Construction And Comparison Of Macro-Structure Models Composed Of Speech Acts Between English And Chinese Diplomatic Discourses

Speech Act Theory established by Austin and Searle puts forward the idea that the objects of linguistic research are not words or sentences, but actions performed by them. The theory pays much attention to the meaning and functions of ordinary language. After that, lots of linguists state their viewpoints about it, but they are mainly in dispute with the classification of the"illocutionary acts". Although some researchers put forward that discourse also has the characteristics of speech acts, the application of Speech Act Theory to discourse analysis is still rare. Based on Austin's theory"to say something is to do something", this thesis applies the classified ways of speech acts into discourse analysis, laying stress on the inner coherence and functions of discourses. And in accordance with Motsch's hypothesis that the basis for discourse analysis and description with the SAT is the hierarchical composite act structure's principle of illocutionary acts and Van Dijk's Macro-Structure Theory, the thesis tries to construct the macro-structure models of the speeches, revealing the principle of a whole composite speech act being composed of some partial speech acts in a discourse. Finally, according to the comparison of the macro-models of discourses between Chinese and English, the thesis intends to make a little further proof for the research of universalities in language from the pragmatic and cognitive perspective.The language materials chosen for this thesis are American and Chinese state leaders'speeches, including 20 samples. Owing to the state leaders'special status, their speeches usually have strong purposes or intentions. The results of the study show: firstly, it is practicable to analyze discourses by using Speech Act Theory; each speech, no matter whether it is American or Chinese, has four"illocutionary acts", which are"assertives","commissives","expressives"and"directives". When performing the"directives", the speakers all take both direct and indirect ways, thinking over the relation between the speakers and the addressees and the specific context of the topic; secondly, each leader's speech has a main or dominating macro-speech-act, called"directive". In order to perform the"directives"successfully,...