美国总统奥巴马演讲词修辞格分析_英文_

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SCIENCE &TECHNOLOGY INFORMATION 2011年第11期Analysis on Rhetoric in President Barack

Obama ’s Speech

美国总统奥巴马演讲词修辞格分析

王钰潼

（黑龙江八一农垦大学黑龙江大庆163319）

【Abstract 】Under the great background of globalization today,communications between China and America are more frequent,it becomes significant for us to gain a deeper understanding of American presidents'speech.Obama serves as an example for us to study in this aspect.Until now,most people have been studying his speech mainly through either Chinese translations of his speeches or interpretations by the media,conducted through perspectives which are by no means rhetorically informed.Considering the fact that what we are dealing with is political speech,it is high time that the rhetorical perspective be introduced into the process of interpreting Obama's political communication in its original context.Such a perspective will help us obtain a better approach of interpreting his speech.This thesis has widely selected the typical political speeches of president Obama in his Election Campaign process,and analyzed three main rhetorical methods in political speech:simile,metaphor and metonymy.

Figure of speech is an expression that departs from the accepted literal sense or from the normal order of words,or in which an emphasis is produced by patterns of sound.It is an especially important resource of poetry;it is also constantly present in all other kinds of speech and writing.The figure of speech is commonly used in political speech.In this part of the thesis the author will analyze three main types of figures in Obama ’s speech:Simile,metonymy and Metaphor.

【Key words 】Obama ；S peech ；R hetorical analysis

A simile is a figure of speech that indirectly compares two different

things by employing the words “like ”,“as ”,or “than ”.Even though

similes and metaphors are both forms of comparison,similes indirectly

compare the two ideas and allow them to remain distinct in spite of their

similarities.The word “simile ”came from Latin word “similis ”,it means

“like ”or “as if ”,the use of this figure in English is almost the same as it

is used in Chinese.Simile is frequently used in Obama ’s speech:

(1)...America that shone as a beacon of freedom and opportunity to

so many who had come before.

(2)…Cutting the deficit by gutting our investments in innovation

and education are like lightening an overloaded airplane by removing its

engine.It may feel like you ’re flying high at first,but it won ’t take long

before you ’ll feel the impact.

By taking two things that don't have much in common and putting

them together,the simile forces us to imagine the situation in more vivid

and unconventional ways.The exaggeration inherent in most similes also

adds a certain force to the comparison,and makes us feel the power of

the thing or characteristic being compared.

In the speech metaphor is often used by the politicians to make their

speeches more convincing,president Obama is of course not an

exception.Single conceptual metaphor can also account for the semantic

coherence of a whole text and this is evident from an analysis of Obama's

inaugural address.

(3)...the rock of our family and the love of my life,our nation's next

first lady,Michelle Obama.

(4)The audacity of hop,In the end,that is God's greatest gift to us,

the bedrock of this nation.

From the above examples we can find that metaphor can make

abstract things become specific.From the analysis it is clear that the

source domains are closely related to our daily life and experience which

make these metaphors understandable and persuasive.Political metaphors

have such functions as filtering,persuasion,motivation,simplification and

bridge.Metaphors are deeply rooted in people's experience and the American culture.Therefore,it is not difficult to appeal to the emotions of the Americans so as to have a better understanding of the policies of the politicians.Metonymy may also be instructively contrasted with metaphor.Both figures involve the substitution of one term for another.In metaphor,this substitution is based on some specific similarity,whereas,in metonymy,the substitution is based on some understood association.The special structure of this figure makes it possible for speakers to make his speech simple and vivid.There are some examples below.(5)...it's that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers.(6)Its the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen …In these two example Obama use special subject to represent certain group of people or organization.In example (5),Wall Street symbolized great financial group while Main Street represent small business owner.In example (6),“lines that stretched around schools and churches ”symbolized the polling station where people can vote.This kind of figure makes the speech easier to understand and transfer more information with fewer words.As we can see metonymy,traditionally seen as a figure of speech,actually is a kind of cognitive mechanism by which people connect one thing in the world to another and this ability of association helps people draw inferences easily from implicit conversations.Metonymy as well as the former two figures is frequently used to achieve an effect of polishing the speech.From the above analysis we can see using rhetoric devices properly can not only persuade and encourage the audience effectively and increase the appeal of public speech,but also gain great vehemence of the speech and finally make the speech has a sense of history.［责任编辑：常鹏飞］

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