A Discourse Analysis Of English Public Speech On Economy For Better Interpretation With Burke's Theory Of New Rhetoric

English public speech on economy, as an indispensable type of speech discourse, plays an important role in presenting the government's standpoint on economic events. How does an English native speaker achieve identification with his audience by means of the rhetoric strategies? How could Chinese readers better interpret the motives of the English native speaker? The present study aims to discuss these two questions.Based on Kenneth Burke's new rhetoric theory, the thesis explores the rhetoric process and the rhetoric motive of 15 English public speeches on economy delivered by American officials, finds the distribution and frequency rules of rhetoric strategies, and proposes an analytical model for analysis of English public speech on economy.Through the discourse analysis of the 15 sample speeches, the major findings are as follows:(1) The general rhetoric motives of the speaker are to convey information on economy, to achieve identification and to persuade the audience to cooperate with the speaker.(2) The rhetoric motives are realized by rhetoric process. The author thinks that the rhetoric process can be viewed as a process in which linguistic act, functional act and social act interact with each other. Through the analysis of 15 sample texts, the proposed model is proved to be effective and applicable for better interpretation of English public speeches on economy.(3) The analysis of identification strategies indicates that sympathy and inaccuracy are more frequently used in English public speeches on economy to achieve identification because the shared values and common grounds are more effective in persuading audience. Identification via antithesis is also widely used in the background of global economic crisis. All the English public speeches on economy follow the conventional form. The major parts of the speech, that is, the introduction, the body and the conclusion, contain most repetitive form but least figurative form. The frequent use of the repetitive form helps strengthen the important information and less use of the figurative form increases the speech's objectivity and authoritativeness. In dramatistic analysis, the speakers prefer the scene-act ratio as the dominant one, which justifies the act proposed by the speaker and reveals the implicit motives of the speaker unconsciously.In logological analysis, the speakers always intentionally create the hierarchy in their speech and define U.S. as the high-level class. Because of principle of perfection, the hierarchy increases the possibility of the realization of speaker's implicit motives.The thesis proves the applicability of Burke's new rhetoric theory in discourse analysis of English public speeches on economy, and intends to provide a practical model for Chinese readers to have a better interpretation of the rhetoric process and the rhetoric motives in English public speeches on economy.