Public-speaking English: Its Stylistic Features And Interpersonal Function

English public speaking is the transmission of a message in English from one person who addresses to an audience who is physically present. As an important social skill, it will improve your academic and career skills. Public-speaking English, from the linguistic aspect, is one of language varieties, which has distinctive linguistic features and functions. It is quite important for the speakers and listeners to be aware of these features and functions.In this essay, I will try to make a relatively systemic and objective study of those particular linguistic features and their stylistic effects, and also of its interpersonal function of public-speaking English,so that readers or audience may appreciate and make the best use of public-speaking, and speakers may use it cleverly and effectively. Based on the previous study, this paper takes examples mainly from two famous speeches"I Have A Dream"by Martin Luther King, Jr. and"Broadcast on Russia Being Invaded"by Winston Churchill. By means of stylistic approach: description, interpretation and evaluation, this paper investigates those particular linguistic features and their stylistic effects of public-speaking English at phonological, lexical, grammatical levels and rhetoric devices. Phonologically, such poetic features as alliteration, rhythm, are quite often used to arouse the audience's interest, and are helpful for the speaker to express his ideas and emotions; lexically, some accurate, simple and clear words are often seen in public-speaking English; grammatically, long sentences and imperative sentences are frequently used; at the semantic level, frequent use of rhetorical devices, such as metaphor and parallelism, is striking and thought-provoking. Generally speaking, all of these marked linguistic features are vivid, expressive, contributing a lot to the unique style of public-speaking English. In terms of interpersonal function, in order to give information, commanding or ordering, speakers take a liking for some median modal operators, such as"would","will", and in some other cases, speakers choose some very strong modal operators, such as"must","ought to", etc. to show the obligation or intention. Generally speaking, those modal operators of either modalization or modulation are helpful in expressing speakers'ideas, attitudes, values and emotions, fully revealing the interpersonal function of language.