Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1 Research Background
Public speeches involve principle and practice, study and performance, knowledgeand experience. The study of public communication is directed towards understandingspeech making, one of the most characteristic and persistent activities of men insociety, and improving the practice of those who pursue the study. Drawn from thepractice and experience of hundreds of speechmakers in the ancient Greek world,principles of public speaking were first formulated and organized into textbooks overtwenty-four hundred years ago. Usually under the name rhetoric, concerned with theway human beings behave in speaker-audience situations, these principles have beentransmitted through centuries, always being altered and added to in the interest ofrelevance of place and time. Changing political and social conditions, for instance, hascreated different roles and values for public speeches and has prompted new styles ofpublic speaking. In persuasive speech, one type of public speeches, the speaker seeksto influence the attitudes, beliefs, and actions of his audience.English speeches on war, as a typical variety of public political speaking, are ofgreat importance in the world nowadays that is still far from peaceful. The tension inthe Middle East has not yet been removed, while the chemical weapons in Syria havealmost caused another war. Meanwhile, the speeches on war have inevitably gainedmore and more recognition along with the boost of mass media and the prevalence ofthe English language. Therefore, it has drawn the attention of many political scientists,historians, and linguists as well. However, the study of English speeches on war ismainly conducted from the following perspectives: rhetoric, political point of view,critical discourse analysis, and interpersonal meaning, but little is from the perspectiveof the speech act theory. The present study attempts to study speeches on war from thespeech act theory of pragmatics. Based on the speech act theory by Austin and Searle,the thesis analyses the illocutionary forces in the speeches on war and their pragmaticfunctions.
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1.2 Features of Public Political Speeches
Public speaking, the art of rhetoric, is concerned with the way human beingsbehave in speaker-audience situations. Political Speeches are the variety whichcomments on government action rather than the private conduct of an individual andthey are part of political discourse. Since the time of the ancient Greece, politicaldiscourse has been regarded as the principal kind of rhetorical activity. Just as whatAristotle said, “All men desire the good things of life, and whenever people think andtalk about what they desire and how a political unit and its office holders can helpthem obtain good things and protect them, their deliberations are political”. (Bryant,D.C. & Wallace, K.R. 1976: 27). This kind of discourse is by no means limited tothose who seek and hold office. People think and act politically whenever theircommunications are marked by behaviors such as ruling and obeying, persuading andcompromising, promising and bargaining, forcing and arguing, living in conflict andliving in harmony.
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Chapter 2 Literature review
2.1 Previous Studies of English Speeches on War
After a general and systematic review on the study of English speeches on war, it isfound that the research on the speeches is mainly carried from the followingperspectives: rhetoric, political point of view, critical discourse analysis, andinterpersonal meaning. Jonathan Charteris-Black (2005, 56-57), in the chapter, Churchill: Metaphor andHeroic Myth of his work Politicians and Rhetoric, argued that metaphor was vital inChurchill’s speeches on war for the creation of a heroic myth in which Britain and herAllies were constructed as forces of goodness while Germany was constructed as aforce of evil. Based on the summaries of Cassirer (1946), Jonathan concluded thatChurchill’s mythic use of metaphor was precisely devised to combat the mythicalpowers that Hitler’s oratory had revived in Germany and came at a time when thesocial forces binding the political structures of Europe were disintegrating. Theideological struggle was therefore fundamentally also a linguistic one in whichmetaphor was central in the drawing of battle-lines, as competing ideologies looked tocompeting metaphor systems for unifying and motivating participants in the combat.Churchill’s complex use of metaphor extended rhetorical strategies developed inclassical times to the contemporary political purposes of persuasive communicationand leadership in a time of war.
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2.2 Previous Study of Illocutionary Forces
Glen Allan Pettigrove (2003, 54-92) , in the chapter ,The Illocutionary Force ofForgiving of his thesis, Seeking Forgiveness: Studies in Moral and PoliticalPhilosophy uses an account of the illocutionary force of "I forgive you" to clarifywhat they mean by forgiveness. Following an analysis of what it would mean for "Iforgive you" to be uttered with expressive, assertive, declarative, and commissiveforces, the thesis suggests that different understandings of what it means to forgiveoften, though by no means always, lead to different illocutionary acts. If forgiveness isunderstood as an emotion that one experiences, the utterance "I forgive you" willinvolve disclosing that emotional change. If forgiveness is modeled after a canceleddebt, "I forgive you" typically will be the act of cancellation. If forgiving isunderstood as a commitment on the part of the forgiver to a particular mode ofinteraction with the forgiven, then "I forgive you" will entail the making or affirmingof such a commitment. In the end, he suggests that the forgiveness for which theyhope has both behabitive and commissive force.
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Chapter 3 Theoretical Background....... 14
3.1 The History of the Speech Act Theory .......14
3.2 The Speech Act Theory in theAustinian Age....... 15
3.3 The Speech Act Theory in the Post-AustinianAge....... 18
Chapter 4 Realization of Illocutionary Forces in English Speeches on War....... 22
4.1 Realization of Illocutionary Forces by Lexical Expressions .......22
4.2 Realization of Illocutionary Forces by Syntactic Devices .......25
4.3 Realization of Illocutionary Forces by Modality.......27
Chapter 5 Classification and Pragmatic Functions of Illocutionary Forces....... 31
5.1 Classification of Illocutionary Forces....... 31
5.2 Pragmatic Functions of Illocutionary Forces....... 41
Chapter 5 Classification and Pragmatic Functions of Illocutionary Forces
5.1 Classification of Illocutionary Forces
The Chapter will analyze in detail and with substantial examples the illocutionaryforces realized through the main language devices in the six English speeches on warselected. The leaders, in order to achieve their intentions, often choose variouslanguage devices to make their speeches more persuasive and forceful.From the analysis in this part, it will be seen that how various illocutionary forcesare realized through lexical expressions, syntactic devices as well as modality and thathow various illocutionary forces are conveyed or strengthened by various languagedevices during the process of communication between the leaders and their audiencein the particular context confronted with war, during the war or after the war. In English speeches on war, the pronoun “we” and its corresponding forms areskillfully utilized by the leaders. The use of “we” conveys the illocutionary force ofexpressing a sense of intimacy. Moreover, the employment of “we” is a reflection thatthe views and claims proposed by the leader not merely arise from his personalposition. Therefore, the leader can implement his political ideas or views without anydifficulty.
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Conclusion
Based on the speech act theory of Austin and Searle, this thesis makes acomprehensive and thorough study on how illocutionary forces are realized orstrengthened through a variety of language devices in the six English speeches on war.The theory has been proved to be scientific, feasible and practical in analyzing thetypical public political speaking. The following are the major findings of the presentstudy:
1. The rhetoric of the English speeches on war bears strong intention of persuasion.In delivering the address, the leaders intend to perform illocutionary acts in theparticular context connected with war. In other words, they intend to makecommunications with the audience.
2. Some of the language devices frequently used in the present data to strengthen orconvey various illocutionary forces are found. Those language devices are analyzed atthree levels in this thesis: the lexical expressions, including the pronoun “we”,directive and commissive words, and “God”; the syntactic devices, includingparallelism, repetition and antithesis, and Let-Imperatives; the modality, includingmodal auxiliary verbs, modal adverbs, clauses with verbs, and clauses withattributives.
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