文体学正文分析(共14页)

1、精选优质文档-倾情为你奉上 摘 要 文体分析是建立在语言描写基础之上的。 语言描写在特定社会情境中所产生的表达效果和交际功能是通过特定的语音、词汇、句法特征和语义结构予以体现的。 演讲作为公众场合的一种活动，其语言的应用决定了一场演讲的成败。演讲的语言风格较为正式，但是为了能使一场演讲成功，其语言风格不能太僵硬也不能太亲密。本文语音、词汇、句法这个方面来分析 美国总统尼克松在一场宴会的演讲。旨在通过研究这次演讲的内容总结出演讲的语言特征，从而为各界人士在准备演讲时提供参考。T Contents1 Introduction.32 Theoretical Foundation.42.1 The d

2、efination of stylistics. .42.2 The linguistic features of stylistic.63 Introduction to Public speaking.83.1 Introduction to Publish speaking.83.2 .The feature of public speaking.84 Stylistic Analysis of public speaking .94.1Analysis of public speaking at the Syntactic Level .94.2Analysis of public s

3、peaking at the Lexical Level.114.3Analysis of the poem at the phonological Level.13Conclusion.16 1 IntroductionPublic speaking utilizes a variety of language which is directed towards a specific event or topic .In its broad sense , public speaking includes many types such as reli-gious sermons , lec

4、tures at universities , political speeches delivered at public meetings , radio and TV talks etc .In its narrow sense , public speaking only refers to the speech made at public meetings .Hereafter , in this essay , public speaking is accordingly discussed in its narrow sense .For the sake of conveni

5、ence , public speaking and public speech are roughly used interchangeably .As an example , I will take ” The Speech by Presi-dent Nixon of the United States at the Welcoming Ban-quet” (delivered on Feb .21 , 1972 on his first visit to China)to study its syntax , vocabulary , phonology and the rhetor

6、ical device。 2 Theoretical Foundation2.1 The defination of stylistics Stylistic is a branch of linguistics which studies style in a scientific and systematic way concerning manners/linguistic features of different varieties of language at different levels.2.2 The linguistic features of stylistic 2.2

7、.1 The Phonological feature Phonology is used in this book to refer to the system of speech sounds in language, which includes the following aspects: elision, the omission of a sound or sounds in speech; sound symbolism, the symbolic meaning of sounds; sound patterning, the matching of identical or

8、similar sounds between two or more words; rhyme, the repetition of identical end sounds; rhythm, the flow of sounds and their rise and fall, and their accents and pauses;pause, brief interruption of the articulatory process which includes silent pause - silent breaks between words, and filled pause

9、gaps，which are filled by such expressions as um, er, ah; stress：the pronunciation of a word or syllable with more force than the surrounding words or syllables; tempo, the speed of speaking; intonation patterns, patterns of utterance usually expressed by variations in pitch, loudness, syllable lengt

10、h, and speech rhythm; alliteration, the repetition of an initial sound in two or more words that occur close together; assonance, the repetition of internal vowel sounds in successive words; consonance, partial or total identity of consonants in successive words or syllables whose man vowels differ;

11、 onomatopoeia, words containing sounds similar to the noises they describe; pitch, the relative height of speech sounds as perceived by a listener.2.2.2 The Graphological featureGraphology is used in this book to refer to the writing forms, and the signs used in a text, which includes the following

12、aspects: punctuation,the use of punctuation marks; capitalization, the use of capital letters; paragraphing, the way in which a text is divided into paragraphs; italics, words leaning to the right; format of printing, the general arrangement of the printing forms; graphic signs, size or shape of let

13、ters, tables, pictures, diagrams, drawings, type style, etc; spelling ：normal or deliberate misspelling.2.2.3 The Lexical featureLexis is used in this book to refer to the choice of words, which includes the following aspects: general or specific ( superordinate or subordinate; Anglo-Saxon or Latina

14、te; conceptual or associative (denotative or connotative); monosyllabic or polysyllabic; descriptive or evaluative; formal or informal; standard or non-standard;dynamic or static; vulgar or euphemistic; favorable or unfavorable; Archaic or neologism; common or rare; abstract or concrete.2.2.4 The Sy

15、ntactic featureSyntax is used in this book to refer to rules for ordering and connecting words into sentences. The syntactic categories include the following aspects: sentence type simple or multiple, major or minor, periodic or loose, etc; sentence length, in number of words;sentence complexity;coo

16、rdination/subordination/parataxis;noun phrases;clause types, SV, SVA, SVO, SVOA, SVC, SVOO, SVOC, finite/nonfinite, verbless,independent/dependent; phrase types, NP, VP, AdjP, AdvP, PrepP; grammatical constructions, comparative or superlative, coordinative or cataloguing, parenthetical,etc; word ord

17、er, normal or inverted, etc; tenses, the prevailing tense, simple or complicate, etc; voices, active or passive; grammaticality, grammatical or nongrammatical.2.2.5 Semantic featureSemantics is used in this book to refer to the meaning of words, expressions, etc,and by what means the meaning is conv

18、eyed from the addresser to the addressee.Here, our concern is mainly the rhetorical devices, especially figures of speech,which can be roughly divided into eight types: figures of comparison, figures of replacement, figures of repetition, figures of contrast/juxtaposition, figures of double meaning,

19、 figures of reverse meaning, figures of resemblance, figures of omission. 3.Introduction to Public speaking3.1 Introduction to Public speaking Public speaking utilizes a variety of language which is directed towards a specific event or topic .In its broad sense , public speaking includes many types

20、such as reli-gious sermons , lectures at universities , political speeches delivered at public meetings , radio and TV talks etc3.2 The feature of public speaking Pubic speaking has syntactic , lexical, phonological and rhetorical features.The stylistic features of public speaking can be summarized

21、as follows:The language used in public speaking is formal .Public speaking requires that the language and style be stan-dard and neither too frozen nor too intimate .The use of rhetoric devices makes a speech effective and convincing . 4.Stylistic Analysis of public speakig4.1Analysis of public spea

22、kig at the Syntactic Level Compared with other varieties of English , the lan-guage of public speaking is more formal .The seriousness of the speaker' s attitude is revealed in this formality .On the other hand , the language used in public speaking is less formal than that of legal documents an

23、d scientific English .Public speaking is a variety that is between spo-ken language and written language .A speech is usually written beforehand and the speaker just recites it from memory or alternatively reads the written speech .Here we can assume that the syntax of public speaking is more compli

24、cated than that of conversation and scientific Eng-lish .Nixon' s speech consists of 11 paragraphs , 32 sen-tences , 607 words .The average number of words in each paragraph is 55 .18 .Additionally , on average , there are 18 .97 words in each sentence .The longest sentence in this speech contai

25、ns 69 words while the shortest contains only three .According to linguistic statistics , the average number of words in each written English sentence is 17 .6 (Wang Zuoliang 1987 :230).From this we can deduce that in public speeches , the sentences are somewhat longer than the average standard .In c

26、onversation , the av-erage number of words in each sentence is below 10 . Table 1 shows the length of sentences in Nixon' s speech :Words in each SentenceNumber of SentencePercentageLess than 10928.125%10-158 25%16-203 9.375%21-307 21.875%31-403 9.375%More than 4026.25%Total32 100% Table 1Senten

27、ce structure in public speaking is generally more complex than that in other varieties of English .In-complete sentences are very common in conversation .But in public speeches sentences are quite complete and grammatical .Among the 32 sentences in Nixon' s speech , 17 of them are complex senten

28、ces which make up 53 . 125 %, while compound and complex -compound sen-tences make up 15 .625 %.Simple sentences make up 31 .125 %.Table 2 shows the sentence structure in Nixon' s speech .Sentence TypeNumberPercentageSimple Sentence1031.25%Complex Sentence1753 .125 %Complex -Compound Sentence39

29、.375%Compound26 .25%Total32100% Table 2Various tenses are used in public speaking .Gener-ally , the present tense is the most common form .The use of other tenses depends on what the speaker is talking about .That is to say , whether he speaks about the past , present or future .In Nixon' s spee

30、ch , there are 68 verb forms (excluding infinitives), of which 53 are in simple present tense .Other tenses are used less often than the simple present tense .Table 3 shows the tenses used in Nixon' s speech .TensesNumberPercentageSimple Present Tense5377.94%Simple Past Tense45 .88%Present Perfe

31、ct Tense57 .35%Present Continuous Tense11 .47%Future Tense57 .35%Total68100% Table3In public speaking , the use of nominal groups is very complicated .The determiners are put both before and after the head words .But in the majority of cases the determiners are put after the head words .This increas

32、es the complexity of nominal groups .For example , 13 at-tributive clauses are used in Nixon' s speech .In public speaking , declarative sentences are often employed .This is because the speaker aims at impressing the audience and persuading them to do what he advo-cates .Declarative sentences a

33、re quite effective for this purpose .Of course , other sentence types are also used , such as imperative sentences , interrogative sentences and inverted sentences etc .Take Nixon' s speech as an exam-ple , he used several imperative sentences .Such as “So , let us , in these next five days , st

34、art a long march togeth-er , not in lockstep , but on different roads leading to the same goal .”Interrogative sentences are also used in Nixon' s speech .For example , “What is the world ?” “What lega-cy shall we leave for our children ?”Inversion is also used in this speech .For example , “Nev

35、er have I heard Ameri-can music played better in a foreign land .”4.2 Analysis of public speakig at the Lexical LevelVocabulary used in public speaking is quite formal . The length of words also increases .Consequently , in public speaking , “big words” are used extensively .For example , in Nixon&#

36、39; s speech there are 147 words that con-tain more than six letters .This constitutes 24 .21 %of the total number of words .There are 91 words that contain more than seven letters .This makes up 14 .99 % of the total .In conversation , commentary and advertisement , words of more than 6 letters onl

37、y make up less than 20 % of the total .(Wang Zuoliang 1987 :235)Obviously the ratio of long words in public speaking is higher than that of other varieties mentioned previously .The longest word in this speech contains 18 letters .A number of very for-mal words that seldom appear in daily conversati

38、on are employed in public specking .Just cite a few as an exam-ple , Nixon used the following words in his speech “distin-guished , incomparable , hospitality , legacy , magnificent , immeasurably , transcend , compromise , lockstep , plague etc .”The use of these words contributes significantly to

39、the formality of the style .It gives the audience an impres-sion that the speaker is serious about the topic .The use of formal words also makes the speaker sound more con-vincing .Another tendency in the diction of public speaking is the replacement of verbs with nouns and the substitution of adjec

40、tives for nouns .For instance ,the sentence “ At this very moment through the wonder of telecommunica-tions ” ,The noun phrase “the wonder of telecommunica-tions ,is a replacement of the adjectival phrase “ wonderful telecommunications” .It is obvious that abstract words are frequently used in Nixon

41、' s speech .For example , “ hospitality , frank-ness , difference , greatness” , etc .The use of abstract words is due to the fact that the speaker often talks about some abstract doctrines or ideals .The use of abstract words increases the formality of the speech and makes the speech sound loft

42、y and convincing .Another feature of public speaking is the frequent use of personal pronouns .The first person , both singular form and plural form , is extensively used .The second person is also very often used .But the third person sel-dom appears in public speaking .During the course of the spe

43、ech , the speaker has to mention himself from time to time .It is only natural for him to use “ I” and “me” . “We” or “us” are very helpful words in public speaking . As “we” includes both the speaker and the listeners and the use of “we” and “us” indicates that the speaker puts himself “in the same

44、 boat”with the listeners .To be more exact , the use of “we” and “us” shows clearly that the speaker is on the side of his audience .This shortens the distance between the speaker and the audience so that it arouses the audience' s affirmative feelings and sympathet-ic responses .Further more ,

45、“we” is a mild way of re-questing and commanding .The speaker calls upon his lis-teners by using “we” .In Nixon' s speech , 40 personal pronouns are used .“I (me)” , “we (us)” are used 34 times .The use of “we” and “us” makes up 60 % of the total .4.3Analysis of public speakig at the Phonologica

46、l LevelMany phonological devices such as prosody , intona-tion , rhyming , assonance , alliteration etc .are employed in public speaking to intensify the effect .Though a speech is delivered orally , it differs greatly from conversa-tion .All the words are spelt and said in their complete forms .Abb

47、reviations of words and elisions of sounds rarely appear in public speaking .Take Nixon' s speech as an example , such words as “we have , we will , cannot , let us , there is” are not spelt and said as “we' ve , we' ll , can' t , let' s , there' s ” .The absence of abbreviat

48、ions and elisions maintains the formality of style .Alliteration is employed in Nixon ' s speech to achieve the beauty of sound .For instance , “Mr .Prime Minister , I wish to thank you for your very gracious andeloquent remarks .At this very moment through the won-der of telecommunications , mo

49、re people are seeing and hearing what we say than on any other such occasion in the whole history of the world .Yet , what we say here will not be long remembered .What we do here can change the world .”In this short paragraph , the sound /w/ is repeat-ed 11 times .When reading the speech we find th

50、at it is very rhythmical .Rhythmic speech is easy to read and pleasing to the ears .This can be easily recognized in Nixon' s speech .Take the third paragraph as an example , “As you said in your toast , the Chinese people are a great people , the American people are a great people .If our two peo-ples are enemies the future of this world we share together is dark indeed .But if we can find common ground to work together , the chance for world peace is immeasur-ably increased .”There is a pleasant rh