戏剧性批评及其在美国总统就职演说中的应用研究

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Chapter One Introduction

During the years of study on English rhetoric, the author has developed a keen interest

in the analysis of presidential inaugural speeches from the perspective of rhetorical

criticism. The presidential inaugural speeches, as a form of speech discourse, have

their unique features, which can be explored and investigated from the rhetorical

perspective. The author, under the help of all the professors and scholars in this field,

develops his master thesis of a rhetorical criticism on the American presidential

inaugural speeches.

In the present-day social life, the American presidential inaugural speeches often

attract our eyes in one way or another. Many people, even the middle school students

can recite some of the classic speeches, such as the inaugural speech by American

President George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, to name just a few. The traditional

and prevailing approach to the speeches is the discourse analysis from the stylistic

perspective or the research of literary criticism from the textual point of view.

However, as both the approaches inherently have their advantages in terms of stylistic

evaluation and literature appreciation respectively, they inevitably have their own gap

and even disadvantages when probing into the comprehensive study of the speeches.

In order to observe the speeches three-dimensionally, some western scholars have

been developing an approach of the rhetorical criticism in the field of speech-analysis

so as to display a panoramic view of the speeches. Nevertheless, the rhetorical

criticism on the speeches is a nouveau way to analyze the speeches. In this thesis, the

author will do his utmost to bridge the gap and pave a way to bring more fresh ideas

and methods to the study of rhetorical criticism on the American presidential

inaugural speeches. In the process of introducing the advanced theory, we should

never forget to instill our own thinking and ideas, because only by innovation can we

make progress. And this innovation certainly will even contribute to the study in this

field because a sharply delineated theoretical structure is being under construction

with our co-effort.

The thesis is designed and developed in the following pattern: Chapter One gives a

brief introduction of the study concerned, and Chapter Two presents a literature

Toward a Dramatistic Criticism of American Presidential Inaugural Speeches—A Case Study

review of the main models of criticism to show how the critic observes and analyzes

the discourse with a certain model. Chapter Three explains the pentadic model in

detail, focusing on the terms of “pentad”, “agent,” “act,” “agency,” “purpose,”

“scene,” and relationship between them. Chapter Four pictures a tentative study: a

critique of the American presidential inaugural speeches. The pentadic model is

applied to analyze and elaborate the American presidential inaugural speeches in order

to demonstrate how inaugural speeches are rhetorically constructed in a particular

context, to find out what may always hold true in such a genre, and to shed light on

the way social cooperation is achieved. Chapter Five concludes the present study.

Chapter Two Literature Review

§ 2.1 Rhetorical Criticism in Brief

There are two famous sayings in the western rhetorical history, “man is a rhetorical

animal by nature” and “man is by nature a critic.” Human beings distinguish

themselves from other animals in the way they see and behave in a rhetorical way:

they see the world they live in and live by as a rhetorically symbolized world and in

that rhetorically symbolized world, they take rhetorically symbolic action. Human

beings make rhetorical strategies and take rhetorical actions by adapting themselves to

the rhetorically symbolized world. In this world, humans are by nature critics: they

ponder on the essence of life, the nature of humans, and the characteristics of human

language. They take a critical view on the substantial and spiritual world so that they

can have a better understanding about human life.

Language, as a symbolic action, is used by human beings to perform daily

communications. In this sense, language fulfills the communicative function in human

social life. Rhetorical criticism is a rhetorical approach to the study of language and

communications. Karlyn Kohrs Campbell defines rhetorical criticism in Critiques of

Contemporary Rhetoric as “the description, analysis, interpretation, and evaluation of

persuasive uses of language” (Campbell, 1972:12). And J. Allen Hendrix and Jerome

B. Polisky further develop the definition of rhetoric in Rhetorical Criticism Methods

and Models as an informative use of discourse and an inclusion of both the spoken

and the written discourse into the consideration as the research object (J. Allen

Hendrix & Jerome B. Polisky, 1968:iii).

Rhetorical criticism is essentially an examination of the rhetorical discourse. It aims at

the persuasive use of language, which conveys the ideas, enhances the meaning,

persuades the audience, falsifies the rebuttal and even induces actions. Based on the

traditional approach of discourse analysis and the New rhetoric, rhetorical criticism

differs from literary criticism mainly in that literary criticism focuses itself basically

on the discourse itself in order to pursue the permanence of beauty, while rhetorical

criticism aims at the rhetorical structure of the discourse, the rhetorical use of

language, and the influence of rhetorical discourse on the audience, such as changing

Toward a Dramatistic Criticism of American Presidential Inaugural Speeches—A Case Study

their attitude, shaping ideas and inducing some action.

Rhetorical criticism is both objective and subjective. It is certainly subjective as we

must pass our judgment on a rhetorical discourse, but this subjectivity is rhetorically

and factually grounded on the discourse. Thus it is objective. The objectivity of

rhetorical criticism lies in its objective basis of the rhetorical discourse, while the

subjectivity of the rhetorical discourse means that the rhetorical discourse is examined

by different models of criticism, such as the feminist model, the dramatistic model

and the sociological model, which embrace the subjective standard of evaluation

respectively.

With the development of rhetorical criticism, a unique methodology of analyzing the

rhetorical discourse has been framed. Generally speaking, it centers on the rhetorical

destruction, the persuasiveness of language, the potential and actual effect of creating,

reinforcing, and changing the attitude and inducing the ideal action of the audience,

etc.

§ 2.2 Models of Criticism

The rhetorical criticism boasts several canonical models: the new-Aristotelian model,

the feminist model, the postmodern model and the pentadic model, to name just a few.

In this section, the author will take a brief review of the main models of criticism in

the literary world in order to show a vista of various models and give the readers a

general idea of the development of rhetorical criticism.

§2.2.1 The New-Aristotelian Model

The new-Aristotelian model has dominated the research on discourses of public

speeches since the 20th century. The new-Aristotelian model encompasses three

procedures: restoration and analysis of the background in which the rhetorical

discourse has produced, elaboration and analysis of the rhetorical discourse, and

assessment of the influence of the discourse on the audience (常昌富，1998:3).

The first procedure of the criticism deals with the social background of the addresser,

Chapter Two Literature Review

the situation when and where the speech is addressed, and the original attitude of the

audience towards the speech(常昌富，1998:3). The addresser of the speech plays the

role of being a rhetorician in the rhetorical criticism. His social status, economic

background, and personal experience will decide his attitude towards the social

problems and consequently affect his views reflected in the speech. The situation

focuses on the place and time the speech is actually made. It is said that the temporal

and spatial factors will affect the style of the speech (formal or informal), the tones of

the addresser (commending or condemning), and the way of delivery (televised,

broadcasted or on the spot). In addition, the nature of the audience is explored. Of

great importance is the exploration of the original attitude of the audience. Whether

the audience holds an approval or objective attitude towards the addressed issue will

directly affect the process and result of the speech in the end.

The second procedure is the emphasis of the criticism on the rhetorical discourse(常

昌富， 1998:3), and it rests on the five canons of classic criticism: invention,

disposition, style, memory and delivery.

The canon of invention aims at deciding the arguments, the supporting materials, and

the methods or strategies to organize the selected supporting materials to demonstrate,

prove and testify the argument.

The canon of disposition concerns the treatment of the elaborate evaluation, the

orderly arrangement of the parts of a discourse. It decides a rhetorical structure to

organize the argument and the supporting materials in order to achieve the purpose of

making an accurate, coherent and persuasive discourse.

The canon of style examines the stylistic features of a discourse. It dwells on a

determination of what kind of words, phrases, expressions, sentence structures and

paragraphs should be utilized to make the discourse aesthetically pleasing to the

audience. The discourse is elaborately designed from the lexical, grammatical and

textual perspectives to enhance the persuasive force on the audience.

The canon of memory is usually traced back to the classic rhetorical theory since it

develops and flourishes in the classic time. It describes memory as a canon of how to

Toward a Dramatistic Criticism of American Presidential Inaugural Speeches—A Case Study

memorize the speech discourse in order to deliver a more effective and persuasive

delivery of the speech.

The canon of delivery probes into the mode of presenting the speech. The mood,

gestures and facial expressions can be utilized to make the speech more vivid and

persuasive. Moreover, it also deserves our attention that in the process of delivering

the speech, the addresser will possibly adjust the mode of his presentation according

to the reaction of the audience.

The last procedure of the criticism is to adjudge the validity and the credibility of the

speech(常昌富，1998:3), to see if the purpose of the speech has been achieved, if the

original attitude of the audience has been changed, and if it has induced the convinced

audience to make rational judgments and to take actions as addresser of the speech

has implied. The effectiveness of the speech will be decided by whether the desired

response from the audience has been achieved.

§2.2.2 The Pentadic Model

The dramaturgical criticism has played a very important role in the literary world

since 1960s. The dramaturgical criticism mainly includes the dramatic pentad by

Kenneth Burke, the fantasy theme analysis by Ernest Bormann and the narrative

paradigm by Walter Fisher (常昌富，1998:5). Among them, the pentadic analysis by

Kenneth Burke deserves the greatest attention of the present critics. The pentadic

analysis is the approach, which Burke uses to study human motivation through the

analysis of pentad, and it consists of such five terms as act, agent, agency, purpose and

scene. Burke also develops the twenty ratios to examine the relationship among the

five terms in order to study human motivation in detail. The rhetorical criticism of

pentadic analysis by Burke greatly influences the rhetorical theory of criticism.

Generally speaking, the pentadic analysis is applied to the analysis on language as the

symbolic action from the philosophical, psychological and sociological perspectives.

The pentadic analysis determines to clarify the relationship among motivation, action

and substance; it also studies how people change attitudes with language so as to

induce action (常昌富，1998:5). The thesis will be based on an elaborate analysis on

the model of pentadic analysis and apply the model to the study on the rhetorical

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摘要：

ChapterOneIntroduction1ChapterOneIntroductionDuringtheyearsofstudyonEnglishrhetoric,theauthorhasdevelopedakeeninterestintheanalysisofpresidentialinauguralspeechesfromtheperspectiveofrhetoricalcriticism.Thepresidentialinauguralspeeches,asaformofspeechdiscourse,havetheiruniquefeatures,whichcanbeexplor...

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