| The dissertation aims to offer a comprehensive study of topoi which assume the form of rhetorical appeals in persuasive texts in relation to classical theories of invention and audience.It attempts to substantiate the pertinence of theories of classical rhetoric to the construction of contemporary persuasive texts.It differentiates itself from the previous studies in that it,on the one hand,synthesized several Aristotle's rhetorical theories including his discussions on topoi,audience and invention and formed an organic chain among them and on the other hand first introduced a corpus-based study of topoi into U.S.Presidential campaign speeches.To be specific,the present research is devoted to a study of topoi in the form of rhetorical appeals proposed by Aristotle and Perelman in their topical system through a corpus-based analysis of American presidential campaign speeches.it aims at discovering the distribution of the rhetorical appeals in the coding scheme of the research,detecting the way these appeals are linguistically realized,exploring the design features of audience and Barack Obama's and John Mac Cain's audience awareness in rhetorical invention based on previous findings and eventually ascertaining the major contributor to the distribution and linguistic realization of these appeals.The questions it aims to answer are:1.What topoi,in the form of rhetorical appeals,in the coding scheme of the research can be discovered in Obama's and MacCain's presidential campaign speeches?2.How are these topoi in the form of rhetorical appeals distributed and linguistically realized in Obama's and Mac Cain's presidential campaign speeches?3.Why are these topoi distributed and linguistically realized in such a way as to be reflected in Obama's and MacCain's Presidential campaign speeches?4.What connection does classical rhetoric represented by Aristotelian rhetoric with its theories on topoi,invention and audience have with the construction of contemporary persuasive texts?The significance of the research manifests itself mainly in the following four aspects:Firstly,the dissertation stands out in that it pioneered the organic synthesis of three crucial components of Aristotelian rhetoric in the building of its research method and theoretical framework.Secondly,the study orients itself towards the substantiation of the pertinence of classical rhetoric to modern discourse construction.Thirdly,the research brings into reality a study of topoi from multiple perspectives and dimensions by incorporating a corpus-based research method into its domain.Fourthly,the paper's study of presidential rhetoric which stands out in its research scale,research method and research perspective propelled the research in the field to a new height.Regarding the research method,It is formed through an integration of the research methods of Lauer et al.(1985)and Molly Anthony& Kostyantyn Gladkov(2007).To be specific,the division of appeals is based on Lauer et al.(1985)while the corpus-based linguistic analysis of rhetorical appeals is referred to Molly Anthony& Kostyantyn Gladkov(2007).Corpus-based rhetorical appeals analysis is a top-down approach whose first step is to determine the set of possible discourse unit types based on a priori determination of the major communicative functions that discourse units can perform in texts.Once the analytical framework is set,it will then be applied to all texts in the intended corpus for comprehensive analysis.A total of 40 campaign speeches are segmented according to Aristotle's three inventional proofs of persuasion including rational appeals,credibility appeals and affective appeals.These three types of appeals are then categorized into 20 individual rhetorical appeals.The identification of the rhetorical appeals pervading each selected speech will automatically lead the research to a study of the way all appeals are distributed and the grounds for their distribution.Once issues concerning the distribution of rhetorical appeals are settled,the analysis will proceed to the most significant stage of the research,the linguistic description of appeals.In an attempt to examine the ways in which the rhetorical appeals are realized linguistically,the dissertation employed the Wordsmith program which comprises a sequence of procedures including wordlist,keyword,and concordance analyses.The completion of the linguistic description of discourse units,rhetorical appeals in our case,will eventually serve to suggest the rhetors' overall audience awareness supposed to guide and govern the use of rhetorical appeals.It was observed that both rhetors,Barack Obama and John MacCain applied a huge number of rhetorical appeals to their speeches in attempt to secure the smooth proceeding of their persuasion.A total of 1881 appeals from the two candidates' speeches serve to solidify the role of topoi in the form of rhetorical appeals in the construction of texts and the successful delivery of information to audience.The effects and significance of these appeals automatically manifest themselves particularly when directed towards the rhetors' audience.This is because both rhetors' heavy reliance on these rhetorical appeals is governed by their sound consideration of their respective audience.As a matter of fact,the differences in the distribution of rhetorical appeals between the two candidates largely stem from the variance in their interpretation of the specific qualities of audience.For a better exploration of the distribution and linguistical realization of rhetorical appeals,a comparative analysis was made between Obama and MacCain in their use of rhetorical appeals.Apart from revealing the specific ways rhetorical appeals are distributed and linguistically realized,both similarities and differences in the use of rhetorical appeals between the two candidates serve to consolidate the research finding that both candidates' use of rhetorical appeals is governed by their audience awareness.Both of them acknowledge the significance of rhetorical appeals in advancing their proposals.Secondly,the scheme of rhetorical appeals of both candidates is characterized with an uneven distribution.In other words,the emphasis they laid on the appeals is selective.And the differences arise out of the divergences in the approaches they adopt towards their audience.Thirdly,both of them attend to their audience with due care and attention,as manifested by the high-frequency words pointing directly to the primary concerns and expectations of the audience and the key words that are representative of the particular qualities of the rhetors' addressees.Fourthly,the linguistic devices they relied on heavily are illustrative of their delicate design in dealing with their audience.In other words,it is feasible to analyze the design features of audience by concentrating on these linguistic devices.Differences are also noticeable between Obama's and MacCain's speeches.Firstly,the total of 1881 appeals were unevenly distributed between the two candidates.Secondly,these 1851 appeals were not allocated on an equal footing among the 20 rhetorical appeals in the scheme in both candidates' campaign speeches.Thirdly,an imbalance of distribution can be witnessed in the three types of appeals.Fourthly,reflective of their personal preference,the degree of the emphasis placed by the two rhetors on each single appeals may differ.Based on the frequency of their occurrences,the words with large or relatively large number of tokens in selected appeals were examined from the perspective of the grammatical categories they belong to.Emphasis was particularly laid on the rhetorical functions of these words in the construction of texts and in the conveyance of the rhetor's rhetorical purpose.The result indicates that it is far from a coincidence that some words boast of noticeable tokens.Rather,they are reflective of the rhetor's delicate design to direct his speech towards his audience.It can also be seen from the analysis that words in different grammatical categories perform different rhetorical functions.The subsequent analysis of the rhetorical functions of key words attests to the uniqueness of the collected corpus in the research as well as the crucial role played by audience in the construction of U.S.Presidential campaign speeches.In consideration of the representativeness and size of the key words in the long list,60 key words were listed and analyzed selectively according to the grammatical categories they fall into.The result with convincing proof suggests that the key words are heavily disposed to orienting themselves towards the rhetor's audience and are able to distinguish the research corpus from FROWN.In attempt to further explore the rhetorical functions of key words in the progression of the rhetors' persuasion,the 40 campaign speeches of both candidates were incorporated into another reference corpus and the key words in the selected appeals of both candidates were sorted out.The research findings indicate that these key words are indicative of the rhetors' personal understanding of the specific characteristics of their audience and reflective of their purpose in executing these appeals.Secondly,the key words did not enter the list of the selected appeals at random;rather,their admittance was guided by the rhetor's specific purpose which presupposes well-directed audience analysis.Thirdly,the key words in both candidates' appeals are representative of the particular qualities and the rhetorical functions of relevant appeals,thus distinguishing the appeal under analysis from other appeals.Fourthly,the same key words may occur in both Obama's and MacCain's appeals although their keyness and P value may differ.This contributes to verifying the peculiar features of individual appeals.Meanwhile,the different key words in Obama's and MacCain's key words list are indicative of the differences between the two candidates in the analysis of the specific qualities of their audience and in the approaches adopted by them in treating their audience.In addition,the key words can demonstrate the rhetors' personal preference for certain appeals.Also,the informativeness and representativeness of the key words in the two candidates' lists differ in varying degrees.The subsequent key keywords analysis,on one hand,reveals the unique feature of U.S.Presidential campaign speeches,and on the other hand serves to reinforce the previous research finding that the use of appeals submits to the rhetors' audience awareness.In addition,the analysis of topoi in the form of rhetorical appeals unveiled the design features of audience in persuasive texts represented by U.S.Presidential campaign speeches and these features in turn determine the way these appeals are distributed and linguistically realized.These features manifest themselves mainly in such aspects as the interpretation of the nature of audience,rhetor-audience relationship,the role of audience in the construction of persuasive texts and the cultural specificity of audience.Regarding its nature,audience characterized with both a static character and dynamic character seem to be,on the one hand,complementary to one another and on the other hand,mutually exclusive to each other.In addition,the role played by audience in persuasion was proved to be affirmative and predominant.These two words suggest that no persuasive endeavor can be successfully executed without a sound consideration of audience.The rhetor-audience relationship can be interpreted as antagonistic striving for identification while the cultural specificity of audience runs counter to the absoluteness of the universality of audience.Regarding the question of the pertinence of classical rhetoric to contemporary persuasive texts,that the theoretical framework and the research method of the dissertation are built upon theories of topoi,invention and audience already attested to the intimate connection between classical rhetoric and contemporary persuasive texts.In addition,the analysis of Obama's and MacCain's campaign speeches forcibly demonstrated this pervasive influence of classical topoi and inventional theories in the construction of modern persuasive essays.To sum up,the identification,distribution and linguistic realization of topoi which assume the form of rhetorical appeals in U.S.Presidential campaign speeches,on one hand,demonstrated the pervasiveness and significance of topoi in contemporary persuasive texts and on the other hand exhibited the dominant role of audience in the use of topoi in these texts. |
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