ThePersuasivePowerofyouinPublicSpeeches-文档资料

1、The Persuasive Power of you in Public Speeches【】One of the features of the public speech is to move and persuade the audience into accepting the speaker s viewpoints. This article focuses on investigating how a purposeful choice of pronoun you in a specific context can help the achievements of persu

2、asive power in public speeches.【Keyword】 persuasion ； public speech ； youIntroductionPersuasion is the process by which a speaker gets the audience to think or believe what he does or to get the listeners to do certain things. The speaker tries to either reinforce or change the values ， attitudes or

3、 behavior of the audience. The only thing that matters in a persuasive speech is whether the speaker receives the desired response from the audience. Of all forms of public speaking，persuading other people is the most difficult and sophisticated (Benjamin Sevitch ， 2005 ) . There are many rhetorical

4、 proofs and strategies that are available to a speaker. And these techniques mainly are proved in the level of language.Having realized the importance of public speaking，many scholars have make a wide study of language in public speaking ， anyhow ， they focused on traditional grammar，or content of p

5、ublic speech ， or the genres of public speech and textual analysis of public speech etc. From the perspective of pragmatics ， we can analyze the application of personal pronoun you in public speech since it is one of the most effective approaches to achieve persuasive power.Personal Pronoun you in P

6、ersuasive Public SpeechThis part is to explore the pronoun you used in persuasive public speeches and its corresponding meaning. Firstly ， it is to study the meaning revealed by pronoun you. Then the analysis based on illustrations is given to examine the effect by expressing such meaning.In public

7、speaking ， the speaker usually uses the first personal pronoun and the second personal pronoun to denote the addresser and the addressed. Then the speech is like a direct conversation between the speaker and the audience. And it shortens the distance between them ， and helps establish friendly relat

8、ionship. In the following part ， the use of the second personal pronoun you will be analyzed pragmatically.1. You denoting the specific audience（1）Many Iraqis can hear me tonight in a translated radio broadcast ， and I have a message for them： If we must begin a military campaign ， it will be direct

9、ed against the lawless men who rule your country and not against youwewill deliver the food and medicine you need.we will help you to build a new Iraq. The day of your liberation is near. Do not fight for a dying regime that is not worth your own life. （W. Bush： Attack on Iraq ） In example（1）， W. Bu

10、sh was trying to direct their utterance towards the Iraqis to eliminate the common Iraqi people shostility to the US military forces. Additionally， bypromising a free and prosperous Iraq， they also tried tolure the Iraqis to betray their existing government and leader.2. generic youThe pronoun you i

11、s also used as an indefinite pronoun in some situations. As it does not refer to the addressee ， as its more typical use does， or any other person inparticular. But it still remains some of its second person meaning. Quirk et al （1985） point out this you can suggestthat the speaker is appealing to t

12、he hearers experienceof life in general as in （ 2）. And they call it “generic you”. It is also argued that you is what is referred to as a situationalinsertion ， the conversion of onesown personal experience into experiences which might be shared by the addressee.（2）But isn t it amazing how when you

13、 bring down inflation to a level far below what they said was possible they take it for granted that anyone could have done it. （ Thatcher ： Speech to Conservative Central Council）Although Mrs. Thatcher is describing her own achievements ， she is speaking to a specific audience ， the Central Council

14、 of the Conservative Party. Consequently ， any overt attempt to explicitly attribute responsibility to herself as an individual（by adopting the use of I），as opposed to attributing responsibility to the Government as a whole ， seems inappropriate. Nevertheless ， the subtle employment of anyone does s

15、uggest that you was actually intended to refer to Mrs. Thatcher herself.3. you denoting people in general（3）Finally ， whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world， ask of us the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. (Kennedys inaugural address )In this se

16、ntence ， you is employed for indefinite reference since the speaker is speaking about people in general ： the audience and all the absent. Here， by using you ， the speaker establishes a friendly communicational atmosphere and reflects upon a kind of conventional wisdom. Thus the audience s sense of

17、responsibility can be easily aroused.Part Three ConclusionPersonal pronominal choices indicate how theindividual speakerviews the world ， and how that speakermanipulates the meaning of pronouns in referring to themselves and to others in order to present a specific ideological perspective. This article demonstrates how the personal pronoun you assists to achieve persuasiveness in English persuasive speech. The second person pronouns are mostly employed to enforce the conversational atmosphere of the speech ， especially to arouse the feeling of the face-to-face neg