摘要

本文主要研究英语政治演说的文体特征。首先介绍文体学,政治演讲以及公众演讲的一些相关术语，然后从词汇、句法、语篇和修辞四个层面探讨了英语政治演讲的文体特征。最后在此基础上分析了英国首相丘吉尔关于希特勒入侵苏联的演说以及美国总统奥巴马的就职演说的文体特征。政治演讲中，演说者充分利用第一人称代词、富有感情色彩的形容词、多样的句式、丰富的修辞手法，使演说生动有力，充满激情并且富于鼓动性。该研究有拓宽英语公共演讲文体特征研究范围并且有助大学英语阅读与写作教学等意义。

关键词：政治演讲，文体特征，丘吉尔，奥巴马

Abstract

This thesis is a study on stylistic features of English political speeches. The essay first simply introduces the relevant terms: stylistics, political speech and public speech. Then it studies the stylistic features of political speech from four aspects of lexical choices, sentence pattern, textual modal and rhetorical device respectively. Finally, it analyses two typical cases: speech on Hitler’s invasion of the U.S.S.R from Churchill and American president Barack Obama’s inaugural address. The speakers make wonderful use of language skills, including the first-person plural, adjectives with emotional color, and variety of sentences and rhetorical devices, to make their speeches vivid, forceful and effective. A stylistic study of the political address can broaden the scope of the stylistic study of the English public speaking as well as benefit the teaching of English reading and writing in colleges.

Key words: political speeches, stylistic features, Churchill, Obama

1. Introduction
English public political speaking is an important social-cultural phenomenon of the west. And westerners, especially the statesmen, pay much attention to it. It is one that the speaker, usually on behalf of a certain class, society, or party, makes to the public on some important matters and relationships at home and abroad. It is easy to find that most political speeches share some common stylistic features.
Stylistics is a branch of linguistics that studies language style and texts of different styles are marked by correspondingly stylistic features. Stylistic analysis is focused on the analysis of language that reflects the linguistic features in the text. The goal of most stylistics is not simply to describe the formal features of an article for their own sake, but in order to show their functional significance for the interpretation of the article.
Deep exploration and insights into the political speaking will be of great benefit not only to our English learning but also to our acquisition of practical public speaking skills. Now more and more scholars are studying the political speech in stylistic perspective as the result of the development of stylistic subject.