摘要本文对2012年美国总统大选第一夫人的助选演说进行了研究。通过分析美国第一夫人在演讲中对人称指示语的使用数量和特点，探讨她在演讲过程中对于自我身份的设定，及其带来的移情效果。演讲者通常会大量使用了包括听话者的“我们”，以此来拉近与听话者的距离，获得更好的演讲效果。数据分析表明：总统夫人使用了较多的包括听话者的“我们”，具体表现在谈论普通人、讨论困难以及支持总统几个方面。 67137

毕业论文关键词  人称指示语    移情   总统演讲

毕 业 论 文 外 文 摘 要

Title  The Choice of Person Deixis and Their Empathy Effects In The Speech of American First Lady

Abstract This paper is to study the speech of American First Lay in the 2012 US presidential campaign election. Through analyzing the number and the characteristics of American First Lay’s use of different person deixis in the speech, this paper discusses her identity setting along with their empathy effects. In general, the speaker uses numerous “we” which include the hearers in the speech, in order to shorten the distance between the speaker and the audience and achieve better effects of speech. Statistical analysis indicates that the president’s wife used a great number of first person plural “inclusive-we”, especially in talking about the common people, discussing the difficulties and supporting the president.

Keywords   Person Deixis   Empathy   Presidential Speech

Table of Contents

1  Introduction 1

1.1  Background 1

1.2  Research Design and Methodology 1

2  Literature Review 2

2.1  Deixis 2

2.2  Empathy in Linguistics Study 3

2.3  American Presidential Speeches 4

3  Introduction to the Adaptation Theory 5

4  The Analysis of the Choice of Different Deixis and their Effects 6

4.1  The Analysis of the First Person Singular Form and their Empathy Effects 7

4.2  The Analysis of the First Person Plural Form and their Empathy Effects 9

Conclusion 14

Acknowledgements 16

Bibliography 17

1 Introduction

1.1 Background

The 2012 US presidential election has come to an end, and Barack Obama won another term of office. However, during this long-lasting election campaign, a lady arouses people’s attention, that is, American First Lady, Michelle Obama. At the Democratic National Convention, she delivered an impassioned and win more votes for her husband. In her speech, instead of empty and bombastic formulas in other political speeches before, she used her husband Obama and her vivid family life to shorten the psychological distance between the audience, which further echoed a strong spiritual resonance. In this case, how to achieve the aim of establishing and maintaining interpersonal relations in political speech or in other verbal communication is a problem of great concern. This paper intends to contribute to the improvement of this situation through studying the different person deixis and their empathy effect of Michelle’s campaign speech.