MASARYK UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF EDUCATION Department of English Language and Literature Queen's Christmas Speeches 1952-2007: Discourse Analysis Diploma thesis Brno 2009 Written by: Supervisor: Mária Kredátusová Mgr. Martin Adam, Ph.D. Declaration I hereby declare that I have worked on my thesis independently and that I have used only the sources listed in the bibliography. Brno 20. 4. 2009 .............................................. Acknowledgements I would like to express my thanks to my supervisor Mgr. Martin Adam, Ph.D. for his advice and support during creating this thesis . CONTENT I. Introduction ................................................................................................................... 7 1.1 General opening .................................................................................................. 7 1.2 The topic of the thesis ......................................................................................... 8 1.3 Hypotheses .......................................................................................................... 8 1.4 The corpus ........................................................................................................... 9 1.5 Methods .............................................................................................................. 9 I. Theoretical part ............................................................................................................ 10 2. Analyzing discourse ................................................................................................ 10 2.1 Discourse .......................................................................................................... 10 2.2 Discourse analysis ................................................................................................. 11 2.3 The methods of discourse analysis ................................................................... 12 2.4 The Levels of Discourse Analysis .................................................................... 13 2.4.1 Graphical level ........................................................................................... 13 2.4.2 Phonetic level ............................................................................................. 14 2.4.3 Lexical level ............................................................................................... 15 2.4.4 Grammatical level ...................................................................................... 15 2.4.5 Stylistic level .............................................................................................. 16 2.4.6 Discourse level ........................................................................................... 17 2.4.6.1 Cohesion ............................................................................................. 17 2.4.7 Pragmatics .................................................................................................. 18 2.4.7.1 Coherence ........................................................................................... 19 2.4.7.2 The context of situation ...................................................................... 20 3. The language of speeches ....................................................................................... 21 3.1 General distinction between spoken and written language ............................... 21 3.2 Spoken language ............................................................................................... 22 3.3 Written language ............................................................................................... 22 4. Rhetoric ................................................................................................................... 24 4.1 A speech as a complex system .......................................................................... 24 4.2 The features of ceremonial speeches ................................................................ 25 4.3 The composition of ceremonial speeches ......................................................... 25 4.4 Linguistic devices used in speeches .................................................................. 26 4.5 General linguistic devices ................................................................................. 27 4.5.1 Expressive vs. notional expressions ........................................................... 27 4.5.2 Marked phrases .......................................................................................... 28 4.5.2.1 The It-Cleft ......................................................................................... 28 4.5.2.2 The What-Cleft ................................................................................... 29 4.5.2.3 The There-Transformation .................................................................. 29 4.5.2.4 Power words ....................................................................................... 30 4.5.3 Abstract vs. concrete language devices ..................................................... 30 4.6 Poetic devices ....................................................................................................... 31 4.6.1 Imagery ...................................................................................................... 31 4.6.2 Repetition ................................................................................................... 32 5. The history of Christmas speeches ......................................................................... 32 5.1 The beginnings .................................................................................................. 32 5.2 The establishing of the tradition ....................................................................... 33 5.3 The reign of the Queen Elisabeth II. ................................................................. 34 II. Practical part ........................................................................................................... 36 6. Levels of analysis .................................................................................................... 36 7. Graphical level ........................................................................................................ 36 7.1 Summary ........................................................................................................... 38 8. Vocabulary level ..................................................................................................... 38 8.1 Chief topics ....................................................................................................... 38 8.2 The most frequent words .................................................................................. 41 8.3 Formal vs. informal vocabulary ........................................................................ 42 8.4 Specialised terminology .................................................................................... 43 8.5 Summary ........................................................................................................... 44 9. Grammatical level ................................................................................................... 44 9.1 Types and length of sentences .......................................................................... 44 9.2 The conjunction ‘and’ ....................................................................................... 46 9.3 The dependent clauses ...................................................................................... 47 9.4 Sentence structure ............................................................................................. 47 9.5 Verb tenses ........................................................................................................ 48 Table 6: The frequency of ‘grammatical verbs’ ..................................................... 49 9.6 Person ................................................................................................................ 50 9.7 Locutionary subjectivity ................................................................................... 51 9.8 The Principle of Politeness ............................................................................... 52 9.9 Summary ........................................................................................................... 52 10. Stylistic level ......................................................................................................... 53 10.1 Literary devices ............................................................................................... 53 10.1.2 Imagery .................................................................................................... 54 10.1.2.1 Metaphor ........................................................................................... 54 10.1.2.2 Simile ................................................................................................ 54 10.1.2.3 Personification .................................................................................. 54 10.1.2.4 Parallelism ........................................................................................ 55 10.1.2.5 Parenthesis ........................................................................................ 55 10.1.2.6 Citations ............................................................................................ 56 10.1.2.7 Allusion ............................................................................................