Speech Acts in American Presidents’ Inaugural Addresses in the Perspective of Illocutionary_英语论文

摘要

总统就职演讲是其美国政治生活的重要组成部分。通过就职演讲，当选领导人传递政治意图，并借此塑造积极的政治形象。因此，研究美国总统的就职演说具有重要的语言意义和政治意义。本文以多位具有代表性的美国总统的就职演说为研究材料，利用语力-动态模型，通过研究演讲者说话的语气、词句的变化，以及关注听众相关的反应，挖掘演讲者所采用的的言语行为，及其对受话者的影响。本研究发，指令性的言语行为是美国总统在其演讲中最常使用的，因为这类言语行为可以最直接明了地表述他们的真正目的和要求。其次，在语音方面，他们惯用重音。在最后，在句法层面，美国总统倾向于采用排比句式以及一些特殊的句式来增强语气，强调主题。

关键词：就职演说 言语行为 语力 语力-动态模型

Abstract

Presidents’ inaugural speech is an important part of American political life. Through inaugural speeches, presidents convey their own political intentions and create positive political images. Therefore, it is of great linguistic and political significance to study the inaugural speeches of American presidents. This paper takes the inaugural speeches of many representative American presidents as the research materials, uses the model of illocutionary force-dynamics to explore the speech acts adopted by the speakers and their influence on the listeners by studying the speakers’ tones, words and expressions, and paying attention to the relevant responses of listeners. In this study, firstly, we find that directive speech acts are the most frequently used speech acts by American leaders, because this kind of speech act can most directly express leaders’ real purposes and requirements. Secondly, at the phonetic level, presidents prefer to use stress. Finally, at the syntactic level, American presidents tend to use parallelism and some special syntactic structures to enhance their moods and highlight the themes.

Key words: inaugural address  speech acts  illocutionary force  illocutionary force-dynamics

Contents

Chapter One  Introduction 1

1.1  Purpose of This Thesis 1

1.2  Structure of This Thesis 1

1.3  Research Methods of This Thesis 2

Chapter Two  Literature Review 3

2.1  Previous Studies on English Inaugural Speech 3

2.2  Limitations of the Previous Studies on English Inaugural Speeches 4

Chapter Three  Theoretical Framework 6

3.1  The Speech Act Theory 6

3.2  Illocutionary Force 7

3.3  Illocutionary Dynamics-Force 7

Chapter Four  Illocutionary Forces of Speech Acts in American 

Presidents’ Inaugural Addresses 9

4.1  Illocutionary Forces of Speech Acts in American Presidents’ Inaugural

Addresses at the Lexical Level 9

4.2  Illocutionary Forces of Speech Acts in American Presidents’ Inaugural

Addresses at the Phonetic Level 17

4.3  Illocutionary Forces of Speech Acts in American Presidents’ Inaugural

Addresses at the Syntactic Level 20

4.3.1 The Use of Parallel Structure in Let us... 21

4.3.2 The Use of Parallel Structure in We will… 22

Chapter Five  Conclusion 24

Bibliography

Acknowledgements