前景化视角下美国总统就职演说词汇特征的历时研究

Diachronic Study on the Lexical Features of American Presidential Inaugural Speeches from the Perspective of Foregrounding Theory

以前景化为研究视角,对历届美国总统就职演说的词汇特征进行历时分析。研究发现,美国总统就职演说的篇幅及词汇密度没有明显的历时变化规律;平均句长与词长总体呈下降趋势;第一人称代词使用最频繁,且由以“我”为中心向以“我们”为中心转变;主题词多围绕“国家”和“美国民众”,而近一百年来government、constitution和power词频下降,peace、freedom和world词频上升。由此可见,美国总统就职演说在词汇选用上既注重信息传递,又注重听众感受,而总统的关注点也从美国自身扩展到整个世界。

Based on the foregrounding theory,it presents a diachronic analysis of the lexical features of the successive American presidential inaugural speeches in the paper.It is found that there is no obvious diachronic trend for the length and lexical density of the inaugural speeches;the average length of the words and sentences is declining;the first person pronoun is used most frequently,changing from I-centeredness to We-centeredness;the keywords in different periods center on"America"and"American people",and in the last 100 years,the keywords"government","constitution"and"power"were used less frequently while"peace","world"and"freedom"more.Thus,their lexical choice not only considered information transfer but also the audience feelings,and the change of the keywords also reflected a transfer of the presidential concern from their own country to the whole world.