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A comparative systemic functional study of speeches by Chinese and foreign speakers at an online book launching ceremony
Author
Peng, Yuting
Supervisor
Guo, Libo
Abstract
A subgenre of public speaking, ceremonial or special occasion speeches have attracted scholars and analysts from different fields (Sharif & Abdullah, 2014). In ceremonial speeches, special occasions are celebrated, enhancing bonds between speakers and their listeners with various types of ceremonial speaking occasions identified in the literature, including tribute, anniversary celebration, and awards, such as presentations and acceptances (Zarefsky, 2008). Unfortunately, very few studies have covered book launch events, especially analysis of its ceremonial speeches. To fill this gap, this study aims to examine the linguistic features and social implications of an online-offline hybrid international book launch event held in China.
In order to achieve the research objective, a corpus of 17 speech drafts were collected, within which 6 English speech drafts by foreign speakers and 11 translated speech drafts by Chinese speakers were compared in detail. Michael Halliday’s (2014) Systemic Functional Linguistics and Norman Fairclough’s (2013b) Critical Discourse Analysis framework have been applied to analyze the data with UAM Corpus Tool (Version 6.2e; Mick O'Donnell, 2022).
Different linguistic features have been found between Chinese and foreign speakers at the book launch event. Transitivity analysis indicated that Chinese and foreign speakers tend to apply different process types for various purposes according to register and genre; Other linguistic differences have also been found to express interpersonal and textual meaning by analyzing forms of salutation, personal pronouns, Mood and Modality, and theme patterns. Qualitative and quantitative analysis provided further evidence for variation among Chinese and foreign speakers, with typical examples listed to illustrate the identified differences. The results were discussed in terms of discursive power, social relations, and hierarchization reflected by different linguistic features, discursive practices, and social practices between Chinese and foreign speakers. The dissertation concludes that promotion of a book can be conducted differently according to different situation and culture, which is reflected by language and social relations: it can not only be conducted through celebration and discussion of the book between the author and readers, but can also be conducted through commercialization (realized by cooperation with powerful elites and media) to raise popularity of the book and promote certain industries.
In order to achieve the research objective, a corpus of 17 speech drafts were collected, within which 6 English speech drafts by foreign speakers and 11 translated speech drafts by Chinese speakers were compared in detail. Michael Halliday’s (2014) Systemic Functional Linguistics and Norman Fairclough’s (2013b) Critical Discourse Analysis framework have been applied to analyze the data with UAM Corpus Tool (Version 6.2e; Mick O'Donnell, 2022).
Different linguistic features have been found between Chinese and foreign speakers at the book launch event. Transitivity analysis indicated that Chinese and foreign speakers tend to apply different process types for various purposes according to register and genre; Other linguistic differences have also been found to express interpersonal and textual meaning by analyzing forms of salutation, personal pronouns, Mood and Modality, and theme patterns. Qualitative and quantitative analysis provided further evidence for variation among Chinese and foreign speakers, with typical examples listed to illustrate the identified differences. The results were discussed in terms of discursive power, social relations, and hierarchization reflected by different linguistic features, discursive practices, and social practices between Chinese and foreign speakers. The dissertation concludes that promotion of a book can be conducted differently according to different situation and culture, which is reflected by language and social relations: it can not only be conducted through celebration and discussion of the book between the author and readers, but can also be conducted through commercialization (realized by cooperation with powerful elites and media) to raise popularity of the book and promote certain industries.
Date Issued
2022
Call Number
P149 Pen
Date Submitted
2022