1.引言
在政治人物和公众之间的关系中，政治演讲的影响力越来越大，越来越多的学者关注的政治演讲。一般来说,政治演说通常是以一个鼓励人的方式，影响观众的态度和说服观众采取所需的行动。国情咨文是一个美国总统在Statesto美国国会提出的年度讲话，公开演讲是一种重要的形式，值得特别注意。然而就目前而言，就它的社会重要性和语言价值上来说，也得到了罕见的关注。本研究以观察国情咨文的人际功能为目的，在系统功能语言学的框架上进行分析，从而进一步证明在特定的话语中功能语法的解释力，本文的分析将参考总统发表的国情咨文，使人们进一步了解国情咨文的价值。在这项研究中,被用于分析的数据是从www.51lunwen.org网站上得到的，主要分析的是2010年和2011年的国情咨文中巴拉克•奥巴马(Barack Obama)的演说。
1.Introduction
With the increasing influence of political speeches on the relationship between political figures and the general public, more and more scholars pay attention to the political speeches. Generally speaking, political speeches are usually delivered in an inspiring manner so as to influence the audience’s attitude and persuade the audience to take the desired actions. State of the Union Address is an annual address presented by the President of theUnited Statesto the United States Congress. It is an important form of public speech that deserves special attention. However, at present, regardless of its importance in society and precious linguistic value, it is received rare attention. The present study is conducted with a view to full this gap. This thesis attempts to observe State of the Union Address in view of interpersonal function in the framework of the Systemic Functional Linguistics, thus further proving the explanatory power of functional grammar in this particular kind of discourses. The analysis of this paper will throw light on the styles and strategies the presidents adopted when delivering the State of the Union Address so as to enable people to have a further understanding in appreciating State of the Union Address .In this research, the data used to be analyzed were collected from www.51lunwen.org, 2010 and 2011State of the Union Address by Barack Obama.
2. Public speech, political speech and State of the Union Address
When a speech is delivered in public, in other words, when the speech occurs in situations where a number of listeners receive messages from a single, clearly identifiable source extent, which is clear, interesting, credible for the audience within a given time limit, it is called public speech, such as ceremonial speech, seminars in universities and State of the Union Address. According to Liu Min(布什),although public speeches are delivered orally, they are often well prepared in writing and delivered on formal occasions. Therefore, they are also influenced by the features of the written language. With the combination of the features demonstrated by the spoken language and the written features, public speech is remarkable with its distinctive features. Compared with daily conversation, public speech is more highly structured and formal than daily conversation. Political speech, as a specific variety of public speeches, share some features of public speaking, such as formal, structured and time limit. However, regardless of the similarities, there certainly exist differences from general public speeches. The most distinguished feature of political speech is their strong association with the power and two-side attitude the speaker takes: On one hand, to enforce the power upon the listeners, the orator usually tries to present himself as an authority; on the other hand, the speaker use some linguistic ways to mitigate his power so as to establish a desirable relationship with the audience. On many occasions, especially in modern society, people who are good at conveying their ideas in public are more likely to win favorable recognition and succeed.
InAmerica, the power of the government constitute by three branches. These branches of the government are at the same level to ensure the proper working of the system of checks and balances. State of the Union Address, is an important speech delivered annually by US President to the Congress. The practice arises from a command given to the president in the Constitution of theUnited States:“ He shall from time to time give to Congress information
