A Presuppositional Study Of American Political Discourse

Lots of researches have been done to the analysis of political discourse. Many linguists put forward the idea of analyzing political discourse from the perspective of systemic-functional grammar and speech act theory in terms of functions, structures, interpersonal relationship, religions, cultures, and so on. However, less attention has been paid to the analysis of presupposition in political discourse. Many researchers at home mainly devote to the function analysis of presupposition in advertising, TV programs, news headlines, and literature discourse, etc.As there are not adequate studies of presupposition in American political discourse, in this thesis, the author is dedicated to the analysis of presupposition triggers in the political speeches made by American President Barack Obama. Presupposition trigger, an important term in pragmatics, refers to some words and structures that can presuppose something. Karttunen, L has collected thirty-one kinds of presupposition triggers, and Levinson, S.C. collected thirteen kinds of such triggers. (Levinson, 2001: 181). Presupposition triggers provide the researchers and readers with a new perspective to analyze American political discourse.In this thesis, the author first gives a retrospective study of political discourse and presupposition both at home and abroad, pointing out that it is seldom seen to apply presupposition to the analysis of American political discourse. Therefore, the author puts forward the idea of analyzing American political discourse from the perspective of presupposition triggers so as to find out the triggering mechanism in the political discourse.The study of presupposition triggers in Obama's political speeches is mainly conducted at lexical and syntactic levels. First, the author does some statistical analysis of word frequency at lexical and syntactic levels, and then analyzes the presupposition triggers and their functions; and then conducts a comparative analysis of presupposition triggers at both levels. At last, the author summarizes which kinds of words are frequently used in Obama's speeches and points out the reason why the speaker prefers to use such kinds of words.On one hand, in this thesis, the author puts forward some suggestions of how to use presupposition triggers at lexical and syntactic levels appropriately, and to some extent, it is beneficial for the design and creation of successful political speeches. And on the other hand, comparatively speaking, presupposition is an ideal perspective for the analysis of political discourse and is of great importance in the analysis and interpretation of American political discourse. And for the audiences, the thesis will enhance their understanding of presupposition triggers and American political discourse.And of course, there are still some limitations in this thesis. For one thing, the author finds it difficult to give some specific and accurate statistics and classifications of presupposition triggers and their functions. For another, a presuppositional study of the speeches made by American President Barack Obama just provides the readers with one aspect and is far from adequate to the thorough studies of American political discourse.