Analysis of Donald Trump’s Inaugural Speech based on Attitude Within Appraisal Theory

Abstract

In the 1990s Martin and his colleagues proposed the appraisal theory, which is based on Halliday's Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). Martin aims to analyze the appraisal resources for realizing interpersonal functions in discourse from a lexical perspective, which refers to how the speaker expresses the content of the text, the attitude of the author and the communicative intention through the language construction, so as to establish interpersonal relationship with the audience, and then influence the audience's attitude and behavior. Appraisal theory, which focuses on the various attitudes, emotional intensity and value judgments that can be negotiated in discourse, is a supplement and extension of the study of the interpersonal function of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), and has gradually received wide attention from scholars at home and abroad as the theory has been developed and improved. In early 2017, American business tycoon Donald Trump delivered his presidential inaugural address at the U.S. Capitol and was officially sworn in as the 45th president of the United States. Trump swept the U.S. political scene with his unique business flavor and style, shocking the U.S. homeland and bringing unpredictable speculation to today's world politics. His inaugural speech has abundant interpersonal resources, and Trump used different appraisal resources to express his political views and promote the "America First" viewpoint to build a good image. Therefore, this study analyzes the distribution of attitudinal resources in the three subsystems of affect, judgment, and appreciation in President Trump's inaugural speech from the perspective of the attitudinal system in Martin's appraisal theory, using both quantitative and qualitative analysis methods, and explores the reasons for them. It was found that there were 94 attitudinal resources in this speech, among which 20 (21%) were affect resources, 48 (51%) judgment resources, and 26 (28%) appreciation resources. The distribution of different types of attitudinal resources varies because the distribution of resources is related to the identity of the speaker, the topic of the discourse and the audience, which reflects the interpersonal meaning of the discourse.