An Iconic Analysis In Political Speeches

Most of studies on political speeches are conducted from the perspectives ofrhetoric, cohesion or precision. In effect, apart from the studies above, few researchersanalyze iconicity in political speeches. Iconicity, as one of the important theories insemiotics and cognitive linguistics, has been a very popular topic both at home andabroad. With great efforts, linguists have described a great amount of iconicphenomena in language, summarized many iconic principles and completelydeveloped the iconical theoretical system. These years, scholars have used iconicitytheory in stylistics, and have had great achievements. This thesis aims to analyzeiconicity in political speeches from a cognitive approach in the hope of pointing outhow the iconicity is reflected in political speeches.Iconicity refers to the iconic relation between linguistic form and the meaning ittransforms. It can be classified into imagic, diagrammatic and metaphorical iconicity.Since metaphorical iconicity has been extensively discussed under the name ofmetaphor, this thesis mainly focuses on imagic and diagrammatic iconicity in politicalspeeches, including phonological, sequence, quantity and distance or proximityiconicity in political speeches. And it mainly resolves these following three questions:(1) By analyzing political speeches from the perspective of iconicity, can itfurther prove that language is iconic?(2) Does iconicity pervasively exist in political speeches?(3) What kind of iconicity is the most often used in political speeches?Based on the analysis of these questions, it can draw some following conclusions:firstly, language is iconic; secondly, iconicity, as one of the universal properties inhuman language, exists pervasively in political speeches; thirdly, quantity iconicity isthe most often used in political speeches.The findings of this research have the significances as follows:1) enhancing thestudy of political speeches in China;2) facilitating the better understanding andappreciation of political speeches;3) strengthening the view that language is iconic, not arbitrary.It must be illustrated that this research does not exaggerate iconicity, or deny thearbitrary, but brings new light in political speeches and widens the scope of politicalspeeches’ study.