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An Analysis of Interpersonal Meaning in English Tourism Advertisements

Author: WangZuoZuo
Tutor: YangZhong
School: Northeast Normal University
Course: Foreign Linguistics and Applied Linguistics
Keywords: Interpersonal Meaning English Tourism Advertisements Mood Modality Appraisal Theory
CLC: H315
Type: Master's thesis
Year: 2011
Downloads: 140
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Abstract

Interpersonal meaning, also called interpersonal function, is related to people. It not only refers to people using language to communicate with others, to establish and maintain relationship with other people, and to influence others’actions, but also includes people using language to express their attitudes to the world. English tourism advertisements play an important role in our daily life and in booming tourism industry. Writers of English tourism advertisements try to persuade readers to believe them and pay a visit to the attractions by giving some positive and attractive information. The study of interpersonal meaning in order to explain how writers communicate with their potential readers is therefore of great significance.This thesis analyzes interpersonal meaning in English tourism advertisements from the perspective of systemic-functional linguistics, and under the analytical model proposed by Doctor Li Zhanzi.Halliday states that interpersonal function is mainly realized by mood, modality and person system and Martin develops the systemic-functional linguistics, establishing the Appraisal Theory. At micro-social level, interpersonal meaning is analyzed within Halliday’s theories from mood system, modality system and person system; at macro-social level, interpersonal meaning is studied under Martin’s Appraisal Theory. Appraisal system is further classified into three sub-systems: Attitude, Engagement and Graduation.This thesis is made up of six chapters. Chapter One introduces the research significance, research questions, methodology and the outline of the thesis. Chapter Two is the review of literature, which covers the development of interpersonal meaning and the previous studies both at home and abroad. Chapter Three is about the theories of studying interpersonal meaning and the analytical model in this thesis. Chapter Four analyzes the realization of interpersonal meaning at micro-social level and Chapter Five at the macro-social level in detail. Chapter Six draws a conclusion of the findings and limitations of this study.The corpus is 30 English tourism advertisements taken from foreign magazines and websites whose writers are native English speakers. By quantitative and qualitative analysis we find some features of English tourism advertisements and have a tentative idea how interpersonal meaning is realized by using different expressions and resources. Mood types in English tourism advertisements are declaratives and imperatives, according to writers’different purposes. Modal verbs are preferred by writers in modality system.Values of modality in English tourism advertisements are almost low and median, which help to increase credibility of the information and show respects for readers, and most of modality orientations are implicitly subjective. Second person pronouns are used most frequently, because by using“you”, writers can communicate with readers directly and the distance from readers is shortened.Finally, we conclude that tourism advertisement writers exploit a lot of appraisal resources in English tourism advertisements. Almost all the appraisal recourses are positive. Appreciation is used more frequently than other sub-systems in tourism advertisements. A few engagement and graduation resources help to highlight the advantages of attractions and appeal to readers.

An Analysis of Interpersonal Meaning in English Tourism Advertisements

Abstract

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