An Analysis of Emma Watson’s Speech at the UN from the Perspective of Systemic-Functional Grammar

Abstract  This thesis provides an analysis of Emma Watson’s speech in 2014 as the UN Women Goodwill Ambassador in the framework of Systemic-Functional Grammar put forward by M。 A。 K。 Halliday。 The study of public speech has been the focus of orators since ancient times。 Until now in present day, there are quite a few books in regard to the practice of successful speech, in which useful speaking skills and tips are offered。 However, conduct of investigation of speech from a linguistic point of view has not been paid much attention to as researches on improving speaking ability。 As one of the most eminent linguistic theories in the 20th century, Systemic-Functional Grammar has been used to analyze speeches in the past decade。 The thesis aims to dissect one of the successful and attention-drawing speeches concerning gender discrimination in recent years, in order to reveal its functional characteristics and to find out the possible reasons contributing to the production of it。 The methodology of the thesis is a combination of both quantitative research and qualitative research。 Quantitative analysis is used to present the functional features of the target speech with data and tables。 And then qualitative research is carried out to explain and verify the results got from the quantitative one。 On the whole, the research constructs analysis of the target speech in terms of the three meta-functions (ideational, interpersonal and textual function) under Systemic-Functional Grammar to probe into the relationship between choices of language and the supposed effects of them。 Hopefully, a better understanding of the target speech and enrichment of the classical theory can be achieved。90390

Keywords: Public Speech; Systemic-Functional Grammar; Discourse Analysis

系统功能语法视角下对艾玛沃特森联合国演讲的分析

摘  要 本文运用韩礼德发展并创立的系统功能语法作为框架，分析了联合国妇女署亲善大使艾玛沃特森2014年在联合国的演讲。从古代开始，对公共演讲的探索就已成为演讲家们的研究重点。到当今社会，有许多关于如何发表成功的演讲的书籍出版，它们提供了许多演讲的技巧与建议。然而从语言学的角度对演讲的探索却远远不如从提升演讲技巧的角度的探索来得受人关注。作为20世纪最重要的语言学理论之一，系统功能语法在过去的约十年间开始被用于研究演讲。本文选取并剖析了一篇近年来十分成功并吸引公众关注的关于女权的演讲，希望能揭示其功能特征并找出其成功的可能原因。本文采取了定量与定性相结合的研究方法。定量研究用于展现目标演讲的功能特征，并将其展示在图表中，定性研究用于分析并解释定量研究所得出的结论。从整体来看，本文的分析从系统功能语法视角下的三个元功能（概念功能，人际功能，篇章功能）出发，研究了语言的选择和其应有的效果的关系。希望通过本次分析，这篇演讲能够被更好地认识，这个经典理论也能被丰富化。

关键词：公共演讲；系统功能语法；话语分析

Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction 1

1。1 Motivation and Objectives 1

1。2 Theoretical Approach 1

1。3 Overall Structure of the Paper 2

Chapter 2 Literature Review 3

2。1 Studies on Speech 3

2。2 Studies on SFG 3

2。3 Studies of Speech by Applying SFG