文体学作业打印

《英语文体学导论》期末考查论文：（美国总统奥巴马9月8日开学演讲）文体分析

班级：09英2 学号：200903101203 姓名：钱从雪This is President Obama’s famous speech given to the students in Wakefield High school and I like it very much. It’s inspiring, motivating, moving, and amazing. Now let’s appreciate it from the stylistic view.

As to lexicology: This is a speech addressed new students in Wakefield High school and due the special features of the listeners, the relationship between the speaker (president) and listeners (mainly Ss), their power relations, etc, this speech is specialized and easy to understand, the words are very simple but the structure is often complex. For example,“And no matter what…”(para2 p1), here the vocabulary is easy to follow while the structure compared with this appears a little complex. Besides, most of pronouns are fist and second person (to make the relation close) and only when the speaker refers to some examples (such as his mother, his wife or some successful people) to inspire the Ss, the third person occurs. And because the speaker’s purpose is to inspire and motivate Ss to work hard, the wards are closely related to daily life, the voice is kind and gentle, but in order to stand for his country he speaks every word with proud and honor. Especially when he says “everybody go ahead and have a seat”he shows his consideration and meanwhile everyone feel the power and authority he owns because he

doesn’t need to add the word“please…”like others. This sentence is very powerful and makes us clear about the power relation between the speaker and the listens even the speaker doesn’t intend to do that. Another example is “no one’s written…you make your future” (the last para, p3), from these two powerful sentences we can also feel the speaker’s love and proud of his country. The words he chooses to use and utter really stand for his social status and the power relationship. And he also loves the Ss, so the words are also very encouraging, and passionate. For example,“I’m …to discuss with …to talk with you.”, these two phrases “talk with”and “discuss with”can also show the President’s love and consideration for them.

As to syntax: this speech is organized very well with both long sentences and short sentences. For example, when the speaker tries to persuade the Ss to work hard he says“maybe you ..even… but..”(the last but two para, p2). And this long sentence provides with the detailed and vivid description and also well reveals the mental activities of the speaker to show his consideration for Ss. And the short sentences are also well used such as“there is no excuse for not trying”“you’ve got to practice” to produce a direct, terse, concise, and clear effect (the speaker’s expectation) and to leave a deep impression on the listeners and create a serious atmospheres.

Besides, there are so many parallelisms：“I’m here…”(the last para in

p1)”“there were the time when…(para 5 p3)“I’ve talked…but at the end …”(page2). Among these, the first one clearly expresses the speaker’s purpose of coming; the second strongly express his lonely and sad emotion; the last to list what he has talked about, the things are coherent and clearly expressed and following reinforces the former and finally creates the climax. Other examples can be found in p5 p5 and p4 p4 to express emotion and emphasize.

Furthermore, some contrasts and loose sentences(page5) are used well such as“you can’t… you have to”(p3 p5)“asking…isn’t…it’s…”(p5 p5) to express the speaker’s opinion and to emphasize and we can also find that some periodic sentences (para 6 p5) are used to achieve this goal. Lastly, to emphasize the importance of Ss’ hard word and to highlight the initial part, the speaker uses some inverted sentences (p5 p2 and p1 p5); and in order to emphasize Ss’responsibility, the speakers uses a lot of rhetorical questions in para2 (the last page), which expresses his strong love and responsibility for his country.

As to phonology and graphology, the speech is patterned in rhyme and good to read. Consonance (creativity and ingenuity in p1 p3) and alliteration (what you … where you… in the last but one para in p3) are used to help achieve the effect.

As to semantics, in order to let people both at that situation and not understand him and less confused, the speaker uses a lot of endophoras

especially anaphoras (she-mother\wife, he-Losaltos…p2 p4) to refer to the person, the things talked above. In this speech, the most frequently used conjunction word is “and” to express the speaker’s thoughts and to link the different parts; some words, for example,“responsibility”is repeated several times; some collocation (such as poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination in p1 p3) are used to link the meanings related. And also in the beginning of this speech, the word “you” are used to substitute the word“everybody”, and three“thank you”are repeated to express the speaker’s feeling. And when we further take the text structure of this speech into consideration, that is a short introduction to the main issue or issued concerned (education), the declaration of speaker’s attitude (supporting and concerning); the listing, reasoning, and explaining (measures taken, examples related to other’s successes); and the conclusion (Ss should take their responsibility), we can conclude that the speaker uses proper words in this certain situation by giving a fantastic speech to realize his communicating purpose. He succeeds in doing that, because as one of the readers I’m deeply moved and strongly encouraged by his passionate and powerful words to work very very hard.