| Franklin D.Roosevelt is one of the greatest American leaders.He initiated the use of radio to communicate with the public.Roosevelt's speeches delivered via radio are collectively called "Fireside Chats".There are altogether thirty speeches in the Fireside Chats.Thirteen of them focus on economic issues.This thesis takes these thirteen speeches as its research data and analyzes them from the perspective of Functional Stylistics.It applies the register theory and the theory of language meta-functions to the intensive study of the language style of Roosevelt's speeches.The thesis aims to explore the language skills that Roosevelt used to persuade and inspire the American people.According to Halliday's Systemic-Functional Linguistics,there are three meta-functions of language,namely,the ideational function,the interpersonal function and the textual function.The research findings of this thesis are as follows:In terms of the ideational function,the material process is the most frequently used transitivity process,which accounts for 53%.Material processes were applied to the descriptions of the national situations before and after new policies were carried out,which both aroused people's attention and comforted them.Material processes were also applied to the description of the government's measures,which gave people a sense of authority and power,and enhanced their trust in the government.As to the use of voice,the proportion of the active voice reaches up to 86%.Roosevelt employed the active voice to build an image of a strong and motivated president to encourage the American people.In terms of the interpersonal function,Roosevelt extensively used declaratives and the present tense to deliver the information of the national situation and policies,which was helpful to the communication between the people and him.The median value modals account for 55.3%,which reflects Roosevelt's objective attitude.As to personal pronouns,the first-person plural pronouns are used most often,taking up 39%of the total number.These pronouns helped to make identification and shorten the distance between the president and the people.In terms of the textual function,simple themes and unmarked themes are overwhelming.They were used to make these speeches brief and easy to be understood.In cohesive devices,reference and conjunction are the most frequently used ones.They made Roosevelt's speeches more coherent and cohesive.From the research,we can find that all the language features of the Fireside Chats serve for the same goal,that is,to deliver information to listeners and persuade them to support the government's new policies.The features and functions of the language applied to the realization of this goal are the focuses of this thesis.The thesis consists of six chapters and a conclusion.Chapter One is an introduction,in which the background,objective,significance,methodology and layout of the thesis are introduced.Chapter Two is the theoretical framework and literature review,which includes an overview of Functional Stylistics,the previous studies on Functional Stylistics and the previous studies on Franklin D.Roosevelt's speeches.Chapter Three is the study of the data from the three aspects of register.The following three chapters form the main part of the thesis.In this part,the thirteen speeches are analyzed respectively from the ideational function,the interpersonal function and the textual function with statistics and examples to find out the features and functions of Roosevelt's language.The conclusion demonstrates the research findings of this thesis,points out the limitations and provides some suggestions for further researches of the speech style. |
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