A Comparative Study Of Obama’s Two-term Presidential Campaign Speeches From The Perspective Of Frame Semantics

As the world competition is becoming fiercer and fiercer, the studies of public political speeches and campaign speeches have been valued. Related researches are mainly made from such aspects as rhetoric perspective, Structural Linguistics, Functional Grammar, Critical Linguistics and conceptual metaphors. Although great success has been achieved, other areas in Cognitive Linguistics should be of at least equal importance to draw our attention.In this thesis, under the framework of Frame Semantics, from Obama’s presidential Acceptance Speeches of2008and2012we have simulated a CAMPAIGN SPEECH frame and three sub-frames, and have concluded some slots employed to further explain sub-frames with the methods of quantitative and qualitative analysis. After a comparative analysis of the presentations of slots in the sub-frames, we have intended to offer some explanations for their similarities and dissimilarities, trying to discover some ideas in writing campaign speeches and to reveal the contribution the speech texts have made to Obama’s success in the election.Guided by the three principles-hierarchy, embedidability and simplification, we can simulate a superordinate frame-CAMPAIGN SPEECH frame that contains three sub-frames, namely SPEAKER, OPPONENT and AUDIENCE frames. Various kinds of frame elements are included in three sub-frames:SPEAKER frame contains personality, background, advantage etc.; OPPONENT frame contains disadvantage, misconduct, character, background etc.; AUDIENCE frame contains age, feeling, preference, sex etc.. On account of these sub-frames and the occurrence number of semantically related words in Obama’s presidential Acceptance Speeches, we can conclude some slots:SPEAKER frame contains the Democratic Party celebrities and Obama; OPPONENT frame contains the Republican Party and candidates; AUDIENCE frame contains people, America and next generations.With the analysis, we have found similarities in presentations of slots in the three sub-frames in Obama’s Acceptance Speeches. Slots in SPEAKER frame are respectively presented as "praise on the Democratic Party celebrities" and "praise on Obama’s attitude", because Obama wanted to emphasize his personality, background and environment advantages to get closer to the audiences. Slots in OPPONENT frame are respectively presented as "attack on the Republican Party" as well as "attack on the candidates’ character", because Obama wanted to highlight the pedantry and stubbornness of the Republican Party as well as the candidates’ unsuitable character for presidency to ruin the audiences’ impression on his opponents. Slots in AUDIENCE frame are respectively presented as "compliment on greatness of people","awareness of mightiness of the America" and "concern about next generations" to cater to audiences’ feelings and preference to win more voters.However, in Obama’s two-term Acceptance Speeches, there also exist some dissimilarities in the presentations of slots, apart from these similarities, which provides us a good model about how to write a good and successful campaign speech and to achieve one’s goal under different social situations. In SPEAKER frame, the slot "Obama" in Acceptance Speech of2012is also presented as "elaboration of Obama’s achievements in presidency" to stress his leadership advantage. In OPPONENT frame, the slot "candidate" in Acceptance Speech of2012is also profiled as "satire on Romney’s unfamiliarity in politics" to transform Romney’s financial advantages into disadvantages; but in Acceptance Speech of2008, it is profiled as "satire on McCain’s inaction in office" to transform McCain’s advantages in experience into disadvantages. In AUDIENCE frame, the slot "America" in Acceptance Speech of2008is also presented as "assertion of American Promise" for the purpose of helping audiences regain confidence in the America; the slot "next generations" in Acceptance Speech of2012is also presented as "presentation of environment problems for next generations" for catering to audiences’feelings.In conclusion, theoretically, this research has expanded the application scope of Frame Semantics by applying it to the study of campaign speeches. Moreover, practically the CAMPAGING SPEECH frame simulated in this thesis will hopefully provide a new perspective for language learners to better comprehend and write campaign speeches.