Stylistics is a branch of linguistics, which applies the theory and methodology of modern linguistics to the study of style and aims at revealing the expressive effect and the communicative function of language in specific context. It is necessary to discuss and analyze graduation speeches as a kind of public speech for speech study. This thesis attempts to analyze graduation speeches from different levels, applying the theories and methodology of General Stylistics and General Linguistics with the selection of four graduation speeches of top US universities, hoping that it will play an important role in writing speeches and improving English learners'oral English.Taking the selected four graduation speeches of top US universities as corpora, this thesis mainly analyzes and concludes the stylistic features from graphological, lexical, syntactic and rhetoric levels with the method combining quantitative and qualitative analysis through analyzing data and forms.This thesis attempts to help readers understand the linguistic and stylistic characteristics deeply, and make more and more people grasp this style to encourage our graduate students to contribute to society in their future lives.
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