A Study Of Rhetorical Function Of Metadiscourse In English Political Speaking

The term metadiscourse was coined by Zellig Harris in 1959 to offer a way of understanding language in use, representing a writer's or speaker's attempts to guide a receiver's perception of a text. Then many scholars, such as Williams, Vande Kopple, Crismore, Hyland, proposed different definitions and classifications of metadiscourse. At the same time, many scholars, based on the classification of metadiscourse and the theoretical studies, did some empirical studies on metadiscourse. Most of these studies mainly focus on the relationship between metadiscourse and writing, while few explore the relationship between metadiscourse and rhetoric.Crismore claims in 1989 that in any form of language communication, two levels of discourse are involved: the primary discourse level and the metadiscourse level. Metadiscourse also has rhetorical function. Essentially, rhetoric is the art of persuasion; it concerns arguments on matters about which there can be no formal proof. In"Rhetoric", Aristotle proposed three appeals of persuasion that is Ethos, Pathos and Logos. Ethos concerns the character of the speaker and his or her credibility. Pathos concerns affective appeals and focuses on the characteristics of the audiences rather than the speaker. Logos concerns the speech itself, its arrangement, length, complexity, types of evidence and arguments and so on.This thesis will look at the relationship between metadiscourse and rhetoric, not in its contemporary sense as discourse level organizational patterns, but as strategies of persuasion, focusing mainly on the categorizations of classical rhetoric in famous political speaking.This thesis focuses on English political speaking and tries to reveal how metadiscourse realizes the three rhetorical elements (ethos, pathos and logos) in the texts. It presents a discourse-analytical approach to the English political speaking and utilizes the three appeals of persuasion as the rooted analytical tool. The analytic procedure can be divided into three parts. The first part discusses the characteristics of English political speaking, the second part analyzes the samples under the three appeals of persuasion to unfold the persuasive power of metadiscourse in English political speaking, and the last part discusses the characteristics of metadiscourse in the samples.Through analyzing the rhetorical function of metadiscourse in English political speaking, this thesis tries to unfold the persuasive power of metadiscourse, reveals the characteristics of metadiscourse in English political speaking and expands the research scope of metadiscourse. For the audiences, it reduces the burden of comprehending political speaking and helps them find the language characteristics in English Political Speaking. While for the speakers, the competence of arranging speech may result in splendid effects of delivery and the skills of persuasion as well as writing speeches maybe improved.