基于语义韵的美国总统就职演说研究

A Semantic Prosodic Study of American Presidents' Inaugural Addresses

本文以美国二战后的14篇总统就职演说为语料,采用语料库的上下文关键词索引法,对语义韵做定量研究。基于语料,文章选取5个节点词,主要分析了land、seek、human的积极语义韵和end、long的消极语义韵。研究表明:词汇的意义离不开语境。在美国总统就职演说这一特定语料中,词项的积极语义倾向较强,消极义倾向较弱。通过研究词项的语义韵,可以发现总统演说背后体现的美国政治意识形态,增强文化认同感。

With data of 14 inaugural addresses of American presidents after World War II, this paper adopts ＂key words in context＂ method to make a qualitative study of semantic prosody. Based on the linguistic data, the paper selects 5 nodes. It mainly analyzes the positive prosody of land, seek, human and the negative prosody of end, long. The study shows that the meanings of words are dependent on the context. Within the selected samples, the positive prosody of word is relatively stronger while the negative prosody is weaker. By analyzing the semantic prosodies of certain words, we can see the American political ideology behind these inaugural addresses, thus enhancing our sense of cultural identity.