对珍珠港演说的功能评价.pdfVIP

Nov. 2008, Volume 5, No.11 (Serial No.59) Sino-US English Teaching, ISSN 1539-8072, USA Towards text-theme from appraisal theory: A functional approach to Pearl Harbor address to the nation WU An-ping (Foreign Languages College, Ningbo Polytechnic, Ningbo 315800, China) Abstract: Text-theme, the writing or speaking motive, is construed before creation at the basis of a writer’s or speaker’s background and typical cognitive structures. This paper attempts to explore text-theme in the Pearl Harbor address to the nation within the framework of appraisal theory founded by James Martin, et al., the excavation is centered on how the grammatical resources of appraisal can disclose the addressor’s evaluation of the text-theme. The aim for the study is to testify the operationality and practicability of appraisal theory towards the exploration on text analysis. It is hoped that the theoretical and practical significance in the present exploration of text-theme can provide inspirations and novel insights in the realm of English language teaching and text analysis. Key words: text-theme; attitude; address 1. Introduction Text-theme is the kernel meaning in a text, which is the writing or speaking motive construed before creation on the basis of a writer’s or speaker’s background and typical cognitive structures. Hence, it is the intention or purpose of writer’s or speaker’s creation, which is a semantic concept. It can be divided into two kinds, explicitness and implicitness. As for the explicitness, it refers to the specific linguistic entity, maybe some words, certain grammatical elements or certain clauses, which can encode the text-theme in th