文体学

论文题目：从文体学视角浅析《我有一个梦》

学院：外国语学院

专业：_ 外国语言学及应用语言学

学号： 31005065 姓名：__ 李璐

指导老师：_ 白梦璇

A Stylistic Analysis of I Have a Dream

Introduction

Different scholars define stylistics in different ways. Wales defines stylistics as the study of the style simply, while Widdowson gives a further explanation, “by stylistics, I mean the study of literary discourse from a linguistic orientation and I shall take the view that what distinguishes stylistics from literary criticism on the one hand and linguistics on the other is that it is essentially a means of linking the two.” Leech considers stylistics “a meeting ground of linguistics and literary study.” From what they say, we can see that stylistics is an inter-disciplined branch of learning which takes discourse as its object of the study and uses linguistics as a means to that end. The task of the stylistics is to observe and describe the language features of the discourse, which are grammatical, lexical, phonological and semantic features. Of all aspects of public speaking, persuasion is the most complex and difficult. Its job is to change the audience‟s minds-to get them agree and perhaps to act. Its goal may be to defend an idea, to refute an opponent, to sell a programme, or to inspire people to action.

On August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King, delivered the famous speech I Have a Dream at the demonstration which a quarter of million people of all races came to Washington, D. C., to show their support for freedom and justice for all Americans, and for black people in particular. This speech is widely regarded as the most eloquent statement of the black people‟s dreams and aspirations ever made.It is an example of formal English with a convincing style. This paper will analyze this famous speech I Have a Dream from stylistics in grammatical, lexical, phonological and semantic aspects.

Chapter 1 A Stylistic Analysis of I Have a Dream 1.1 Grammatical Features

1.1.1 Variation in Sentence Length

We know that casual speech tends to use short sentences. However, the sentences vary much in length in King‟s speech I Have a Dream.

There are in all 77 sentences and 1675 words. The sentences of 1 to 9 words are 13, taking up 16.9% in total sentences; 10 to 19 words 27 taking up 35.1%; 20 to 29 words 23 taking up 30.1%; 30 to 39 words 7 taking up 30.1%; more than 40 words 5 taking up 6.5%. The average length is 27.15 words per sentence, which is much longer than that (8 words) of causal conversation. It is clear that the distinguish features is using long sentences in this speech. From the viewpoint of communication, public speech has its own characteristics of seriousness and reliability. Using long sentence can increase the coherence and solemnity and help the lecture to show their feelings and emphasize the content.

1.1.2 Various Sentence Types

As public speeches are intend to inform, to persuade, and to appeal, most sentences are statements and imperative sentence. In this speech, King uses more than 12 imperative sentences, introduced by let, as is shown in it:

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that some how this situation can and will be changed.

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

The sentence uses present tense in speech usually. In this speech, King uses the past tense and the perfect tense except the present tense. These sentence types reflect unfair treatment and the Blacks in this time and reviewing the past to cherish the