葛底斯堡演讲(“The Gettysburg Address”)的文体分析

A Brief Stylistic Analysis of “The Gettysburg Address”

Delivered by Abraham Lincoln

(By WangGang of Grade 2008)

Dec 2011

I Introduction (3)

II The Phonological Features (3)

III The Lexical Features (4)

IV The Syntactic/Grammatical Features (5)

V The Semantic Features (5)

VI Conclusion (6)

A Brief Stylistic Analysis of “The Gettysburg Address”

Delivered by Abraham Lincoln

I Introduction

Public speech is the process of speech to a group of people in a structured, deliberate manner intended to inform, influence, or entertain the listeners. There are mainly three types of speeches for people to address--- informative speech, Persuasive Speeches and Ceremonial Speeches.

Informative speech: The purpose of an informative speech is to teach the audience a small but useful tidbit of information. If your speech is a success, the audience will walk away with some new knowledge.

Persuasive Speeches: The purpose is a persuasive speech is to change people's minds or behavior about something. This is a very difficult thing to do. For a persuasive speech to be truly effective, it's not enough to simply present your arguments in an eloquent way. You need to actually get the audience to change their minds.

Ceremonial Speeches: A ceremonial speech is one that is given to mark an important occasion in someone's life, such as a graduation speech, a wedding toast, or a eulogy at a funeral. These speeches can be both emotionally moving and fun.

This linguistic description is about the analysis of The Gettysburg Address. The Gettysburg Address is a speech by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln and is one of the most well-known speeches in United States history.[1] It was delivered by Lincoln during the American Civil War, on the afternoon of Thursday, November 19, 1863, at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, four and a half months after the Union armies defeated those of the Confederacy at the Battle of Gettysburg. Abraham Lincoln's carefully crafted address, secondary to other presentations that day, came to be regarded as one of the greatest speeches in American history. In just over two minutes, Lincoln invoked the principles of human equality espoused by the Declaration of Independence and redefined the Civil War as a struggle not merely for the Union, but as "a new birth of freedom" that would bring true equality to all of its citizens, ensure that democracy would remain a viable form of government, and would also create a unified nation in which states' rights were no longer dominant.

II The Phonological Features

Many speeches use parallelism and antithesis to make langue be with the rhythm