Abstract：The thesis studies Barack Obama’s re-election victory speech delivered in Chicago on November 7, 2012 at phonological level, graphological level, lexical level, syntactic level and semantic level. Obama’s speech was delivered in a slow speed with frequent use of alliteration method. The proper punctuation of this speech made its structure clear. Meanwhile, few hard words could be found while the first and second pronouns were often used. In his speech, Obama employed long sentences and short sentences and the latter was adopted regularly. At the same time, the frequent application of parallelism and antithesis enhanced the mood of speech. This study helps to master Barack Obama’s speaking style and has a certain practical value to improve our speech skills.
Key words: Barack Obama re-election victory speech stylistic analysis
摘要：本文从语音、语相、词汇、句法以及语义等语言描述层面对美国总统奥巴马连任胜选演讲辞的文体特征进行了研究。研究表明，奥巴马在演讲中，语速较慢，多用头韵；停顿得当，层次清晰；难词较少，多用第一和第二人称；短句较多，长短句交替使用；以排比和对偶见长，善于抒情和加强语势。本研究对于认识和了解奥巴马的演讲技巧与风格有一定的积极意义，同时对于提高人们的英文演讲水平有一定的实践价值。
关键词: 奥巴马；连任胜选演讲辞；文体学分析
Public speech refers to a continuous speech delivered by a public speaker before a large audience about his systematic suggestions and propositions in spoken language with the help of facial expressions, body gestures and strong emotions, and its purpose is to move, inspire, encourage, persuade the audience or even teach them something (Lucas, 2004:9).
Public speaking has been an important way of communication in people’s life throughout history of western civilization. Some first-rate politicians in American history, such as Martin Luther King Jr., Lincoln and Kennedy, were very good at public speaking. As a special style in literature, public speech, especially the state leaders’, has its own style of writing. It is not different only from daily conversation and spoken form but also from the written literature such as novel, drama and poetry. To a large extent, public speech shares the characteristics of oral language and written language, but there are glaring differences. In many cases, they are more formal and serious than daily conversation. The sentences are more complicated and the content is more logical. However, compared with the written language, public speech concerns about the audience’s feedback and relies on skillful oral delivery.
