论奥巴马演讲的修辞风格—以第二任就职演讲为例_英语论文

An Analysis of Rhetoric Devices in Barack Obama’s Second Inaugural Address

摘要

每任新总统上任都要进行就职演说，目的就是表明自己的政治态度、立场，鼓舞并赢得观众的支持。总统就职演说以其显著的观点、精炼的语言和强大的雄辩力让人精神振奋。在美国总统的就职演说中，成败的关键之处就在此。本文从语言学角度，将英语中的修辞分为三类：词汇修辞格、句法修辞格以及语音修辞格，包括明喻、暗喻、排比、对偶、典故、头韵等等。本文以奥巴马在第二任就职演说的精彩演讲为例，来体现修辞的生动和有趣，让读者运用修辞手法更深层次地理解总统就职演说。

关键词：第二任就职演说；修辞；暗喻

Abstract

As a new president’s inaugural speech, its purpose is to show its political stance, to inspire and win support of audiences. Presidential inaugural address has a sharp and obvious point, refined language and the power of persuasion, making people inspiring and encouraging. Rhetoric in the inaugural speech of the President of the United States plays an extremely important role, which is a key to influencing the success or failure of the inaugural address. In this paper, from the perspective of linguistics, rhetoric in English can be divided into three categories: lexical stylistic devices, syntactical stylistic devices and phonetic stylistic devices, including simile, metaphor, parallelism, antithesis, allusion, alliteration, and so on. Based on the analysis of Obama’s second inaugural address, this thesis has provided deep-seated penetration into inaugural address by dint of rhetoric devices. In addition, it has also reflected the rhetoric devices vividly and interestingly, and make readers have more deeply understanding of the presidential inauguration.

Key words: second inaugural address; rhetoric devices; metaphor

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 1

2.1 Text Characteristic in English Speech 1

2.2 Rhetoric in English Political Speech 2

2.3 Previous Studies about Rhetoric 2

3. The Introduction of Rhetoric and Inaugural Address 3

3.1 The Introduction of Rhetoric 3

3.2 An Introduction of Inaugural Address 5

4. The Analysis of Rhetoric in Obama’s Second Inaugural Address 6

4.1 Lexical Stylistic Devices 7

4.2 Phonetic Stylistic Devices 9

4.3 Syntactical Stylistic Devices 10

5. Conclusion 12

Works Cited.   13