就职演说的文体分析.docVIP

A General Stylistic Analysis of the Inaugural Address of Gorge Bush, the 41st President of the United States of America, on January 20, 1989 UNITY, DIVERSITY AND GENEROSITY Abstract: (omitted) Key words: (omitted) 黄中军 Introduction From the Stylistics point of view, the inaugural address of the president elect falls into the category of Public speech, which is more formal than everyday conversation, extemporaneous speech and advertisement but less formal than legal English and English for science and technology (EST). From the communication point of view it falls between spoken and written English. Therefore the inaugural address of the president has the characteristics of both spoken and written English. It uses a lot of big words and abstract nouns and is usually polite in tone, formal in style and complicated in sentence structure. In addition, the addresser often employs a wide variety of rhetorical devices so as to add a striking effect to it. Linguistic analysis A. Lexical style markers Like most inaugural addresses of the president elect, the address delivered by Mr. Gorge Bush also employs a lot of big words. For instance, among the 1378 words (in the selected parts) there are 256 words containing more than 6 letters, occupying 22 percent of the total. But in every day conversation, extemporaneous speech and advertisement the percentage is usually lower than 20 percent. Another characteristic is the employment of many abstract nouns, which can make the speech sound more formal and profound, make the addresser sound more serious and erudite and make the audience have more confidence in the speaker. In the speech of Gorge Bush it is not hard to find so many such words. Here I just want to list some of them as an example: unity, diversity, generosity, expression, continuity, democracy, difference, continuance, freedom, action, prosperity, satisfaction, liberty, justice, engagement, peace, dissension, harmony