Functional Stylistic Analysis Of English Political Public Speaking(EPPS)

With the development of modern society, the competition has become more and more intense the world over and the demands for talents have become more comprehensive. Among them, the ability of public speaking is something indispensable; let alone that of the political public speaking. Therefore, the study of it cannot be waited any longer.An effective public speaking has at least two crucial factors. One is the substantial content, and the other is the very decent use of some necessary stylistic features. This thesis starts with the functions and purposes of EPPS, and makes a constructive exploration of those stylistic features, which can attain those expected functions and purposes to the maximum extent. The exploration is chiefly based on Halliday's Three Great Functions (ideational, interpersonal, and textual), together with some valuable views in some other famous stylists' theories, such as the Author's Decision by Buffon (1707-1788, a French naturalist), the Reader's Reaction by Michael Riffaterre, the Affective Stylistics by Stanley Fish, and the like. Another enlightenment on my argument is coming from Jakobson's theory (1896---1983) of multi-dimensional stylistic analysis. Contrary to all those available stylistic analysis, the analyzing approaches originate from the functions and purposes to the stylistic features that can be used to achieve the wanted goals, and study how the functions and purposes can be achieved to the maximum degree.This thesis starts from the study of the definition and nature of styles, and then goes on with the functions and purposes of the public speaking, and next to the study of the best match of the functions to its necessary stylistic features. The most fundamental functions of EPPS are to inform, to move, to persuade and to inspire the audience to take some actions that the speaker expects. Informing is the base of the public speech, belonging to ideational function; moving, persuading and inspiring the audience are the direct purposes of the speech, belonging to interpersonal function. The textual function is the comprehensive function of a single political speech, and it is directly related to the success of the speech. The thesis examines this function and its realization from three major stylistic aspects: logical , grammatical and lexical connectors.This exploration is new to the study and application of the stylistic features based on the functions of language in EPPS and many other literary works.