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A Rhetoric of Persuasion in English Political Speeches

Author: WangLin
Tutor: WangZhiWei
School: Zhengzhou University
Course: English Language and Literature
Keywords: Rhetoric Persuasion Persuasion strategy Political speech
CLC: H019
Type: Master's thesis
Year: 2008
Downloads: 177
Quote: 0
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Abstract

Rhetoric originated from the Greek \Greek, \Aristotle's rhetoric defined as \Although modern rhetoric covers a broader area, but the core of the rhetoric still persuade. Rhetoric originated in lectures, guiding speech, speech reflects the nature of the rhetoric. Political speech, as an important form of speech, because its main purpose is to convince the audience to take action in accordance with the expectations of the speaker, to completely change or weaken audience attitudes or beliefs of a problem, so it's more persuasion efforts. Therefore, this paper Isocrates, Plato and Aristotle Western classical rhetorical theory as a guide analysis of the rhetoric of persuasion in political speech, political speech as a rhetorical behavior instance, with an emphasis on political speech often use persuasion Policy. The papers by a description of the theory of Western rhetoric, trying to find out and summarized in political speech rhetoric of persuasion, and this case study, summed up the political speech powerful persuasion strategy rely mainly on the following two means: by using parallelism, repetition, simile, metaphor, alliteration, dual loop, rhetorical interrogative layer into exaggerated rhetorical; through rational resorting credibility (speech to prove to the audience), emotional resorting to evoke emotional responses induced by the desire (in the audience) and character of resorting to establish the credibility of the speakers (to the audience) three to resort to the means to achieve. These two strategies can make a political speech language vivid, full of rhythm, the audience is impressed, is a powerful means of persuasion essential political speech. In this thesis, ten American presidential inaugural address in 1949 to 2001 and 2008 five U.S. presidential campaign speech as a sample, and quantitative analysis of the rhetoric of persuasion political speech, with the aim of further study of these persuasion strategies in political speeches Application. By statistical analysis of the frequency of use of these persuasion strategies, the paper found: Each inauguration speech, parallelism, repetition, alliteration three most frequently used persuasion strategies, at least ten times Each campaign speech at least twenty times; exaggerated the lowest frequency of use, an average of less than once. Second, the political speeches to persuade rhetorical strategies chosen mainly depends on the purpose of the speech. If the purpose of political speech is to persuade the audience and to change its stance in favor of the speaker, then the speaker will be strong rhetorical strategies to enhance speech persuaded; political speech based on some common interests, does not involve strong political conflict, then the speaker will tend to use relatively peaceful means of persuasion, and efforts to establish a harmonious and friendly relations and the audience.

A Rhetoric of Persuasion in English Political Speeches

Abstract

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