Stylistic Analysis Of Speeches Delivered By American Leaders In Universities Of China

People always put a high value on public speaking because throughout history it has been a vital means of communication. Public speaking, as a genre, has contributed a lot to the advancement of society and development of individual. Scholars both home and abroad have pay attention to various public speaking. Based on the previous studies, this thesis ventured to do research on the sub-genre of public speaking: speeches delivered by the American leaders in Universities of China.The speeches collected in this thesis are respectively delivered by the former American president William J. Clinton at Peking University in 1998, the president George W. Bush at Tsinghua University in 2002, and the vice president Dick Cheney at Fudan University in 2004. By applying theories of stylistic analysis this thesis aims at making an overall analysis of the stylistic features of this type of public speaking from five levels: phonological, graphological, lexical, syntactical and textual level. Through employing qualitative and quantitative methods, making comparison and analysis among these speeches, the main conclusions are drawn as follows: the language of these speeches has the distinct characteristics on phonological, graphological, lexical, syntactical and textual level. For example, the rate of the speech is slower than that of daily conversation, the paragraph is long, declarative sentences are mainly used and rhetorical devices are in large number and so on. However, there are differences among them due to individual style and different content. It is hoped that the present investigation on stylistic features of public speaking will shed light on the writing skills of public speeches for addressers and will be helpful for improving the English learners' oral communication skills.