The Theoretical Research And Thinking On American Symbolic Speech

The constitution protects citizens’freedom of expression. With the rapid development of society, forms of expression are no longer restricted to the traditional ones like voice, words and print. The diversity of the forms of expression leads to a conflict between the value of the law in protecting the freedom of expression and other value. The symbolic speech is a new type of speech. In1931, The U.S. Supreme Court heard the first case regarding symbolic speech and symbolic speech was officially established as the First Amendment of The U.S. Constitution in the case Texas v. Johnson in1989, which has significantly enriched the forms of freedom of expression and enlarged the reach of protection of speech. There are, in essence, no differences between symbolic speech and pure speech, but both of them have their own way of expression. It is difficult to define symbolic speech, for it contains "speech" factor and "behavior" factor. In addition, the protection and restriction of symbolic speech are also different from that of pure speech. Therefore, based on the theory of symbolic speech, the thesis attempts to summarize the definition of symbolic speech and research on its protection and restriction by interpreting the precedents of The U.S. Supreme Court and related documents from home and abroad. Meanwhile, the reflection on importing symbolic speech into China’s Constitution protection will also be discussed. With the exception of introduction and conclusion, the thesis consists of five parts:Part One mainly discusses the connotation of symbolic speech. Based on the related theory at home and abroad, the connotation of symbolic speech is defined and the value of the symbolic speech is discussed.Part Two mainly discusses the theoretical principle of symbolic speech. Firstly, the development and the necessity of freedom of expression is introduced and secondly the value of it from the perspectives of individuals, nation and society is discussed which helps demonstrating that freedom of speech as the birthright of all human beings should be fully protected by the constitution.Part Three mainly discusses the five judicial precedents regarding symbolic speech and tries to summarize the variety, protection and restriction of the symbolic speech through deep interpretation of the precedents.Part Four mainly discusses the protection and restriction of symbolic speech and tries to classify symbolic speech.Part five reflects on the introduction of symbolic speech into the Constitutional Law mainly by discussing the possibility of symbolic speech’s successful application in China from the perspectives of specific cases and laws and regulations, and tries to give suggestion on the introduction.