A discourse analysis of the British prime ministerial debate on the basis of appraisal theory

Abstract

Analysing ideology through discourse is practiced academically in humanities and other social sciences. It is based upon the hypotheses that through close reading, and systematic analysis, people can figure out the ideologies behind spoken and written texts.People adopt discourse analysis to associate context with the structure of discourse itself. For instance, social positions (e.g. ethnicity, gender or profession) are linked with structural units or linked with strategies of speech or talk that are embedded in their so­ cial, political and cultural contexts. Depending on their various social positions, lan­ guage users might be categorised into various groups or communities . They are ex­ pected to follow a certain set of rules and regulations of their social positions. Based on the Appraisal theory this thesis seeks to discover not only the words people have uttered, but also their implicature which is not easily noted. It also seeks to understand to what extent their words are related to their stance. Firstly, the thesis review what has been achieved on the Appraisal theory. Then the thesis will come to a detailed presentation of the theoretical framework . This leads to the main discussion of this thesis, which is a comprehensive analysis on the basis of the Appraisal theory and have a better under­ standing of each candidate's propositions.

Date of Award	7 Aug 2014
Original language	English
Supervisor	Vinton Wing Kin Poon (Supervisor)