A Contrastive Study Of Genre Analysis Of Chinese And American Commencement Speeches From Perspective Of Moves And Steps

Commencement speech or address is one of the public speech which addressed at the graduation ceremony of a university,aims to encourage and educate graduates in one of the most important points of their lives.It is seen as the last class of university as well as the first class of entering into society.Delivering a commencement speech at the graduation ceremony is a routine both in America and China.However,it has great differences in choosing speakers of the commencements,methods of delivering the speeches,ways of encouraging the audiences and many other aspects.Genre is constituted of a group of communicative events,by means of which enables its members certain communicative purposes.Genre analysis is the methodology widely used in academic and professional writing.This thesis is conducted to study the American and Chinese commencement speeches by the instructive methodology of genre analysis.The 60 commencement speeches are selected randomly from universities in American and Chinese,each of the country takes half.All of the data are collected from 2013 to 2018.By the help of the theoretical supporting of Swale,Bhatia as well as the adaptable adjustment of this thesis,the genre analysis is conducted to reveal the move-step model at the first place.Then,the Generic Structure Potential of the moves is specified and contrast.After that,this thesis compares the differences and similarities of the linguistic features of the two countries.After data processing and studying,five moves and thirteen steps are figured out in ACS,which are Move1(M1)Opening Word,M2 Greeting Audience,M3 Compliment Achievement,M4 Encouraging Graduate and M5 Ending Word.However,4 moves are found in CCS,they are M1 Opening Word,M3 Compliment Achievement,M4 Encouraging Graduate and M5 Ending Word.In ACS,13 steps are exist,they are Thanking for Invitation,Congratulation,Joking,Story-telling,Experience-sharing,Achievement of Student,Achievement of University,Experience,Social Phenomenon,Suggestions,Quotation,Blessing and Incentive word.But,in CCS,10 steps are figured out.Except for Joking,Story-telling and Experience-sharing,other ten steps are commonly existed in ACS and CCS.Result shows that Encouraging the Graduates and Ending Words belonging to obligatory moves in ACS and CCS,Greeting Audience is obligatory for American speakers and Opening Words is obligatory for CCS.Opening Words is the conventional move in ACS,while Compliment the Achievements becomes the only conventional in Chinese speeches.Bearing the belief of facilitate readers understand this genre,it is in the hope that this thesis may provide some implications for future studies,helping people more easily understand English speeches from the clear move and step arrangement and guiding students get useful skills when they are delivering a speech.