A Contrastive Analysis Of English Speeches In TED Talks From The Perspective Of Gender Discourse

Even though researches on language and gender have always been hot spots in the field of linguistics,domestic and foreign scholars mainly focus on comparatively analyzing and studying conversations of different genders from multiple perspectives.However,researches on studying the correlation between speech and gender and exploring the variation trends between them still need to be amplified.TED Talks,with providing innovative and authentic ideas and offering free online viewing,has tremendously influenced billions of viewers,which makes TED Talks contained monumental research value.But few studies have explored the TED Talks from the perspective of gender discourse.Based on this situation,this study makes a contrastive analysis of the speech discourses by different gender in TED Talks.Under the theoretical framework of Halliday's Systematic-Functional Grammar and Gender Theory,the author adopts quantitative and qualitative approaches to conduct the comparative analysis and diachronic study of English Speeches in TED Talks from perspective of gender discourse through the five aspects:modal verbs,the collocations between personal pronouns and modal verb can,speaking rate,the topic and speaker's social position.The purpose of this study is aimed to probe into these questions(1)What are the diversities and similarities of linguistic characteristics between male and female TED speakers(modal verbs,the collocations between personal pronouns and modal verb can,speaking rate)?(2)Are there any diachronic changes in the linguistic characteristics of TED English Speakers?If there are,what are these accurate changes?(3)What are these exact factors behind these diversities,similarities and diachronic changes between the linguistic characteristics of male and female speakers of TED Talks?According to the results of this research,there are some similarities,diversities and diachronic changes between the linguistic characteristics of male and female speakers of TED Talks.The main findings of this study are concluded as follows:First,from the macro point of view,men use more modal verbs than women,both of them use low-valued modal verbs more frequently in the process of delivering speech,and the frequency of using low-valued modal verbs is obvious.Among low-valued modal verbs,"can" is more obvious than that of women.There are few high value modal verbs and more male and female speakers use objective attitude to express their views in public speeches.There is no significant difference in the number of personal pronouns between men and women.Men use more first-person pronouns,women choose more second-or third-person pronouns,male speech speed is slightly higher than that of women.The male and female speakers have a great correlation between the scholars on the topic and the social positions they are engaged in.Second,from the perspective of modal verbs,men use lower-valued modal verbs more than women,while women use middle-value modal verbs more frequently than men.Especially the middle-value modal verb "would" is used more frequently than that of men;From the perspective of the combination of modal verbs and pronouns,men are more likely to use the collocation of "the first-person" and "can",and women are more likely to use the collocation of "the second-/third-person" and "can"Third,from the diachronic point of view,the frequency of use of high-valued modal verbs by men and women fluctuates,the reasons for this scenario are more likely to be related to their own topic,position,character,and the frequency of use of middle-and low-valued modal verbs.Women as a whole show a slow growth trend,while men tend to slow down less in terms of speech speed,from 2013 onwards,compared with women,male speech speed shows a trend of significant improvement.To a certain extent,this study enriches the scope of researches on gender and speech,and provides the direct basis for later studies on male and female discourse,as well as speech-related studies.