the fashion of employing grammatical metaphor and lexical metaphor reached its peak in the Middle Ages and one can find such traces in various areas of human life, such as religion, politics, literature and philosophy. Hu (1996) also makes a comprehensive summary of some American functionalists’ studies on grammatical metaphor. In addition, he puts forward that Halliday did not give a clear definition of what is incongruence and what is congruence form (Hu Zhuanglin, 2000). Hu Zhuanglin holds different ideas of grammatical metaphor, he believes if word class changes in the clause, then grammatical metaphor takes place (Hu Zhuanglin, 2004.p.192). His views enable us to have a better understanding of grammatical metaphor.
Zhu Yongsheng(2000) further brings forth his argument that the biggest flaw in Halliday’s theorization lies in the distinction between congruent and incongruent forms, which lacks explicitness and has no fixed or applicable criteria. However, Yan Shiqing (2000) compromises a little bit and points out that there is little sense in searching for a fixed criterion for reference since metaphoricalness is only a matter of degree. Yan states that the difference between lexical metaphor and grammatical metaphor is more a matter of perspective than essence, and they are complementary to each other (Yan Shiqing, 2000.p.188). Both Zhu Yongsheng and Yan Shiqing(2001) explore the theoretical foundation of Halliday’s theory and offer their own evaluation by speaking highly of Halliday’s ideas.
Among many Chinese linguists, Fan Wenfang is the first and the only one so far who makes the most systemic and comprehensive research into grammatical metaphor. She (2001) makes a great contribution to grammatical theory by exhaustive discussion of ideational and interpersonal metaphor, what’s more, suggests a third kind of metaphor, textual metaphor. In addition, Fan Wenfang holds that “the relation between semantic and grammatical categories is natural; in contrast, incongruent realization is the unnatural relationship”. She continues to explain that “these ‘grammatical word categories’ should not be confined to grammatical word classes only, it also goes beyond word classes to clauses as in the interpersonal metaphor” (Fan Wenfang, 2001.p.30). Fan Wenfang (2001) not only elaborates her own ideas of grammatical metaphor, but also gives a matter-of-fact review of the studies done by other functionalists. Finally, she proposes her own tentative definition as “Grammatical metaphor is an incongruent realization of meanings involving transference of grammatical units from one domain to another, either from a basic domain to a subdomain, or from one subdomain to another subdomain” (2001.p.33).#p#分页标题#e#
From discussed above, we can conclude that researchers both at home and abroad try to explain the phenomenon of grammatical metaphor from different perspectives. Although they all accept the division of “congruent” and “metaphorical” expect Goatly, they can neither come to an agreement on the criteria for distinguishing these two realizations nor give a convincing explanation about the definition and types of grammatical metaphor. Therefore, grammatical theory still needs some improvements.
2.2 Interpersonal grammatical metaphor
2.2.1 Halliday’s model of interpersonal grammatical metaphor
Metaphor is described by systemic functionalists from the angle of how the meaning is expressed. In Halliday’s (1985; 1994) opinion, metaphor is the variation in the expression of meaning, which is located in lexicogrammatical level, as well as in lexical level. Functional linguists regard the relationship between form and meaning jus as: form is the realizations of meaning, and meaning results from the combination of form and function. It is consistent with Huang Guowen’s (1999) statement that “a meaning may be realized by more than one form, and a form may express more than one meaning”. The one-to-one relationship between form and meaning does not really exist. This phenomenon fully occurs in the expression of interpersonal meaning.
According to Halliday (1994), interpersonal grammatical metaphor, coming from the variation in the expression of mood and modality, is further divided into metaphor of mood and metaphor of modality. A linguistic realization that is grammatically metaphorical, or we can call metaphor of mood results from the remapping between mood and speech function. For example, statement is congruently employed to offer information, but in some certain contexts, it is expected to deliver an order by the speaker. A simple example is provided to account for this point: It is the library.
Suppose it will be a better place to study if some students stop talking loudly or making a call, this sentence, declarative in mood, is in fact a command in speech functions. The congruent form may be: Please stop talking / making a call.#p#分页标题#e#
Halliday has ever roughly described metaphor of modality as “The explicitly subjective and explicitly objective form of modality are all, strictly speaking, metaphorical, since all of them represent the modality as being the substantive proposition” (Halliday, 1985.p.340). We can simply use an example to illustrate it: It’s likely that Mary knows.
This example is a typical case of the explicitly objective form of modality (the implicit form may be ‘Mary will know’), and the metaphoricalness of this sentence can be revealed by a tag-test, for instance, we can not tag with “isn’t it”: It’s likely that Mary knows, isn’t it? But “doesn’t she”: It’s likely that Mary knows, doesn’t she? In other words, “It’s likely” should not be considered as a proposition (even if its grammatical form makes it appear to be) while a metaphor of modality.
In the following sections we will focus on the incongruent realizations of mood and modality, namely metaphor of mood and metaphor of modality.
2.2.1 Metaphor of mood
Lemke indicates that “Mood is the system for symbolic exchange of commodities between speaker and listener” (Lemke, 1992.p.84). There are a lot of purposes that we might have in establishing a communicative exchange. In other words, the purposes are unnumbered: we may want to order, confirm, apologize, invite, reject, describe, evaluate and so on. According to Halliday, there are two variables: speech role and commodity exchange, in the interaction. The most fundamental two types of speech role in any interaction are giving (and talking) or demanding (and being given) a commodity of some kind. The commodity that the speaker may be giving or demanding is information or goods-＆-services(Halliday, 1994.p.68). The two variables of speech role and commodity determine four primary speech functions: offer, command, statement, and question. Three of the four basic functions are closely related with particular grammatical structures: statements giving information are most naturally realized by declarative clause; questions aiming to get response by interrogative clause; and commands demanding goods-#p#分页标题#e#＆-services by imperative clause. These are本站提供指导Essay，指导Assignment，请联系QQ：949925041 the three main types in mood system of the clause. An offer giving goods-＆-services can be realized by various moods. The typical realizations of speech functions in mood types known as congruent realization can be shown as the following table 1.
Table 1 Typical realization of speech functions in mood types
From the table, we can see that there is a one-to-one relation between speech functional categories (semantic stratum) and mood categories (lexicogrammtical stratum) except for offer. However, it is not certain that the speaker will use congruent form to realize speech function in real communication. That means there is no simple one-to-one relation between grammatical type and semantic in real language. For example, besides an interrogative mood in the realization of a question, declarative and imperative mood can also be used to realize a question:
(1) What’s your idea of this picture? (interrogative)
(2) I wonder what your idea of this picture is. (declarative)
(3) Tell me what your idea of this picture is! (imperative)
Here, (3) is the congruent realization of the interrogative mood. As we can see, the interrogative mood can also be realized by a declarative mood like (4), and an imperative mood like (5). Examples of (4) and (5) are both metaphorical form. The choice of metaphorical realization of mood is usually decided by the culture or the context. In other words, one speech can be realized by different moods. In fact, it concerns the transference from one domain to another, namely the transference from subdomain of the domain of mood to another subdomain of the domain of mood. This phenomenon is named the speech-function metaphor, i.e. metaphor of mood. In the above realization of a question, both the statement and command are metaphorized by the transference of declarative and imperative subdomains to interrogative.
Similarly, we typically choose the imperative mood to realize a command:
(4) Hand in your exercise book.#p#分页标题#e#
However, we can also choose the declarative or interrogative mood to realize the command:
(5) You should hand in you exercise book.
(6) Could you hand in your exercise book?
Here the metaphorical realization of a command concerns the transference from the imperative subdomain of mood to the declarative subdomain and the interrogative subdomain.
According to the metaphorical devices of the realizations of speech functions, it is possible for us to expand the realizations of speech functions in mood types. We can have a clear understanding from the table below.
Table 2 Typical and metaphorical realizations of speech functions in mood types
“Systemic theory is a theory of meaning as choice, by which a language, or any other demiotic system, is interpreted as networks of interlocking option” (Halliday, 1994.xiv). In Halliday’s opinion, choice is meaning. He supposes that “the selection of metaphor is itself a meaningful choice, and the particular metaphor selected adds further semantic features” (Halliday, 1994.p.342).
2.2.2 Metaphor of modality
Eggins (1994.p.179) states that modality means how a language user can intrude on his/her message, expressing attitudes and judgments of various kinds. Therefore, modality refers to not only speaker’s attitude towards, or opinion about the truth of a preposition, but also the speaker’s attitude towards the situation or event, all expressed by a clause.
Haliday (1994.p.357) clearly indicates that “the basic distinction that determines how each type of modality will be realized is the ‘ORIENTAION’; that is, the distinction between subjective and objective modality, and between the explicit and implicit variants.” The system of orientation can be illustrated as the following figure.
Figure 3 System of orientation in modality (Halliday, 1994.p.358)
explicit
subjective
implicit #p#分页标题#e#
ORIENTATION
explicit
objective
implicit
According to Halliday (1985), modality can be classified into two main types: modalization and modulation, defined according to their relation to two kinds of clause: When the clause is employed to exchange information, it is named proposition; when the clause is employed to exchange goods＆services, it is termed proposal. When modality is employed to argue about the probability or frequency of propositions, it is regarded as modalization, when modality is employed to argue about obligation or inclination of proposals, it is regarded as modulation. The system of types of modality can be shown as figure 4.
Figure 4 System of types of modality (Halliday, 1994.p.357)
probability
modalization
frequency / usuality#p#分页标题#e#
Modality
obligation/ necessity
modulation
inclination
Combining figure 3 with figure 4, we may get the realization of various modal types and different orientations presented in the following table 3.
Table 3 Modality: examples of “type” and orientation combined (Halliday, 1994.p.358)
Halliday (1994.p.362) points out that “The explicitly subjective and explicitly objective forms of modality are all strictly speaking metaphorical, since all of them represent the modality as being the substantive proposition”. Therefore, modality expressed explicitly is the metaphorical realization of modality. In other words, congruent realizations express modality implicitly while metaphorical realizations express modality explicitly. For example:
(7) a. I think Mary knows, doesn’t she? (probability)
b. Mary probably knows. (doesn’t she?) 本站提供指导Essay，指导Assignment，请联系QQ：949925041 (the congruent form)
c. I think Mary knows, don’t I?
d. John thinks Mary knows, doesn’t he?
In “I think Mary knows, doesn’t she?”, “I think” is a typical explicitly subjective form of modality. It is different from “John thinks Mary knows, doesn’t he?” because the metaphorical feature can be simply tested by a tag question and it is not right to say, “I think Mary knows, don’t I?” Therefore, here the speaker’s idea concerning the probability that his observation is valid is coded as a separate, projecting clause in a hypotactic clause complex, while not as a modal element within the clause, which is its congruent realization.
The examples presented in table 3 show that the clauses in explicitly subjective type, realized as modal meaning, are all expressions of mental processes, therefore it highlights the subjectivity of the speaker’s judgment.While in explicitly objective type, the projecting clause, playing the role as the realization of a component in relational process clause, is camouflaged as a proposition with some attribute, thus making the speaker’s opinion or assertion more objective.
However, according to Halliday (ibid: p.357-358), there are two systemic gaps in the system shown by table 3, one is that there are no systematic forms to make the subjective orientation explicit in usuality or inclination, which leads to the speaker’s failing to express explicitly subjective form of modality. But represented by Huang Guowen (1999), some scholars actually hold the opinion that these two types also exist in explicitly subjective orientation, its modal meaning can be achieved through the first verb complex or verb phrase. For instance:#p#分页标题#e#
(8) I tend to go to bed early in the evening. (usuality)
(9) Mr. White declined to have dinner with us. (inclination)
(10) I’d love to accept your invitation. (inclination)
(11) I want to express my thanks to her. (inclination)
The other systemic gap is that inclination does not have metaphorical realization in explicitly objective orientation. However, some linguists represented by Chang Chenguang (2001) consider that it can be realized as a relational clause, similar with its three types of objective modal forms. For example:
(12) It would be lovely to have a talk now. (inclination)
There’s another point should be put forward. Halliday (1994.p.352) states that “Nominalizing is the single most powerful resource for creating grammatical metaphor. By this device, processes (congruently worded as verbs) and properties (congruently worded as adjectives) are reworded metaphorically as nouns; instead of functioning in the clause, as Process or Attribute, they function as Thing in the nominal group”. That means explicitly objective orientation can also be realized by nominalizing modal meaning. The nouns usually used to express probability and usuality includes: possibility, probability, likelihood, certainty, unusualness, regularity, typicality, etc. By these nouns, the modal meaning is constructed as a “thing” hard to doubt, consequently, the source of modality is concealed (Chang Chengguang, 2001.p.7-8). For example:
(13) There’s a possibility that it’s going to rain tomorrow.
Similarly, obligation and inclination can also possess explicitly objective orientation by being constructed as a “thing”. The nouns include: intention, desire, determination, need, obligation, regulation, compulsion, etc.#p#分页标题#e#
(14) There’s no need for you to wear uniform except Monday.
In addition, Tompson (1996.p.67) thinks that the metaphorical realizations of evaluation should be included in interpersonal grammatical metaphor. For instance:
(15) I’m afraid you’ve failed in the English exam.
(16) It’s amazing how much courage it will take a grown-up to subject himself to such stress and shame.
The introductory clause may serve as a means of both evaluating the information in the following clause and expressing modal meaning objectively.
2.2.2 Application of interpersonal grammatical metaphor
Language enables people to interact with each other, to establish and maintain relationship with each other, to influence their behavior, to express views on the world, and to enlighten or change them. This is the interpersonal function of language. In other words, people use language to participate in communicative acts, to take on roles, and to express and understand feelings, attitude and judgments(Thomas Bloor＆Meriel Bloor, 1995.p.9).
As the most important method of performing interpersonal function, interpersonal metaphor deserves the researchers’ attention. Luckily, it has attracted some scholars’ attention both at home and abroad. Represented by Halliday (1985, 1994), Revelli (1998), Martin (1992), Mathiessen(1995) and Thompson(1996) are among the most important ones to introduce and carry on a continuous study of interpersonal grammatical metaphor. However, few of them employ the interpersonal grammatical metaphor for discourse analysis. Most scholars pay more attention to the study of its classification and ways of judgment instead of the study of interpersonal grammatical metaphor in discourse, especially, in a specific discourse. Interpersonal grammatical metaphor has not been attached enough importance. However, we also see that some scholars are beginning to show their interest in researching interpersonal grammatical metaphor in discourse. Fan Wenfang (2000) points out that metaphors of mood are advanced usage of language and contribute a lot to the construction of text. Chang Chenguang(2001) talks about the possible relationship between interpersonal grammatical metaphor and discourse analysis. He mentions that some real modal sources can be concealed in order to achieve certain effect and the study of interpersonal grammatical metaphor can improve the delicacy of language and help people get a good understanding in linguistic communication. #p#分页标题#e#
What’s more, the study of interpersonal grammatical metaphor in discourse is gradually gaining popularity among some young Chinese graduate students. There are some attempts to investigate the functions of interpersonal grammatical metaphor in specific discourse. Yu Xiaoman (2003) gives an interpretation of interpersonal grammatical metaphor in English editorial genre, but her interpretation is not detailed enough. Wang Aihui (2005) explores the realization and its corresponding functions of interpersonal grammatical metaphor in American presidential inaugural addresses. However, her analysis of the functions of interpersonal grammatical metaphor is still not sufficient. Zhao Yufang (2007) makes a study of interpersonal grammatical metaphor in English academic book review; regrettably, she fails to identify the metaphor of mood in book review, therefore, fail to analyze its corresponding functions. Zhang Zhixiang (2006) makes a study of interpersonal grammatical metaphor in political debates form a functional perspective, and his identification of interpersonal metaphor and analysis of its corresponding functions are sound and exhaustive. I can learn a lot and facilitate the completion of my thesis. Although there are studies about the interpersonal metaphor in political speeches such as American presidential inaugural addresses and political debate, the linguistic studies of weekly radio speeches mainly focus on the analysis from the perspective of interpersonal grammatical metaphor is a blank. As a sub-category of political speeches, weekly radio speeches should be paid attention to.
2.3 Political speaking
2.3.1 Definition and features of public speaking
Before a detailed observation of political speaking, let’s first have a look at the definitions and features of public speaking. “It is a value-embedded activity; we can hardly open our mouths without projecting and revealing our attitudes toward the worlds around us and within us” (Osborn, 1982. p.131). Lucas defines that “Public speaking, virtually the same meaning as speech and address, refers to a public speaker delivering a continuous speech before a large audience about his systemic suggestions and propositions in spoken language with the help of facial expressions, sign and body gestures and the strong emotions, for the purposes to move, to inspire, to encourage, to persuade the audience or event to teach them something” (1989.p.7). Wilson (1994.p.37) proposes that public speaking is usually regarded as a unified strategy aimed to realize its specific intention, informative, persuasive, or others, to the extent that it is clear, interesting, credible and appropriate for the audience within a given time limit. We can trace public speaking back to ancient Greece and Roman times in western countries. Mainly, it was adopted for argument to make a decision of the policy. Later, it goes into the fields of political argument, scientific discussion, encouragement to the younger generation, reasoning, convincing, deep emotion expression, and enthusiastic praise of a person or stern rebuke to some one, etc, naturally, becoming a form of democratic system. It has brought the social, cultural, and political values of people together. It is an important force in our cultural life. The public speakers are changing our society.#p#分页标题#e#
As a kind of speech communication, public speaking has something in common with other types of speech communication. Basically, it is a social activity through which we contact others. It concerns the use of symbols, words and nonverbal messages being uses for the purpose of communicating with others. Secondly, it is a purposeful activity which will lead us to change our beliefs, values and attitudes. Finally, it is a powerful activity, because our ability of proper communication determines our success or failure in life. However, public speaking is different from other forms of communication because of its highly defined situation. Lucas (1989) identified some features to distinguish this situation from others.
First, public speaking is highly structured. Its context, message, and channels are all well designed to form a single entity. For example, speakers may be required to limit their words to about fifteen minutes; a public speaker must organize his words far more carefully than he does in a causal talk or group communication in order to hold the audience’s attention.
Second, public speaking is supposed to carry more carefully drown arguments and evidence than conversation. People will not believe a claim without supporting evidence. Therefore, in the case of language usage, delivery, and in the use of evidence and argument, public speech should be more formal than conversation. As listeners, they expect some more formal standards of grammar and usage in a public speaking situation while not for casual conversation. Speakers should be careful about cases of style and grammar.
Some other scholars also put forward their opinions about the features of public speaking. Wood (1998) claims the speaker and the appropriateness to situation are the basic factors for an effective public speech, which depend on not only the content but also the linguistic means. Anderson (1988.p.261) points out that “In public speaking, the interaction between the speaker and the hearer is not as direct as that in the conversation. But the interaction in speeches is potential本站提供指导Essay，指导Assignment，请联系QQ：949925041 and should be maintained through the whole course; otherwise, it will fail to attract the hearer’s attention.’’ What’s more, the language of the public speaking should be as polished as the language of the written essay but conversational in tone and direct in reference (Devito, 1984.p.291).
2.3.2 Features of political speaking#p#分页标题#e#
Based on contents and functions, English public speaking can be classified into political, economic, academic, religious, legal, moral, military speeches and so on. Here we mainly talk about political speeches. They refer to those delivered by authorities with political purposes to influence a specific group of people. According to this definition, we can easily get the main features of political speeches. One is the multiple aims, and the other is the power, with which enforcing the aims upon the listeners. The political speech should at least fulfill three functions: 1) to present the sound and correct political preposition；2) to arouse the listeners and make them brood on their speeches; 3) to persuade them to accept their opinions and take actions. Therefore, the political public speaking is more strictly and solemnly required. A famous speaker has ever said: “the public speech has a structure of thesis, truth of news item, language of fiction, passion in a poem, material of a prose, and the humor of a comic dialogue.” This vividly shows the strict requirement of public speeches. In short, a political public speaker will certainly employ the means of informing, moving, persuading and inspiring audience to take actions if he wants to realize their goals.
The study of political speeches is very popular and necessary, from which we can appreciate how the authorities try to achieve his goals by making full use of multi-leveled linguistic resources and also appreciate the rhetorical function of different linguistic devices. It proves that the study of political speeches is meaningful and practical, and a lot of linguists have devoted their whole life to the study of various speeches. In the second half of the 20th century, scholars made great efforts in the analysis of political speeches.
First, in the 1980s, some British scholars set foot in pragmatics, the theory of speech acts, implicit meaning of various types (Sperber and Wilson, 1981), politeness theory (Brown and Levinson, 1978) are especially famous. Later, transformational-generative grammar also influenced political speech vigorously. Some linguists such as Fowler and Kress described certain syntactic forms with political pragmatic implications (Feldman and Landtsheer, 1998).
Chiltion and Schaffner (1997) gave a literature review on political discourse. They summarized three kinds of political discourse analysis in broad meaning, namely, French approach, German approach, and Anglophone approach, based on the consideration of historical specificities of particular countries and cultures. In the same article, they hold that all levels and aspects of language should be considered when dealing with#p#分页标题#e#linguistic analysis of political discourse---pragmatics (interaction between speakers and hearers), semantics (meaning, structure of lexicon), and syntax (the internal organization of sentence).Azuma (2000) brought forth this kind of research by concentrating on the speeches given by Japanese in terms of power and solidarity.
Feldman and Landtsheer (1998) edited a collection of essays named Political Speaking on political discourse. However, these essays mainly concern analytical tools. Their main contribution is that their way to study the political speech is broad and scientific. Beard (2000) clarified his analysis of political speeches form verbal and non-verbal, as well as the micro-level (a word) to a macro-level (the whole speech) in his book The Language of Politics.
We can also find the stylistic approach to the study of political speech. But much work on traditional stylistics is on the basis of structuralism approach ( Sandig ＆ Selting, 1997.p.143), and its focus is the classification of stylistic features on three level: lexical, syntactical , and textual .
However, among all the approaches, the functional approach is the most important. Although the leading figure, Halliday, himself did not make any research on political speeches or political discourse with Systemic Functional Grammar, his theory is insightful and influential. SFG emphasizes that language is a resource for making meaning and it has three meta-functions: ideational, interpersonal and textual function. The interpersonal function refers to that language is adopted to establish and maintain social relations. The speaker can realize his interaction with others through this function (Haliday, 1994).
2.3.3 Features of weekly radio speech
People deliver speeches through different media in different places or settings, such as on TV, radio and so on. Speakers would choose proper words, manners and especially proper behavior and mood, right for the situation, during the speech. However, radio speech differs from present speeches mainly on two sides. First, it’s likely that the audience would neglect what they are listening when doing their routines. Therefore, an attractive radio speech may attract their attention from their jobs. Second, the audience can not see the speaker’s facial or behavioral expressions. So, the sound effect is far more important at this time.#p#分页标题#e#
The most famous president’s weekly radio speech is Roosevelt’s fireside chats during the Great Depression in the 1930’s to 40’s. But, it does not become a convention for every week until Reagan’s presidency. The first true weekly radio address happened on April 3rd, 1982, in which, Reagan said he hoped to borrow some minutes to talk about the problems that the country was facing and the corresponding solutions. He also said it’s impossible to finish all the talks in five minutes, so he would appear on the radio at the same time for each Saturday, and he hoped his audience could keep on listening.
Taking the social factors and settings into account, a radio speech is mainly composed of sound, lecture and identity of speaker. This thesis concerns about the text of political lecture on radio, a combination of linguistic features quite different from present political speeches. Therefore, Obama’s weekly radio speech can be defined as:
Domain: politics
Motives: principle clarification, confidence mobilization under world financial crisis
Settings or media: radio
Expectant listeners: All Americans
Identity of Speaker: president of America指导留学作业提供指导Essay，指导Assignment，请联系QQ：949925041
Presidential speeches are the most influential weapon for the president to relate to the public. They enable the president to discuss issues with the public instantaneously and without interruption. During crises, presidential speeches may be especially important in influencing public opinion and arousing their confidence.
Obama’s Weekly Radio Speech started from his inauguration on every Saturday morning. At first glance, his aims are to summarize the government’s main work during the previous week, anticipates important topics for discussion of next week, clarify the main national policies, celebrates important annual days and so on. However, there are other hidden aims such as motivating American citizens’ confidence in combating against financial crisis, presenting himself a good image of a responsible president and maintaining people’s continuous support. Therefore, there always are both explicit and implicit aims in political speeches, because politicians will not give up any chance to enforce their attitudes upon the audience.#p#分页标题#e# For this reason, the speaker must take the influence of his words on his audience into consideration. He should presuppose what kinds of questions, comments, or opposing argument the listeners may put forward at some points, and plan to address these points during the speech.
2.3.4 The relationship between interpersonal grammatical metaphor and weekly radio speech
Political speech has drawn more and more attention from many scholars. However, the studies are scarcely based on systematic investigation of linguistic data; few studies deal with the grammatical metaphor in the political speeches, the combination of interpersonal grammatical metaphor and president’s weekly radio speeches is even a blank. From a functional approach, the thesis attempts to analyze weekly radio speeches based on the elaborated framework of Halliday’s model of interpersonal grammatical metaphor to illustrate how interpersonal functions in weekly radio speeches are realized through metaphor of mood and metaphor of modality. In fact, president’s weekly radio speech has been a very important tool to help the president to build and maintain his good personal public image. And it has been a tradition in the United States since April 3rd 1982 from Regan government. The president’s weekly radio speech is an extremely important part of his work and attracts great attention from the nation. In the speech, the president will clarify the political policies, state his political opinions, anticipate their future, or make his grand promise so that he can make up the divergence, arouse the morale of the public and persuade people to accept and support his policy. It is even said that a president is judged by what he says over by what he does. In order to realize these purposes, the president will employ all kinds of language skills. One strategy is to exploit the interpersonal grammatical metaphor to reach their communicative purposes and make the speech more effective. As president’s weekly radio speeches are important both as historical documents and literary masterpieces, the interpersonal grammatical metaphor study of Obama’s weekly radio speeches will definitely add new spice to the legacy of political speeches.
#p#分页标题#e#
Chapter Three Research Methodology
3.1 Objectives
Halliday(1994.p.342) claims that “metaphorical modes of expression are characteristic of all adult discourse. There is a great deal of variation among different registers in the degree and kind of metaphor that is encountered; but none will be found entirely without it.” In his opinion, any text of more than minimal length certainly involves some metaphorical element that needs taking into consideration. In 1985, Halliday only proposed some of the functions realized by grammatical metaphor in spoken and written language. In his later studies, he applies his theory to the analysis of scientific texts. However, grammatical metaphors also exist sufficiently in news discourses and political essays, besides in scientific texts. Namely, the existence of different grammatical metaphors in various discourses is a distinctive generic feature.
The thesis will apply Halliday’s systemic functional grammar to the study of interpersonal grammatical metaphor in Obama’s weekly radio speech so as to answer the following two questions:
1. What are the occurrence and frequency of interpersonal grammatical metaphor in Obama’s weekly radio speech?
2. What are the functions of interpersonal grammatical metaphor in the discourse accordingly?
3.2 Data collection
To get a convincing and persuasive result, the data collection is very important. In this research, the data used to be analyzed were downloaded from www.putclub.com, Barack Obama’s Weekly Radio Speeches from January 24, 2009 , to August 22, 2009, are chosen for analysis. These thirty speeches are a corpus for my study. They are chosen from Obama’s first weekly radio speech after his inauguration to my beginning of this thesis, without any particular selection.#p#分页标题#e#
3.3 Methods of analysis
In this thesis, I adopt a quantitative and qualitative discourse analysis method to analyze the data. By quantitative approach, the occurrence and frequency of the interpersonal metaphor in the corpus will be counted and compared. Qualitative approach is adopted for those linguistic features which are difficult to be digitized. Moreover, due to the insufficient explanation of statistical numbers of the interpersonal grammatical metaphors, many specific examples are used to illustrate their functions in Obama’s weekly radio speeches.
Chapter Four Identification of Interpersonal Grammatical Metaphor in Weekly Radio Speech
Since our final goal is to investigate the function of interpersonal grammatical metaphor in Obama’s weekly radio speeches, the first thing we should do is to identify the corresponding interpersonal grammatical metaphor.
4.1 Identification of metaphor of mood
We can identify metaphor of mood in two ways. #p#分页标题#e#One is through desired response to speech functions and the other is through evidence from the context. Now I will deal with them respectively.
4.1.1Through desired response to speech function
As discussed in chapter two, there are four basic speeches roles and four primary corresponding speech functions. Generally speaking, they are matched by desired responses, however, there is always mismatch between speech roles 指导留学作业提供指导Essay，指导Assignment，请联系QQ：949925041and speech functions due to the listener’s free choice, and this mismatch is called the discretionary alternative by Halliday (2000.P.69). We can see the following table 4.
Table 4 Speech functions and responses (Halliday, 2000.p.69)
Thompson has proposed on the judgment of speech function: “the basic guideline for analysis is not only that the grammar of any particular clause will be at least partly determined by its intended role in the interaction, but that the meaning of the clause can only be understood by comparing its grammar to his intended role” (Thompson, 2000.p.68). His viewpoint is helpful for us to judge a metaphorical form and to understand its intended meaning. For instance, an interrogative mood may express a question, but a declarative clause may also express a question (a ‘queclarative’). We can explore the differences between choosing a queclarative and interrogative in a certain context on the basis of the meanings related with the declarative and interrogative structure in general. Similarly, in reality, an interrogative may not clearly be required to give a response, but its response-demanding function does exist and explained part of the reason for the speaker’s choice of an interrogative instead of a declarative. The reason is to achieve his/her intended meaning. For example:
(19) When President Roosevelt was working to create Social Security, opponents warned it would open the door to "federal snooping" and force Americans to wear dog tags. When President Kennedy and President Johnson were working to create Medicare, opponents warned of "socialized medicine." Sound familiar? [Congruently: These things sound familiar.
------Obama’s weekly radio speech, Aug.15, 2009
It seems that Obama is looking forward to an answer from the audience by asking a question. Congruently, the audience should give a response as the answer. In fact, however, it’s not Obama’s real meaning. By variant of mood, Obama’s real intention is successfully implied: these are the opponents’ tricks; he takes a negative and sarcastic attitude towards the opponents’ warnings.
From the example above, we may conclude that the speaker will employ grammatical metaphor to express himself when he doesn’t really want a response from the audience in asking a question. It is the speaker’s strategy to achieve his goals with metaphorical form.#p#分页标题#e#
4.1. 2Through evidence from the context
Halliday claims that “all use of language has a context” (1985.p.45). Context includes both the context of situation and the context of culture. According to Halliday’s definition, the context of situation is “the immediate environment in which a text is actually functioning” (1978.p.28). This notion can be used to explain the reason for saying or writing certain things on some particular occasion. However, the context of situation is merely the immediate environment. The context of culture offers a broader background for the interpretation of the text. People do certain things on certain particular occasions and attach certain intentions and values to them: this is what a culture means.
Although I have no plan to investigate the problem of what the broader contextual factors are and how they decide meanings in a systemic way, I’d like to mention some of these factors, because it is useful in analyzing the texts. We can use the concepts of register and genre in functional grammar to explain these factors. Defined by Halliday (Halliday＆Hasan, 1985.p.41) register refers to “Variation according to use”. This means some certain recognizable configurations of linguistic resources are typically used in certain contexts. Register consists of three main dimensions of variation: field, tenor, and mode. Field refers to what is being talked about, tenor refers to the people involved in the communication and the relationship between them and the mode refers to how the language is functioning in the interaction. These three dimensions are distinct and each of them corresponds to one of the metafunctions: the field mainly determines the experiential functions; the tenor mainly determines the interpersonal functions; and the mode mainly determines the textual functions.Thompson (2000.p.36) holds that “Genre, in very simple terms, can be seen as register plus purpose”. It gives a more general idea of what the interactants are doing through language and how they organize the language event so as to achieve their purposes.
Generally regarded as a sub-genre within political speech, weekly radio speech severs several communicative purposes. The speaker as well as the audience has a common understanding of the function of this genre. As a linguistic strategy, interpersonal grammatical metaphor plays a very important role in achieving its communicative purposes in a weekly radio speech. For example:#p#分页标题#e#
(20) But earlier generations of Americans didn’t build this great country by fearing the future and shrinking our dreams. This generation – our generation - has to show that same courage and determination. I believe we will.
------Obama’s weekly radio speech, Jul.11, 2009
It is a special period when the Obama government comes into office facing the most severe economic downturn since the Great Depression. His Recovery Act encounters a lot of oppositions and suspicions from his opponents. He takes the earlier generations for an example to illustrate the hardship, importance and necessity of insisting on this reform, and encourage the Americans to hold their confidence to recover their economy. Therefore, when Obama says This generation – our generation - has to show that same courage and determination, he is not offering the information---eliciting statement but actually is demanding an action. With the help of the context, the audience knows this statement is not a declarative but an imperative. This is a typical example of interpersonal grammatical metaphor.
4. 2 Identification of metaphor of modality
Similarly, the metaphor of modality can be identified in two ways. One is through clause, and the other is through nominalization. I will deal with them respectively in this following section.
4. 2.1Through clause
There is a type of interpersonal metaphor commonly based on the semantic relationship of projection. For example, it probably is so is a congruent form regarding the probability, and its metaphorical variant is I think it is so, with I think here as the primary or ‘alpha’ clause (Halliday, 2000.p.354). In this example, the speaker’s opinion about the probability is not looked on as a modal element within the clause, but as a separate projecting clause in a hypotactic clause complex. It is considered as a metaphorical variant because the proposition is not #p#分页标题#e#I think, but it is so. It can be clearly shown by the tag: I think it is so, isn’t it? We can find such similar examples in Obama’s weekly radio speech.
(21) And if we can come together, and listen to one another; I believe, as I always have, that we will rise to this moment, we will build something better for our children, and we will secure America’s future in this new century.
------Obama’s weekly radio speech, Aug.15, 2009
(22) Now I know there are those who are urging us to delay reform. And some of them have actually admitted that this is a tactic designed to stop any reform at all.
------Obama’s weekly radio speech, Jul.25, 2009
(23) But I also don’t think insurance companies should have free reign to do as they please.
------Obama’s weekly radio speech, Jul.18, 2009
(24)We are called to remember how unlikely it was that our American experiment would succeed at all
------Obama’s weekly radio speech, Jul.4, 2009
In the above examples, the speaker’s opinion is expressed metaphorically in a projecting clause, such as I believe, some of them have actually admitted,#p#分页标题#e#I also don’t think, or how unlikely it was, while not with modal elements. But, these projecting clauses do not express the propositions in the sentences. The propositions are respectively we will rise to this moment…in (21), this is a tactic designed… in (22), insurance companies should…in (23), and our American experiment…in (24). It can be shown by the tag:
(25) I believe, as I always have, that we will rise to this moment, won’t we?
(26) Andsome of them have actually admittedthat this is a tactic designed to stop any reform at all, isn’t it?
(27) But I also don’t think insurance companies should have free reign to do as they please, should they?
(28)We are called to remember how unlikely it was that our American experiment would succeed at all, was it?
Therefore, these examples are all metaphorical realizations of modality.
4. 2.2Through nominalization
Metaphor of modality can not only be realized through a complex clause, but also through the form of nominalization. In this part, I will deal with metaphor of modality through a nominalization.
As discussed in 2.2.2,nominalization that could be adopted to express modality includes: possibility, probability, likelihood, certainty, unusualness, regularity, typicality, intention, desire, determination, need, obligation, regulation, compulsion, etc. Through nominalization, modality is interpreted as an unquestionable #p#分页标题#e#fact and its objectivity could be expressed explicitly.
The use of nominalization may not only disguise the source of modality, but also make it difficult to query. Its most important function in interpersonal grammatical metaphor is to objectify opinion, especially in persuasive text in order to make it more difficult for the audience to disagree.
According to this opinion, we can easily指导留学作业提供指导Essay，指导Assignment，请联系QQ：949925041 identify the metaphor of modality through a nominalization.
(29)That’s why fixing what’s wrong with our health care system is no longer a luxury we hope to achieve – it’s a necessity we cannot postpone any longer. (Nominalization)
------Obama’s weekly radio speech, Jun.6, 2009 (30)There is no longer a doubt that the jobs and industries of tomorrow will involve harnessing renewable sources of energy.
------Obama’s weekly radio speech, Mar.21, 2009
Chapter Five Results and Discussion
In this chapter, I will probe into the realizations of interpersonal grammatical metaphor in Obama’s weekly radio speeches in the order of the research questions proposed in chapter three through quantitative and qualitative analysis. Section one investigate the occurrences and frequencies of interpersonal grammatical metaphor in weekly radio speeches. Sections two analyze the functions of the most frequently used metaphor of mood and metaphor of modality in weekly radio speeches.
5.1 Occurrences and frequencies of interpersonal grammatical metaphor in weekly radio speech
In this section, I will give a quantitative analysis of the data in an attempt to present the existence evidence of interpersonal grammatical metaphor, and to indicate its occurrences in weekly radio speech. Despite the limitation of statistical analysis due to its emphasis on surface features and the lack of sufficient information about the way in which communicative purpose is achieved in weekly radio speeches, it is still of great necessity to carry out such a research so as to observe interpersonal grammatical metaphor comprehensively. Although the following statistical analysis is a very simple one, it does provide necessary evidence to show the existence proof in weekly radio speeches. After a detailed study of the 30 weekly radio speeches, interpersonal metaphors in each sample are identified and listed as the following table shows:#p#分页标题#e#
Table 5 The occurrences of interpersonal GM in 30 Weekly radio speeches
Table 5 shows us the existence proof of interpersonal grammatical metaphor in weekly radio speeches. However, it is not sufficient enough to illustrate how often it occurs in each sample. Therefore, it is necessary to carry out an investigation of its frequency to identify interpersonal grammatical metaphor as a typical generic feature of the weekly radio speech.
Frequency (f) is used to show how often a phenomenon takes place based on counting the number of occurrences. Wen Qiufang (2001.p.210) claims that the description of frequency distribution is the simplest way to organize the data, which can induce and summarize data effectively and efficiently. Although the frequency of interpersonal metaphor can not manage to explain how communicative purpose is achieved in weekly radio speeches, it indicates how often the interpersonal metaphor happens, and offers necessary evidence for us to prove that it ought to be regarded as lexico-grammtical features of weekly radio speeches.
To undertake the statistical analysis successfully, the first problem that we need to settle is to define and identify a sentence. Oxford Advanced Learner’s English-Chinese Dictionary (1998) provides us a good way. According to its definition, a sentence is “the largest grammatical unit consists of phrases and (or) clauses, used to express to a statement, question, command, etc.” That means a sentence usually expresses a complete thought or opinion and ends with a full stop, a question mark or an exclamation mark.
After counting the total number of sentences in each weekly radio speech, we can easily get the frequency of each sample. Table 6 shows the occurrences as well as the frequencies of interpersonal metaphor in each weekly radio speech.
Table 6 The frequencies of interpersonal GM in 30 Weekly radio speeches
f1 is got by calculating the total number of sentences in each speech, then divided by the number of metaphors of mood. f2 and f3 are obtained by the same method. The mean value, is figured out by calculating the total number of sentences for 30 weekly radio speeches and divided by the total number of interpersonal metaphors. Therefore, will not be influenced by the length or duration of the speech. Comparing with, we may conclude that the occurrences of metaphors of modality are more frequent than that of metaphors of mood. Among all the figures, is the most meaningful one, which presents how often it occurs on the average. Statistical analysis of frequency of interpersonal metaphors in weekly radio speeches is meaningful and useful, which provides necessary empirical evidence to prove that interpersonal metaphors widely exist in weekly radio speeches.
5.2 Functions of interpersonal grammatical metaphor in weekly radio speech
Moving from a surface-level description of language use to a deep functional exploration of interpersonal grammatical metaphor, this chapter mainly aims at two results. One is to offer linguistic insights into the functions performed指导留学作业提供指导Essay，指导Assignment，请联系QQ：949925041 by interpersonal metaphors and explain the reason for the president’s choice of interpersonal metaphor to express his opinions. The other is to show the relationship between form and function relating to communicative purposes of weekly radio speeches.
5.2.1 Functions of metaphor of mood in weekly radio speech
In political speeches including president’s weekly radio speeches, the interplay of the two speech roles is in its prominence. The speaker may give comments on the present situation or his new policies, and at the same time, demand the listeners’ understanding and action. It is obvious that the speaker’s final goal in political speeches, especially in president’s weekly radio speeches, is demanding, as for giving is only a preparation. To achieve this final goal, the speaker will certainly exploit various moods.#p#分页标题#e#
5.2.1.1 To show authoritativeness
According to Partridge (1982.p.21-22), there are three kinds of commands: the 1st personal commands, the 2nd personal commands and the 3rd personal commands. The 1st personal command begins with the structure let me or let us in the plural form. In Obama’s weekly radio speeches, the let me structure is in the prominence. It is used 9 times. When he wants to explain something, he usually adopt the structure let me…, that is, an imperative mood expressing a simple statement. In other words, the declarative meaning is metaphorically realized through the imperative structure let me…. This kind of structure will make the speaker’s explanation sound more authoritative. For example:
(31) And let me repeat– it would be just an option; those who prefer their private insurer would be under no obligation to shift to a public plan.
------Obama’s weekly radio speech, Aug.22, 2009
(32) So, let me explain what reform will mean for you. And let me start by dispelling the outlandish rumors that reform will promote euthanasia, cut Medicaid, or bring about a government takeover of health care.
------Obama’s weekly radio speech, Aug.8, 2009
(32) So let me be clear; I have been firm in insisting that both health care reform and clean energy legislation cannot add to our deficit.
#p#分页标题#e# ------Obama’s weekly radio speech, Jul.11, 2009
(33) So let me be clear: health care reform is not part of the problem when it comes to our fiscal future, it is a fundamental part of the solution.
------Obama’s weekly radio speech, Jun.13, 2009
The four examples are all concerned about the health care reform, which is one of Obama’s main promises before his election, and one of his main plans after his inauguration, also part of his Recovery Act. Here Obama adopts this structure to attract the audience’s attention and emphasize the importance of his following words: Health care reform is not only beneficial to people, but also helpful to their economy and country, but they have rights to make a choice about their health care plan. By this structure, Obama succeeds in making his opinions prominent and at the same time, showing his authoritativeness as a new-selected president.
5.2.1.2 To shorten distance
Generally speaking, imperative mood is related with strong power and high social status. High officials tend to use imperative mood to issue commands. However, as a new-elected president, on one side, Obama wants to show his authoritativeness, on the other side, he is also scared of the audience’s antipathy because of his excessive use of imperative mood. Therefore, he expresses most of his commands metaphorically by declarative mood rather than imperative mood in an attempt to shorten the distance between him and his listeners. Here are some examples:
(34)But what has always distinguished America is that when all the arguments have been heard, and all the concerns have been voiced, and the time comes to do what must be done, we rise above our differences, grasp each others’ hands, and march forward as one nation and one people, some of us Democrats, some of us Republicans, all of us Americans. #p#分页标题#e#This is our chance to march forward.
------Obama’s weekly radio speech, Aug.22, 2009
(35) Americans whose jobs and health care are secure today just don’t know if they’ll be next to join the 14,000 who lose their health insurance every single day. And if we don’t act, average family premiums will keep rising to more than $22,000 within a decade.
------Obama’s weekly radio speech, Aug.15, 2009
(36)It won’t be easy, and there will continue to be those who argue that we have to put off hard decisions that we have already deferred for far too long. But earlier generations of Americans didn’t build this great country by fearing the future and shrinking our dreams. This generation – our generation - has to show that same courage and determination.
------Obama’s weekly radio speech, Aug.15, 2009
From these given examples, we can see that Obama uses “This is our chance to march forward”,“if we don’t act”, “This generation – our generation - has to show that same courage and determination”these structures, the declarative mood to express his commands upon the listeners. On the surface, Obama seems to express his own opinions as some statements, but in fact, he wants to ask his people to get united and get involved in the health care reform so they can benefit a lot from the participation of the reform in example (34).He gives people a command by a declarative mood, making his command sound very reasonable and people should agree what he said. In example (35), Obama raises his concern that more people are possible to lose their health insurance under the present situation of economic crisis. He puts forward his command as a hypothesis by a declarative mood in attempt to arouse people’s real awareness of the seriousness of the problem. Thus, the public will be glad to accept his implicit command. The third example cited above shows Obama’s request of people’s courage and determination. He hopes that people can learn from the former generations to build their country without any fear and fluctuation. He uses declarative mood to give his command and therefore makes his command implicit.
In one word, Obama exploits declarative mood to shorten the distance between him and his audience so as to persuade the listeners to accept his commands. Through this kind of metaphor of mood, the relationship between Obama and the audience becomes more intimate and his intention will be achieved more easily.#p#分页标题#e#
5.2.1.3 To convey implications
Thompson (1996.p.16) gives “implication” a definition like this: “the implication is that the same experience or reality will require a different way of structuring.” As far as the nature of implication is concerned, statement realized through interrogative may be the best way to convey implications. By using this substitute, many implications, such as making people think, developing an argument, even involving speaker’s attitude and so on can be expressed. For example:
(37)So when folks with a stake in the status quo keep inventing these boogeymen in an effort to scare people, it’s disappointing, but it’s not surprising. We’ve seen it before. When President Roosevelt was working to create Social Security, opponents warned it would open the door to "federal snooping" and force Americans to wear dog tags. When President Kennedy and President Johnson were working to create Medicare, opponents warned of "socialized medicine." Sound familiar? Not only were those fears never realized, but more importantly, those programs have saved the lives of tens of millions of seniors, the disabled, and the disadvantaged. [Congruently: It sounds familiar.]
------Obama’s weekly radio speech, Aug.15, 2009
The question in this example aims to make people think about the speaker’s viewpoint, not actually expecting an overt answer. At the same time, his attitude is involved. Just like the explanation from Thompson (1996.p.68), “an interrogative in written text may clearly not be expected to give rise to a response in reality, but its response-demanding function remains and is part of the reason why the writer has chosen an interrogative rather than a declarative at that point.” Therefore, Obama adopts interrogative mood to convey his implication while not expect an answer. As a matter of fact, the answer speaks for itself.
Except for what we have discussed above, some questions can also put more force or pressure on the listeners for them to accept the speaker’s argument through conveying a sense of immediacy between the speaker and the listeners. For example:#p#分页标题#e#
(38)That starts with the painstaking work of examining every program, every entitlement, every dollar of government spending and asking ourselves: Is this program really essential? Are taxpayers getting their money’s worth? Can we accomplish our goals more efficiently or effectively some other way? [Congruently: This program is really essential. Taxpayers are getting their money’s worth. We can accomplish our goals more efficiently or effectively some other way.]
------Obama’s weekly radio speech, Apr.18, 2009
In these examples, Obama places more pressure on the listeners and makes them strongly believe the truth of his argument by metaphorically realizing his statement with interrogative mood.
5.2.1.4 To express politeness
Usually, a question will be expressed by an interrogative, but a declarative clause may be intended as a question. This is also one kind of metaphors of mood. In Obama’s weekly radio speeches, it is found that the speaker sometimes replace interrogative mood with declarative mood for the sake of expressing euphemism and politeness. For example:
(39)This is the status quo. This is the system we have today. This is what the debate in Congress is all about: Whether we’ll keep talking and tinkering and letting this problem fester as more families and businesses go under, and more Americans lose their coverage. Or whether we’ll seize this opportunity – one we might not have again for generations – and finally pass health insurance reform this year, in 2009.
------Obama’s weekly radio speech, Jul.18, 2009
(40)I am confident that the United States of America will weather this economic storm. But once we clear away the wreckage, the real question is what we will build in its place. Even as we rescue this economy from a full blown crisis, I have insisted that we must rebuild it better than before. #p#分页标题#e#
------Obama’s weekly radio speech, Jul.11, 2009
According to Halliday (1994.p.68), the most fundamental types of speech roles are just two: giving and demanding. The speaker is either giving something to the listener or demanding something of the listener. The act of speaking can be properly named an exchange. The commodity used to be exchanged can be either goods-＆-services or information. These two variables determine four primaryspeech functions of statement, question, offer and command, which in turn may express different meanings such as being polite, arousing interest and so on. As we know, metaphors of mood can effectively increase the speech functional potential at semantic level. In example (39), Obama uses Whether we’ll keep talking and tinkering and letting this problem … Or whether we’ll seize this opportunity…instead of Will we keep talking and tinkering and letting this problem … Or will we seize this opportunity…to express his polite request: Stop talking and tinkering and letting this problem… Seize this opportunity…Similarly, in example (40), Obama uses the real question is what we will build in its place instead of directly asking What will we build in its place? to express his euphemism and politeness, at the same time show his respect to his listeners.
5.2.1.5To form atmosphere of intercommunication
We have discussed that a declarative clause might be intended or interpreted as a question, called a “queclarative”, in weekly radio speech. Although it’s true that statement is the least likely to be realized metaphorically by the interrogative mood, it is still unavoidable for some speakers to use the interrogative mood to express statement. Through the observation on the samples, we can find a small quantity of queclaratives. Some researchers (Kertzer, 1987; Devito, 1990) treat this kind of question as rhetorical questions. Brown (1982.p.53) gives rhetorical question a definition as “questions understood as indirect assertions, which are usually expressed by grammatical form.” Generally speaking, a rhetorical question serves the incongruent function of making a declarative statement. #p#分页标题#e#
Fisher (1987.P.57) claims that “rhetorical questions serve as persuasive devices that operate mentally on receivers so that the receivers adopt the predetermined view of the speaker.” In weekly radio speech, statement realized in declarative mood is usually used to express the speaker’s opinion and attitude, but occasionally the interrogative mood will be employed by the speaker to realize some of the statements in order to reinforce the persuasive 指导留学作业提供指导Essay，指导Assignment，请联系QQ：949925041force or achieve some special effects. For example:
(41)And there is no longer a question about whether the jobs and industries of the 21st century will be centered around clean, renewable energy. The question is, which country will create these jobs and these industries? I want that answer to be the United States of America.
------Obama’s weekly radio speech, Jun.26, 2009
When the listeners hear this question, they will have a feeling that they are having a dialogue with the speaker, as if they are having a face to face talk with the speaker. For example, the question in example (41) The question is, which country will create these jobs and these industries? The listeners originally thought that Obama was asking them to answer this question. However, it’s not really this case. When they listen on, they find that Obama himself provides the answer for this question by using I want that answer to be the United States of America. It seems that Obama and his listeners are taking their own different turns, However, Obama asks a question and then he himself takes the turn of the role given to the listeners and answer the question, actually, Obama plays both of the roles of the speaker and listeners. This effect is achieved by using rhetorical questions, namely, statement metaphorically realized in the interrogative mood instead of their congruent realization in the declarative mood. It makes the radio speech sound more natural and vivid as if the speaker is having a dialogue with the listeners. Especially confined to its limitation of specific media of radio, it is quite helpful for the speaker to attract the listeners’ attention from their work.
5.2.2 Functions of metaphor of modality in weekly radio speech
#p#分页标题#e#Modality reflects a speaker’s attitude towards the truth of a proposition expressed by a clause, and it is the major exponent of the interpersonal function of language.The analysis of metaphor of modality is significant in genre analysis. As a linguistic strategy, metaphor of modality contributes a lot to help the president to realize his interpersonal meaning in a weekly radio speech. Modal meaning reflects the speaker’s viewpoint that he approaches to some proposition or proposal. What modalization expresses is the judgment of the speaker about the probability or frequency of propositions while what modulation expresses is the obligation or responsibility of implementing an order or the inclination of imposing an action by the speaker. Subjectivity and objectivity are the two most important features that modal expressions have. Participants present their gradation of intrusion in the speech event through these two features. In modal expressions, the speaker’s commitment to probability mainly relies on how much he involves himself in his own judgment, assessment or certainty about the validity of his speech. The more he believes his own judgment, the more he commits himself to subjectivity. Contrarily, the more he depends on the objectivity factuality, the more he commits to objectivity. If the speaker hopes to give his own viewpoint a prominent position, he tends to state explicitly that the modal expressions are subjectivity-oriented. For example:
(42) I also believe that we will get through this -- that if we act swiftly and boldly and responsibly, the United States of America will emerge stronger and more prosperous than it was before.
------Obama’s weekly radio speech, Mar.7, 2009
(43)I’ve often said that I don’t believe government has the answer to every problem or that it can do all things for all people.
------Obama’s weekly radio speech, Mar.14, 2009
On the other hand, the speaker may also tend to state explicitly that his assessment of possibility is objectivity-oriented by using an adjectival predicator. For example:
(44)#p#分页标题#e#As we continue to recover from an historic economic crisis, it is clear to everyone that one of its major causes was a breakdown in oversight that led to widespread abuses in the financial system.
------Obama’s weekly radio speech, Jun.20, 2009
According to Halliday, both explicit subjective and explicit objective are metaphorical expression of modality. In weekly radio speech, the aims of the president are to clarify his policies, affirm his propositions, and make clear his intentions, so the president will sometimes be subjectivity-oriented or sometimes be objectivity-oriented. For these purposes, the president will make full use of the metaphor of modality, some of which are explicit subjective, and some of which are explicit objective. These linguistic devices contribute a lot to the realization the president’s intentions. The following part will illustrate this point with some quoted examples from the samples.
5.2.2.1To emphasize strong belief
In order to make his statement sound more assertive, the speaker sometimes would like to emphasize the subjectivity of his viewpoint; and the most effective way of achieving this purpose is to dress it up as if it was this that formed the assertion (Halliday, 2000.p.362). The subjective nature of the assessment can be reinforced by the modality in a separate clause. For example:
(45)I believe, as I always have, that we will rise to this moment, we will build something better for our children, and we will secure America’s future in this new century.
------Obama’s weekly radio speech, Aug.15, 2009
(46)And I believe that the American people and the men and women they sent to Congress share that view.
------Obama’s weekly radio speech, Jun.26, 2009
#p#分页标题#e# If the modal clause is negative, it is the same truth. For example:
(47) I don’t believe that government can or should run health care. But I also don’t think insurance companies should have free reign to do as they please.
------Obama’s weekly radio speech, Jul.18, 2009
The modal clause I don’t believe seems to act as the finite in front of the proposition, expressing the degree of validity and polarity as a separate element of the sentence. However, if we tag the sentence, it is I don’t believethat government can or should run health care, can it or should it? Since the tag normally reverse the polarity of the clause that it tag( positive finite---negative tag), the tag here is obviously echoing a negative finite, therefore, the proposition is in fact the government can’t or shouldn’t run health care. The main function of the modal clause is to make the personal source of the modality explicit.
In fact, there are a lot of variants for the expression of explicit subjectivity modality in the clause. In addition to metaphorical realization of probability, there are also usuality, obligation and inclination in the orientation of explicit subjective form. However, in this paper, we will focus on probability, because probability in explicitly subjective orientation is more frequently used to express personal idea. Such as I’m sure, I’m confident, I’m convinced, etc. Such modal clauses usually reflect the speaker’s mental process of cognition, and its effect is to indicate that the president is willing to take responsibility for his judgment or assertion.
In weekly radio speech, the explicit subjective metaphor of modality is intentionally adopted to emphasize the speaker’s strong belief in his viewpoint. For example:
(48) And I am absolutely convinced that if we keep working together and living up to our mutual responsibilities; if we place the American people’s interests above the special interests; we will seize this historic opportunity to finally fix what ails our broken health care system, and strengthen our economy and our country now and for decades to come.#p#分页标题#e#
------Obama’s weekly radio speech, Jun.6, 2009
(49)But I am confident that these efforts will fail; because Judge Sotomayor’s seventeen-year record on the bench – hundreds of judicial decisions that every American can read for him or herself – speak far louder than any attack; her record makes clear that she is fair, unbiased, and dedicated to the rule of law.
------Obama’s weekly radio speech, May.29, 2009
(50) And I am absolutely confident that is what we will do. I'm confident that at this defining moment, we will prove ourselves worthy of the sacrifice of those who came before us, and the promise of those who will come after
------Obama’s weekly radio speech, Mar.7, 2009
From the three cited examples above, President Obama uses I am absolutely convinced, I am confident, I am absolutely confident the explicit subjective metaphor of modality with high value to confirm his own opinions.Thesubject of these sentences is I,whichshows that the president’s opinion is subjective, and convinced, confident are words with high value showing the president’s firm faith. Here, Obama successfully gives the audience a feeling that he is a confident and responsible president, with these explicit subjective expressions.
5.2.2.2To show uncertainty
Sometimes, explicit subjective expressions of modality is also used to make the speaker’s judgment or opinion more tentative, that means the speaker is not very certain about his viewpoints, actually he doesn’t want to bring him some trouble for his comments. Especially in weekly radio speech, the president has to be careful about his own words; otherwise, it will be very difficult for him to maintain a persistent good image and attract the fixed crowd of audience. Therefore, in weekly radio speeches, the speaker also adopts a lot of explicit subjective forms to show his uncertainty. For example:#p#分页标题#e#
(51)And I expect there will be a lot of discussion about it when Congress returns.
------Obama’s weekly radio speech, Aug.22, 2009
(52)I don’t believe that government can or should run health care. But I also don’t think insurance companies should have free reign to do as they please.
------Obama’s weekly radio speech, Jul.18, 2009
(53)I realize that when we passed this Recovery Act, there were those who felt that doing nothing was somehow an answer.
------Obama’s weekly radio speech, Jul.11, 2009
(54)I hope that’s exactly what all of you do. But I also want to take a moment today to reflect on what I believe is the meaning of this distinctly American holiday.
------Obama’s weekly radio speech, Jul.4, 2009
(55)I imagine you’ll be watching their progress closely.
------Obama’s weekly radio speech, Jun.6, 2009
In example (50), Obama is in fact not sure whether there will be some discussion about the idea of government-run health care, so he just uses expect to show his hope, even there’s no discussion, he will not need to take any responsibility. In example (51), he tactically uses#p#分页标题#e# think to express his statement that insurance companies should not have free reign to do as they please so as to avoid involving himself in the potential risk of interpersonal conflicts with the insurance company. Similarly, in example (53), Obama is not confident enough to affirm his judgment that there were some people feeling that doing nothing was somehow an answer, so he uses realize to show that this is only his personal idea and cognition. In example (54), Obama adopts hope to express his wish, and example (55), imagine to show his hypothesis. All these examples show that Obama is not sure enough about his judgment or assertion, so he uses some explicit subjective metaphor of modality with median or low value to show his uncertainty. By foreground his comments as a personal response, the president can make a subtle adjustment to指导留学作业提供指导Essay，指导Assignment，请联系QQ：949925041 the interactional context and establish a particular relationship with the listeners. This enables the speaker to use a less threatening voice, lessen the intensity of the assertions and shorten the distance with the listeners. All these explicit subjective metaphors showing uncertainty help building a harmonious atmosphere and relationship with the listeners.
5.2.2.3To create objectivity
Halliday (2000.p.362) has pointed out that there are two effective ways of creating objectivity, and one is through the use of explicit objective form of modality. By using it, the speaker can make his or her viewpoint appear to be a quality of the event itself. For example:
(56)As we continue to recover from an historic economic crisis, it is clear to everyone that one of its major causes was a breakdown in oversight that led to widespread abuses in the financial system.
------Obama’s weekly radio speech, Jul.18, 2009
(57)It is true that this crisis was caused in part by Americans who took on too much debt and took out loans they simply could not afford.
------Obama’s weekly radio speech, Jul.18, 2009#p#分页标题#e#
(58)We are called to remember how unlikely it was that our American experiment would succeed at all; that a small band of patriots would declare independence from a powerful empire; and that they would form, in the new world, what the old world had never known – a government of, by, and for the people.
------Obama’s weekly radio speech, Jul.4, 2009
In these three examples, the modality is dressed up as a proposition by the metaphor of modality: “it is clear to everyone that” “It is true that” “how unlikely it was that”. These propositions make the president’s opinions appear to be a kind of “thing”, which has qualities, attributed to it, or to be a ‘fact’, which is difficult to query. Any modality has a source, either directly the speaker, or indirectly someone else, whose viewpoints are reported by the speaker. Therefore, if there is any modality in discourse, its source should in principle be explicitly indicated. However, in order to make his point of view appear to be neutral, or make his suggestions sound more acceptable, the speaker usually disguises the modal source by using explicit subjective form of modality. Obama pins one of the major causes of the historic economic crisis on the former government’sbreakdown in oversight leading to widespread abuses in the financial system by using an explicit objective form of modality. Similarly, he expresses his judgment that this crisis was caused partly by Americans who took on too much debt and took out loans they simply could not afford by a proposition “It is true that”. Thus he covers the real source of the modality but makes his assertion seem to be a truth. In these two example, the use of “it is clear to everyone that” “It is true that” strengthens the force of evaluations, meanwhile, it leaves listeners in no doubt about the speaker’s comments, and emphasizes the extended opinion and encourage its acceptance, restricting the negotiating space available to the listeners. In example (58), something referred to by the pronoun ‘it’ is described as ‘unlikely’, and in the second part of the sentence, ‘it’ turns out to be the speaker’s proposition. This proposition is thus being regarded as a definable chunk of meaning, almost as if it were a kind of ‘thing’. This way of expressing disguises the fact that the quality of likelihood is actually not something belonging to the proposition, but is the speaker’s personal idea of likelihood.#p#分页标题#e#
The other way of creating objectivity is nominalization form of the modal verbs. In weekly radio speech, nominalization serve as a way of both disguising the source of modality and making it more difficult to query. For example:
(59)That’s why fixing what’s wrong with our health care system is no longer a luxury we hope to achieve – it’s a necessity we cannot postpone any longer.
------Obama’s weekly radio speech, Jun.6, 2009
(60)That’s the kind of urgency and determination we need to achieve comprehensive reform by the end of this year.
------Obama’s weekly radio speech, May.16, 2009
(61)There is no longer a doubt that the jobs and industries of tomorrow will involve harnessing renewable sources of energy.
------Obama’s weekly radio speech, Mar.21, 2009
These nominal equivalents generally exclude the explicit intrusion of the speaker, so they sound as if the speaker depended on the obvious evidence for the possibility instead of his personal reasoning. The noun itself has some sense of objectivity. If the speaker conceals his own opinions in a noun expressing the modal meaning, his opinions appear more objective and easy to be accepted by the listeners. In these examples, Obama uses “necessity”, “determination”,and “doubt” as nouns to show the objectivity of his assertion, which are helpful to realize his persuasive purposes.
#p#分页标题#e#
Chapter Six Conclusion
This chapter reports the major findings of the present study, together with its pedagogical implications, limitations and areas for further research.
6.1Major findings
The present study focuses on the application of interpersonal grammatical metaphor in Obama’s weekly radio speech. Quantitative and qualitative methods are adopted to analyze their various pragmatic functions. The major findings are summarized as follows:
First, through quantitative analysis, it is found that the speaker in weekly radio speech achieves his communicative purposes by tactically adopting a lot of metaphors of mood or metaphors of modality.
Second, in weekly radio speeches, a lot of statements clarifying the policies are realized by the let me structure of imperative mood to show the speaker’s authoritativeness as a president. A metaphor of mood issuing commands with declarative mood is also widely used to shorten the distance between the president and the audience so as to gain their understanding and support. Some statements realized by interrogative mood are adopted to convey the speaker’s implications or form an atmosphere of intercommunication, depending on the situation. In addition, there are few questions realized by declarative mood to show the speaker’s respect to the audience with the final goal of establishing a harmonious relationship with the audience and getting their support.
Third, in weekly radio speeches, a large number of explicit subjective metaphors of modality are adopted to emphasize the speaker’s strong belief so as to present the president’s good image of being confident and being willing to take responsibility. By contrast, explicit objective metaphors of modality and nominalization are adopted to disguise the source of the modality so that the speaker can shirk the responsibility for his personal judgment. At the same time, the speaker uses many explicit subjective metaphor of modality to express his uncertainty in an attempt to show his caution and carefulness. #p#分页标题#e#
6.2 Pedagogical implications
This study has the following pedagogical implications:
First, this study demonstrates that systemic functional grammar provides a multi-level and multi-functional theoretical framework for discourse analysis. It proves the effectiveness of SFG in analyzing genre and enriches the study scope of weekly radio speeches.
Second, this study provides us with the insights into the realizations of interpersonal grammatical metaphor in weekly radio speeches, which help us explore the speaker’s assertions and judgments towards the propositions he expresses, and therefore enable us to have a better understanding of how interpersonal metaphors work in weekly radio speeches.
Third, the study has practical significance in relation to both English language teaching and learning. It attempts to contribute to the comprehensive understanding of weekly radio speeches and facilitates the teaching of advanced listening and improving non-native English learners’ listening, speaking and writing so that they can develop their communicative competence more effectively.
6.3 Limitations
However, there are also some limitations in the present study. Confined to the reference materials and time limitation, it is difficult to make a comprehensive and exhaustive investigation and many aspects of the functions of interpersonal grammatical metaphor in weekly radio speeches remain untouched. Furthermore, the thirty samples are only chosen from Obama’s inauguration to my beginning of this study, they are not randomly, therefore, they may be not typical enough to represent the weekly radio speeches genre. In addition, the data completely comes from the author’s own calculation, which inevitably involves some margin of error.
6.4 Areas for further research#p#分页标题#e#
In addition to improvement on the deficiencies mentioned above, there are still areas which further research might explore as follow-up of the study. This research focuses on Obama’s weekly radio speeches. 指导留学作业提供指导Essay，指导Assignment，请联系QQ：949925041Further work could be done for studying the weekly radio speeches delivered by other presidents, such as Bush. Apart from interpersonal grammatical metaphor, further study could expand to other fields like ideational metaphor, textual metaphor as well.
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