MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING QUY NHON UNIVERSITY TRẦN ÁI VINH LEXICAL REPETITION IN ABRAHAM LINCOLN’S SPEECHES MASTER THESIS IN ENGLISH BINH DINH - 2020 e INISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING QUY NHON UNIVERSITY TRẦN ÁI VINH LEXICAL REPETITION IN ABRAHAM LINCOLN’S SPEECHES Field: English Linguistics Code: 8. NGUYỄN VĂN LONG e BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC QUY NHƠN TRẦN ÁI VINH SỰ LẶP LẠI TỪ VỰNG TRONG CÁC BÀI PHÁT BIỂU CỦA ABRAHAM LINCOLN Ngành: Ngôn ngữ Anh Mã số: 8.01 Người hướng dẫn: PGS. NGUYỄN VĂN LONG e i STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I certify that the present thesis is my own work and this thesis contains no material published elsewhere, except where reference made in the text of the thesis. No other person‘s work has been used without due acknowledgements in the thesis.
This thesis has not submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other tertiary. Binh Dinh, 2020 Tran Ai Vinh e ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my respect to everybody interested and help me during the past time. First, I would like to thank all the lecturers of this course for their valuable lectures that provided the foundation for this thesis. I am grateful to my supervisor, Assoc.
Professor Dr Nguyen Van Long, who gave me invaluable advice and encouragement during this time. It inspired me to try to complete this thesis. His instructions helped me in all the time of writing this thesis, without which my thesis would not have been possible. Next, I would like to thank my colleagues, who helped me in this course.
Finally, I would like to thank my family for supporting me spiritually throughout the time this research conducted. e iii ASTRACT Abraham Lincoln is considered one of the great Presidents of the United States. One factor attributes to his success in speeches is that he has skillfully applied the variety of rhetorical devices, such as repetition. The repetition in the political speeches, the researcher conducted this study with the purpose of investigating into the stylistic features of repetition in Abraham Lincoln's Speeches.
The main objectives are to find out different types of repetition applied and their respective functions in political speeches by Abraham Lincoln based on the theory of Halliday and Hasan (1976). As for each type, there is one or more specific figures of speech to discuss. The researcher collected the data from a website on the Internet. The study was carried out through the adoption of quantitative, qualitative, analytic, synthetic and descriptive approaches.
After analyzing three speeches of Lincoln from the theoretical basis of cohesive and language rhetoric, this paper finds out the most used rhetorical devices in his speeches. Finally, some suggestions on speeches will offer. On this basis, several suggestions help in English teaching and learning practices. Its purpose is to provide learners of English with practical information and to raise their awareness of rhetorical devices in political speeches in English.
e iv TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS. iv LIST OF TABLES. vi LIST OF FIGURES.
vii CHAPTER ONE. Rationale of the study. Aims and objectives. Aims of the study.
Objectives of the study. Scope of the study. Significance of the study. Organization of the study.
Concepts of terms. Types of lexical repetition. Reliability and Validity. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION.
Frequency of simple repetition and complex repetition. The different types of lexical repetition in Abraham Lincoln's speeches. CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS. Implication of the study.
Limitations of the study. Suggestions for further studies. 63 e vi LIST OF TABLES Table 4. Summary of the results of data analysis.
Different types of repetition in Lincoln‘s speeches. Anaphora in Lincoln‘s speeches. Epiphora in Abraham Lincoln‘s speeches. Mesodiplosis in Abraham Lincoln‘s speeches .49 e vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.
System of Cohesion. Types of Lexical Cohesion. Types of Lexical Repetition. Different types of repetition .39 e 1 CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION 1.
Rationale of the study In the current era, based on the explosion of mass media, information technology has created conditions and opportunities for people to communicate and share information. Besides domestic issues, people are also interested in foreigner issues such as the economic, political, cultural, and social and entertainment fields. Besides, language is a tool which human utilized to convey information for the others. Nowadays, the primary communication language in the world is usually English because English is the first language of the majority of countries in the world and the second language for others.
Therefore, the English language often used in communication in the whole world. Based on different situations, discourse context, we can understand the meaning of different texts. However, we do not merely understand a speech, basing on the use of words, connections between sentences, logic of paragraphs and we must master how to analyze texts to understand specific and accurate meanings. In politics, speech plays an important role to persuade others.
Speeches are inherent in the name of presidents; it shows the supremacy as well as the influence of this president. A successful speech needs to depend on many different factors, including the topic of the speech, the mood of the audiences, the using of words or rhetorical devices. Abraham Lincoln, using many kinds of rhetorical devices in his speech, is the sixth president of the United States of America. In my opinion, based on using rhetorical devices, his speeches are very successful, despite the length of it, maybe short or maybe longer.
Abraham Lincoln is a famous American leader, so his speeches are meaningful and have an impact on everyone in this country. Thus, his e 2 speeches have been paid attention by everybody, including researchers who focused on the analysis of speeches. Many researchers had many types of research on Abraham Lincoln's speeches, but they only mentioned the meaning or lists of his speeches or his biographies; such as, Abraham Lincoln and Civil War America: A Biography by William E. Gienapp; Big Enough to Be Inconsistent: Abraham Lincoln Confronts Slavery and Race by George M.
Fredrickson; The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties by Mark E. Neely Jr; Lincoln's Gettysburg Address by Orton H. Carmichael or Abraham Lincoln: His Speeches and Writings by Abraham Lincoln and Roy P. Although there is no research related in the rhetoric devices in each speech of Abraham Lincoln, there are many researches about rhetorical devices of poem, music or the other presidents; such as Barbara Johnstone wrote Repetition in discourses: Interdisciplinary perspectives.
Besides speech's content, I want to analyze some rhetorical devices, for example, Lexical Repetition in speeches and especially Abraham Lincoln's speeches. For this reason, I want to conduct a comprehensible study of lexical repetition in Abraham Lincoln's Speeches. Thank to lexical analysis, we can understand his speech clearer than before. Many important works introduced by Hoey (1991) and later on were widely discussed and developed by many scholars (Halliday and Hasan, 1976; Johnstone and Kirk, Beaugrande and Dressler, Fareh 1988; Johnstone 1991; Hatim and Mason 1997) were published dealings with the lexical repetition.
My thesis based on the theory built by Halliday and Hasan (1976) and Hoey (1991). It aims to emphasize the need and meaning for using lexical repetition in speeches with the subject: LEXICAL REPETITION IN ABRAHAM LINCOLN’S SPEECHES. Aims and objectives 1. Aims of the study The aim of this study specifically focuses on describing the lexical repetition feature, which was applied in political speeches by Abraham Lincoln.
Beside it analyzes the frequency of appearances and their respective functions. The repetitions in each speech can help author emphasis on main parts in a speech to clarify meanings. It is also purpose is to provide learners of English with practical information and to raise their awareness of lexical repetition in political speeches in English. This study is hoped to give suggestions to help people to receive Lincoln‘s Speeches absolutely, as well as other speeches.
Objectives of the study To achieve the initial aim of the study, the research will be concentrate on the following objectives: - Analyzing the lexical repetition, the frequencies of occurrence of it were applied and their respective functions in political speeches by Abraham Licoln. - Highlight the significant contribution of lexical repetition applied and their respective functions in Abraham Lincoln's speeches. - To help English teacher and learners understand how to use lexical repetition and make some recommendations to improve their speeches. Scope of the study Referring to my previous argument in the title of the study, the scope of this study limited the analysis of lexical repetition.
Abraham Lincoln used them in his speeches and its functions. It is sure that this study only focuses on the findings of lexical repetition. Within the scope of this thesis, this study cannot cover all of the speeches; moreover, because of the limitation of time and ability, the data for analysis are three speeches of Abraham Lincoln. The e 4 study conducted on the material of Abraham Lincoln's speeches about political speech of varying length.
Research questions: To achieve the aim and objectives mentioned above, the thesis would answer some following questions: 1) What are the different types of the lexical repetition in Abraham Lincoln‘s Speeches? 2) How often are the different types of lexical repetition used in Abraham Lincoln‘s Speeches? 1. Significance of the study This study expected to contribute to the development of the study of the lexical repetition. Its findings can use for analysis Speeches through a theoretical and practical perspective. Up to now, many studies have adopted the lexical repetition as a rhetorical measure to analyse a text.
Thus, this study is a new approach to gain insight into the feature of lexical repetition conveyed by the Speeches. Nevertheless, it provides some implications for readers or listeners. Furthermore, the research will help Vietnamese learners have aware and achieve the beauty of using language in political speeches. Moreover, it will provide them with some necessary orientation and techniques in the creative design or the use of words in writing speeches.
In term of pactice significance, the results of the study suggest some implications for, student, and especially those interesting in political speeches. At the the same time, they can train students better in reading and listening information as well as using lexical repetition in effective ways. Organization of the study The study will be organized in five chapters. - Chapter 1: Introduction – introduces the study that includes the e 5 rationale, aims and objectives, significance of the study, scope of the study.
The research questions and organization of the study were also showed in this chapter. - Chapter 2: Literature reviews – summarizes some previous studies and indicate a gap for the study. The relevant concepts of terms provide an overview of lexical repetition that serves the basis of data analysis. - Chapter 3: Methodology – expresses the research methods and research design for carrying out the study.
Besides, it presents how to collect the data in data collection and the approach way to analyze the data in data analysis. - Chapter 4: Findings and Discussion - identifies, describes, and analyzes data collected by lexical repetition. Moreover, draw the conclusion of analyzing data to find out the meaning of lexical repetition used in Abraham Lincoln‘s speeches. - Chapter 5: Conclusion and Implication - summarizes the major findings of the study and reminds the implications for English teaching and learning.
Limitations and suggestions for further research are also included in this chapter. e 6 CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter aims to provide a brief overview of some relevant studies and some theoretical backgrounds as a foundation for the theory applied to conduct the current research like speech, cohesion and lexical repetition. Previous studies Up to now, there have been many studies on the lexical repetition and political speeches or lexical repetition in political speeches.