A Comparison Of The Rhetorical Relations Between Chinese And English Political Speeches From The Perspective Of Rhetorical Structure Theory

The overall objective of this study is to make a comparative analysis between Chinese and English political speeches from the perspective of the Rhetorical Structure Theory.The theoretical framework of this paper is the Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST). After the Rhetorical Structure Theory was raised, it has been widely used in the linguistic realm as a descriptive framework. Based on previous studies made by scholars both at home and abroad, this paper focuses on two aspects. Firstly, the study tries to prove whether the following three hypotheses can be established: (1).The RST can be used for analyzing the English and Chinese political speeches. RST has been applied in many types of texts, such as novels, advertisements, narrative essays, argumentive essays and so on. However, as far as the previous researches are concerned, it is rarely found that RST is applied to the analysis of political speech. Therefore, the research is a significant attempt. (2). All sorts of rhetorical relations exist in both English and Chinese political speeches. (3). The dominant rhetorical relations in English political speeches are different from those in Chinese political speeches; therefore, the rhetorical Schemas are different. Secondly, this study aims to establish the rhetorical relation pattern for both English and Chinese political speeches.In order to support the three hypotheses, the author analyzes a total of 30 political speeches by leaders from English-speaking and Chinese-speaking countries. The selected data are complete texts, without any revision. The results obtained from the analysis with the RST show that hypothesis 1 and 3 are confirmed by the analyze statistics. And hypothesis 2 is not supported by the findings. Not all of the thirty rhetorical relations appear in the selected samples. At the end of the analysis, based on the result of analyzing the speeches in terms of the RST and analysis of reasons for the dominant relations in English and Chinese political speeches, the writer of the thesis establishes her own rhetorical relation pattern about the political speeches.The study has great significance and provides a new perspective for the application of the RST to discourse analysis. Firstly, it expands the scope of the application of the RST. Political speeches have not been studied from the perspective of the RST so far as the information indicates. This research proves the feasibility of the RST in the analysis of political speeches. Secondly, this research improves the current situation that contrastive rhetoric researches lack detailed procedure. Rhetorical Structure Theory provides a forceful theoretical framework for contrastive rhetoric study. Thirdly, the rhetorical relation pattern established by the writer is also valuable for the teaching of English. We can safely say that the setting up of a rhetorical relation pattern paves a new way for narrowing the distance between the speaker and the hearer. Therefore, this study has significant implication for English studies. On the one hand, keeping in mind the proportion of dominant rhetorical relations in English and Chinese political speeches can help the students control different ways of organizing political speeches in Chinese and in English. On the other hand, the pattern provides a theoretical basis for teachers and helps the students grasp the communicator's intention quickly. In addition, the pattern can help the speakers organize their texts effectively.