luận văn thạc sĩ an investigation into attitudinal resources in inaugural speeches by us presidents

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING QUY NHON UNIVERSITY NGUYỄN THỊ MAI ĐAN AN INVESTIGATION INTO ATTITUDINAL RESOURCES IN INAUGURAL SPEECHES BY US PRESIDENTS Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201 Supervisor : Assoc Prof Dr Nguyễn Tất Thắng e BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC QUY NHƠN NGUYỄN THỊ MAI ĐAN NGHIÊN CỨU NGỮ LIỆU CHỈ THÁI DỘ TRONG CÁC BÀI PHÁT BIỂU NHẬM CHỨC CỦA CÁC TỔNG THỐNG MỸ Chuyên ngành: Ngôn ngữ Anh Mã số: 8220201 Người hướng dẫn: PGS.TS Nguyễn Tất Thắng e i STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP Except where reference is made in the text of the research paper, this thesis “An investigation into Attitudinal Resources in Inaugural speeches by US presidents (Bill Clinton, George W Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump)” contains no material published elsewhere or extracted in the whole, or in part from paper by which I have qualified for or been awarded another degree or diploma Moreover, no one‘s work has been used without acknowledgement in the paper This paper has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other territory institution Binh Dinh, June 2020 Nguyễn Thị Mai Đan e ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my thanks to many people who have given me great help during the time I managed to complete this thesis My deepest gratitude is to my supervisor, Assoc Prof Dr Nguyễn Tất Thắng, who has given me much invaluable advice and encouragement since the very beginning and has been my frequent source on many invaluable insights I am also grateful to him for reading my manuscript and helping me make the necessary changes I am also grateful to lecturers who have given the foundation for this thesis and all the staff of the Post-graduate Department at Quy Nhon University for their encouragement, kindness and administrative assistance I am particularly grateful to my family and my colleagues who have helped me overcome a lot of difficulties throughout the course and the study of this thesis e iii ABSTRACT The study aims to examine attitudinal resources used in the Inaugural speeches by US presidents (namely Bill Clinton, George W Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump) Appraisal Theory developed by Martin and White (2005) was employed as a framework to analyze four inaugural speeches of the presidents mentioned above The combination of quantitative and qualitative methods was applied for the data analysis The findings showed that all the presidents employed three types of attitudinal resources However, the result of the data analysis revealed a fact that the presidents from the Democratic party, namely Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, used more Appreciation values than Affect and Judgement ones whereas the presidents from the Republican party, namely George Walker Bush and Donald Trump, used Judgement elements the most frequently in comparison to Affect and Appreciation The findings also depicted that all the presidents employed more positive attitudinal resources than negative ones to rebuild the public‘s confidence Besides, more explicit judgement items were used in all the presidents‘ speeches than implicit ones By doing so, all the presidents wanted to make their evaluation become simpler, clearer and more understandable Last but not least, it can be clearly seen from the findings that with the use of the most attitudinal resources among the presidents investigated, Barack Obama made his speech become more persuasive and more effective e iv TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vi LIST OF FIGURES viii LIST OF TABLES vii LIST OF CHARTS ix CHAPTER INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale 1.2 Aims and objectives 1.2.1 Aims 1.2.2 Objectives 1.3 Research questions 1.4 Scope of the study 1.5 Significance of the study 1.6 Organization of the study CHAPTER LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Theoretical background 2.1.1 Attitude 2.1.2 Engagement 17 2.1.3 Graduation 18 2.2 Previous studies 20 2.3 Summary 24 CHAPTER METHODOLOGY 25 3.1 Research method 25 3.2 Description of data 25 3.3 Data analysis 26 e v 3.4 Research procedures 26 3.5 Reliability and Validity 26 CHAPTER FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 29 4.1 General features of four inaugural speeches by the US presidents (Bill Clinton, George W Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump) 29 4.2 ARs of affect 31 4.2.1 Dis/Inclination 33 4.2.2 Un/Happiness 36 4.2.3 Dis/Satisfaction 39 4.2.4 In/Security 41 4.3 ARs of judgement 46 4.3.1 Social Esteem 49 4.3.2 Social Sanction 55 4.4 ARs of appreciation 59 4.4.1 Reaction 61 4.4.2 Composition 66 4.4.3 Valuation 68 4.5 Similarities and differences among the speeches of the four presidents 71 CHAPTER CONCLUSIONS 77 5.1 Recapitulations 77 5.2 Implications of the study 79 5.3 Limitations 80 5.4 Suggestions for further research 81 REFERENCES 82 APPENDICES e vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AT: Appraisal Theory SFL: Systemic Function Linguistics ARs: Attitudinal Resources US: United States USA: United States of America e luan.van.thac.si.an.investigation.into.attitudinal.resources.in.inaugural.speeches.by.us.presidentsluan.van.thac.si.an.investigation.into.attitudinal.resources.in.inaugural.speeches.by.us.presidentsluan.van.thac.si.an.investigation.into.attitudinal.resources.in.inaugural.speeches.by.us.presidentsluan.van.thac.si.an.investigation.into.attitudinal.resources.in.inaugural.speeches.by.us.presidentsluan.van.thac.si.an.investigation.into.attitudinal.resources.in.inaugural.speeches.by.us.presidentsluan.van.thac.si.an.investigation.into.attitudinal.resources.in.inaugural.speeches.by.us.presidentsluan.van.thac.si.an.investigation.into.attitudinal.resources.in.inaugural.speeches.by.us.presidentsluan.van.thac.si.an.investigation.into.attitudinal.resources.in.inaugural.speeches.by.us.presidents vii LIST OF TABLES Table Title Number Page number 2.1 Sub-systems of Affect (Martin and White, 2005: 51) 2.2 Judgements of esteem and sanction (Martin and 10 13 White, 2005: 53) 2.3 Types of appreciation (Martin and White, 2005: 56) 16 4.1 ARs in the inaugural speeches of US presidents 29 4.2 Frequency of sub-types of Affect resources 33 4.3 Frequency of explicit judgement resources 48 4.4 Frequency of sub-types of Appreciation resources 60 luan.van.thac.si.an.investigation.into.attitudinal.resources.in.inaugural.speeches.by.us.presidentsluan.van.thac.si.an.investigation.into.attitudinal.resources.in.inaugural.speeches.by.us.presidentsluan.van.thac.si.an.investigation.into.attitudinal.resources.in.inaugural.speeches.by.us.presidentsluan.van.thac.si.an.investigation.into.attitudinal.resources.in.inaugural.speeches.by.us.presidentsluan.van.thac.si.an.investigation.into.attitudinal.resources.in.inaugural.speeches.by.us.presidentsluan.van.thac.si.an.investigation.into.attitudinal.resources.in.inaugural.speeches.by.us.presidentsluan.van.thac.si.an.investigation.into.attitudinal.resources.in.inaugural.speeches.by.us.presidentsluan.van.thac.si.an.investigation.into.attitudinal.resources.in.inaugural.speeches.by.us.presidents e luan.van.thac.si.an.investigation.into.attitudinal.resources.in.inaugural.speeches.by.us.presidentsluan.van.thac.si.an.investigation.into.attitudinal.resources.in.inaugural.speeches.by.us.presidentsluan.van.thac.si.an.investigation.into.attitudinal.resources.in.inaugural.speeches.by.us.presidentsluan.van.thac.si.an.investigation.into.attitudinal.resources.in.inaugural.speeches.by.us.presidentsluan.van.thac.si.an.investigation.into.attitudinal.resources.in.inaugural.speeches.by.us.presidentsluan.van.thac.si.an.investigation.into.attitudinal.resources.in.inaugural.speeches.by.us.presidentsluan.van.thac.si.an.investigation.into.attitudinal.resources.in.inaugural.speeches.by.us.presidentsluan.van.thac.si.an.investigation.into.attitudinal.resources.in.inaugural.speeches.by.us.presidents viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure Title Number Page number 2.1 An Overview of appraisal resources 2.2 The engagement system (Martin and White, 2005: 134) 18 luan.van.thac.si.an.investigation.into.attitudinal.resources.in.inaugural.speeches.by.us.presidentsluan.van.thac.si.an.investigation.into.attitudinal.resources.in.inaugural.speeches.by.us.presidentsluan.van.thac.si.an.investigation.into.attitudinal.resources.in.inaugural.speeches.by.us.presidentsluan.van.thac.si.an.investigation.into.attitudinal.resources.in.inaugural.speeches.by.us.presidentsluan.van.thac.si.an.investigation.into.attitudinal.resources.in.inaugural.speeches.by.us.presidentsluan.van.thac.si.an.investigation.into.attitudinal.resources.in.inaugural.speeches.by.us.presidentsluan.van.thac.si.an.investigation.into.attitudinal.resources.in.inaugural.speeches.by.us.presidentsluan.van.thac.si.an.investigation.into.attitudinal.resources.in.inaugural.speeches.by.us.presidents e