美国总统就职演讲的文体特点分析

ABSTRACT摘要

 

Presidential inaugural address is an important variety of political public speech. Many researchers have already focused on the stylistic analysis of presidential inaugural addresses; they are mostly qualitative researches, aiming at the exploration of general synchronic stylistic features of APIAs. 总统就职演讲是公共演讲的一个重要部分。许多研究者们已经对美国总统就职演讲辞的文体进行过分析，通过定性研究，探索演讲的历时文体特点；有些研究者通过量性分析美国总统就职演讲辞，揭示出演讲辞的某一个层次的文体特点或者某一位总统就职演讲的文体特点。
Meanwhile, there are some quantitative studies on APIAs, but they focus on a certain aspect of stylistic analysis or a president. And most of these researches refer to a few rhetorical devices only briefly. 而且，大多研究者们仅简单地涉及一些修辞手法甚至没有涉及。本文主要从两个方面，即语言描述和修辞应用，系统研究和分析美国总统就职演讲的文体特点及其语言变化。This research aims at general stylistic features of American presidential inaugural addresses and the linguistic changes of American presidential inaugural addresses from a diachronic perspective from these dimensions: lexical level, syntaxical level, textual level and also discusses rhetorical devices used in presidential inaugural addresses. 

The 56 speeches are delivered by 44 American presidents from 1789 to 2008. By applying theories of modern stylistics and based on the approach proposed by Crystal and Davy, the paper chooses 10 samples according to time intervals of 24 years from all the speeches to analysis with detail from the dimensions of linguistic description, including lexical level, syntactic level, and textual level as well rhetorical devices and their rhetorical effectiveness, and to reveal the general tendency that is reflected in the addresses. 从1789年至2008年44位美国总统就职演讲此辞中，基本每隔24年选取一篇共选取10篇作为本文的研究对象。基于现代文体学理论，采用量性分析和定性分析相结合的方法，从词汇，结构，篇章和修辞四个层面对美国总统就职演讲词的特点及变化趋势进行分析。

The major findings of this study are as follows: At the lexical level, the TTRs of American presidential inaugural addresses have decreased from the late 18th century to the beginning of the 21st century, the mean word length is also on the decline; American presidents are trying to make them more casual and closer to the audiences by employing fewer nominalization, the first person pronouns are used the most in all the speeches; At the syntactic level, we find that the sentence length has been shorter than before, The speakers focused more on the present and encouraged American people for the country and their future lives; and as for sentence type, multiple sentences dominate all these speeches. Through the textual level, we find that references and conjunctions are frequently used in each of the speeches. These presidential speeches share the same discourse patterns from introduction part to conclusion part though the contents are not the same in the body part. There is some rhetoric devices used in these presidential speeches, such as parallelism, repetition, metaphor and simile, etc. These devices are necessary for making the speeches more vivid and attracting the audience’s attention.#p#分页标题#e#

It is hoped that the present investigation on stylistic features of presidential inaugural addresses will shed light on the writing skills of public speeches for addressers and will be helpful for improving the English learners’ oral communication skills. And it is also helpful to us in teaching English reading and writing in colleges. 通过本文研究希望对演讲者撰写演讲稿起到借鉴作用，同时对提高英语学习者口语交际能力有所帮助，也希望对大学英语听说读写教学有帮助作用。

KEY WORDS: president of the United States, inaugural addresses，public speech, stylistic analysis 
关键词：美国总统，就职演讲，公众演讲，文体分析

Chapter 2 Literature Review第2章文献回顾

 

In this part，theories and studies related to this thesis will be discussed. The concept of public speaking including the definition of public speaking, the history of public speaking and classification of public speaking will be given first because inaugural address discussed in this thesis is under the classification of public speaking, and what follows are the studies about inaugural address. And then the concepts of style and stylistics are provided. At last, the present state of research is discussed. http://ukthesis.org/dissertation_sample/

2.1 Theories on Public Speaking 公共演讲的理论

2.1.1 Definition of Public Speaking  公共演讲的定义

According to Dance and Zak- Dance (1996), “public speech is the act of using spoken language to communicate with most individuals at the same time. In his opinion, public speaking is in the form of spoken language and its function is to communicate. In short, public speech is a speech delivered in public, for example, open-class lectures or seminars in a university, the religious preach in the church, a speech delivered by the leading body at the meeting or conference, the inaugural address of a president elect, etc.

Lucas in 1989 said “Public speaking, actually the same meaning as speech and address, means a public speaker delivering a continuous speech before audiences about his systematic suggestions and propositions in spoken language under the help of facial expressions, sign and body gestures and the strong emotions, for the aim to move, to inspire, to encourage, to persuade audiences or even to teach them something.”

According to Stephen E. Lucas (1983), there are many similarities between public speech and daily conversation because public speeches are delivered in spoken language and influenced by its characteristics. They may have the same purposes, i.e. to inform, to persuade, to explain something for arousing the interest of the listeners and to obtain their feedback such as support, approval or consent. At times delivering public speech needs some skills as used in daily conversation, for example, the speaker should organize his own ideas and present them in a persuasive manner, adapt to the response of the listeners, use facial expression to make a speech more vivid and clear. Those are the most important skills needed to deliver a successful public speech. Most people who communicate well in daily talk can also learn to communicate in public speech. In spite of these similarities, public speaking is different from conversation. Because public speeches are usually prepared beforehand in written form, they are influenced by the features of the written language. For example, they are frequently polite in tone, formal in style. Big and abstract words, noun phrases, full sentences, sophisticated sentence structures, parallelisms and rhetorical devices are of employed in public speeches.#p#分页标题#e#

Public speaking is a old-line activity in western civilization. It has brought together people’s social, cultural, and political values. It is an important force in the life of our culture. The public speakers are reestablishing, defining and chancing our society. From Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” to Churchill’s “Warn of the Unknown warrior”, the public speeches have been used to inform and inspire.

2.1.2 Classification of public speaking在公众场合发言的分类

Public speech is a general genre including varieties of genres with the accordance to the field of discourse, the content, and the tenor of discourse, audiences and listeners, and the purposes. In short, we can classify public speech into three kinds with the accordance to different purposes: speaking to inform, speaking to persuade and speaking on special occasions. (Zimmerman, etal, 1986).

The informative speech proposes to inform the audience of someone or something, for example a classroom lecture, a business report, and a research presentation. The speaker tells us by attracting to our ability to reason. Its remarkable characteristics are clarity and simplicity. From Stephen E. Lucas (1998), the informative speech may be classified into four categories: a speech about objects, a speech about processes, a speech about events, and a speech about concepts. But these categories are not complete.

With persuasive speeches listeners are encouraged to take a specific position about a particular state of affairs. It is aimed to influence or change the audience’s feelings and beliefs and to advise them to take some action. When you deliver persuasive speeches, you do as an advocate. Your success in any particular persuasive speech will depend upon how well you tailor your message to your audience’s the values, attitudes, and beliefs. The only thing which matters in a persuasive speech is whether the speaker receives the desired response from the audience or not. Of all kinds of public speeches, the persuasive speech is the most difficult, the most defiant and the most complicated.所有类型的公开演讲，有说服力的讲话，是其中最困难的，最桀骜不驯和最复杂的一种。

day-to-day life‘s punctuation marks are special occasions, the high points that highlight above ordinary routine. Special occasions contain weddings, funerals, dedications, award ceremonies, commencement, retirement dinners, and so on. Mostly frequently they are occasions of speech making. Special occasions of speeches are different from the others. They may convey information; however, it is not their primary purpose. Only do they want to fit the special needs of a special occasion. This may include the greetings’ exchange, a speaker’s introduction, the presentation or acceptance of awards, and so on.

A tradition in many countries is for a speaker to address the graduates at a college commencement. At times, the valedictorian, who is the best student among the graduates, having the highest grades, will deliver this speech; at other colleges, the famous invited guest will make the speech. This speech’s aim is to make congratulations to the students on their accomplishments and to encourage them to do good deeds in the future. For the students’ parents attend, to say a few nice comments about them is a kind of customary, too. The speech should make the graduates challenged and inspired. This speech can include some humor as well, for this is a fulfilling occasion for both the graduates and their families. When some humor is appropriate in a commencement address, serious topics should also not be negative or avoided. A speaker might mention the needs, which college graduates can fill in this community or country or stress the massive opportunities and they are open to the students (Benjamin Sevitch, 2005)#p#分页标题#e#

2.2 Definition and nature of inaugural address就职演说的定义和性质

2.2.1 Definition of inaugural address就职演说中的定义

The inaugural address is a kind of speeches delivered by the president-elect on the inauguration day. In this speech, for the first time, the newly elected president will formally announce that he will launch at into the responsibility as the highest administrative of the country in the next four years. Inaugurals signal the end of the election publicity campaign and at the same time the beginning of new governance. Although the constitution does not require the inaugural address which is made every four years by the president before he takes the office. It has already become a tradition from the first president--George Washington. As a rule, the new conductor's philosophy of politics and the brief of his policy will be professed in his inaugural address. The inauguration is held and as a celebration, is witnessed by audiences. 

Inaugurals are quite significant because of what they show about the basic political values, particular political lines, and establishment of a presidential person. Therefore, their political meanings become clear. Inaugural addresses try to persuade the citizens of the nation that the newly elected president is suit for the political part and that he is qualified to achieve his programmatic aims. The addressee, then, casts much light on the legality of political power and the world points of presidents. Their political propose is to ask for support and loyalty to a political power from both other power-holders in the political system and the public in mass during their administration.

The inauguration itself prescribed that the inaugural addresses by nature are epideictic