Second, the present study can not only develop readers’ understanding of diplomatic speech, but also increase their intercultural communication competence。 For example, people may pay more attention to  national affairs and international events and find the confidence to effectively communicate with foreigners after learning from their president。

1。3 Research Methodology and Data Collection

In this study, seven diplomatic speeches, delivered by President  in his state visits during 2015 and 2016, are collected as data from the website of Ministry of Foreign Affairs, of which are respectively 5 times in 2015 and 2 times in 2016。 Based on them, a corpus of quotations has been established。 

The concern of the present study is to illustrate how the use of quotations in President Xi’s diplomatic speeches realizes the interpersonal meaning。 The quantitative analysis concerns the frequency of different types of quotations。 The qualitative approach is employed to discuss how the statistic figures indicate the interpersonal meaning by detailed analysis of each type of quotation。 

1。4 Organization of the Thesis

This thesis comprises 4 parts totally。 The introduction part has considered the research background, significance, methodology, data collection and the organization of the thesis。 The second part is literature review, intending to present the previous studies of interpersonal meaning and diplomatic speech at home and abroad。 The third part is the detailed analysis of quotations in president ’s diplomatic speeches and reveals the interpersonal meaning。 The last part is the conclusion whereby the major findings of the study are summed up。 The limitations of the study and some suggestions for further exploration are proposed as well。

2。 Literature Review

    2。1 Previous Studies of Interpersonal Meaning

The interpersonal meaning of language has long been an object of study by many linguists, among whom Halliday is the most influential forerunner。 Halliday (1994) maintains that language is used to perform three meta-functions: ideational function, interpersonal function and textual function, on the basis of which he explains how language fully displays its functional role as a kind of semiotic system of human communication。 In order to realize these three functions, people choose lexical and grammatical elements from within the ideational set of elements, the interpersonal ones, or the textual ones。 From优Y尔E论W文W网wWw.YouERw.com 加QQ75201,8766

The interpersonal function is to indicate, establish, or maintain social relationships between people, which expresses the speaker’s role in the speech situation, his personal commitment and assessment of the social relationship between the addressee and himself (Dai Weidong and He Zhaoxiong, 2013: 12)。 Every single clause is like an interactive event, involving both the speaker and the addressee。 In a particular interactive act, such as an act of asking price in the supermarket, the customer is the seeker of price, and the shop assistant is the provider of information demanded; the two roles are complementary。 Another example is the conversation between two close friends, although every one has many friends in his life, it is common that some thoughts and feelings in his heart can only be shared with a specific person。 This is people’s different assessment of their social relationship。   

Thompson (2014: 28) summarizes the three functions in Introducing Functional Grammar as below: 

We use language to talk about our experience of the world, including the worlds in our own minds, to describe events and states and the entities involved in them。 We also use language to interact with other people, to establish and maintain relations with them, to influence their behaviour, to express our own viewpoint on things in the world, and to elicit or change theirs。 Finally, in using language, we organize our messages in ways that indicate how they fit in with the other messages around them and with the wider context in which we are talking or writing。