基于语料库的希拉里和特朗普竞选语言特点研究_英语论文

A Corpus-based Study on Language Features of Hillary Clinton’s and Donald Trump's Speeches in American Presidential Election

摘要

纵观美国200 多年的历史，美国总统竞选无疑是政治文化生活中浓墨重彩的一笔，而总统大选则是美国总统政治生涯的第一步。近些年来，许多国内外研究学者都关注到了美国总统竞选中语言风格的个人化及其所表征的美国文化与政治趋势，并进行了一系列的深入研究。在新媒体的推动下，2016美国总统大选关注度更高，两位候选人希拉里和特朗普竞选语言风格迥异并各具特色。两位的语言不仅体现了个人魅力，也代表了不同党派对美国及世界政务的不同态度。本文拟从语料库语言学角度出发，对2016年美国总统大选候选人希拉里和特朗普的电视大选演讲转写文本进行分析总结，归纳出二人各自的语言风格，并试图从语言上发现美国当下的热点问题和不同政党的执政观点和方案。

本研究根据语料库建库原则进行了自建语料库CCTS, CCS以及CTS，并在此基础上发现2016美国大选中的热点问题为竞选结果、就业、医疗、外交、恐怖主义。并且发现希拉里·克林顿倾向于使用简单词、名词和排比句；而唐纳德·特朗普则更多的用简单词、形容词和评价。两人语言风格的相似处在于词长、人称代词的选择和语言中的关键词，尤其是前三个关键词。两人风格的不同集中于对动词、形容词、词语搭配的不同选择。克林顿偏爱使用动词抒发意见，勾勒蓝图，较少使用形容词；特朗普则除了表达意见外，也会选择动词来提出并解释实际的处理办法，较多的使用形容词。本文的词语搭配研究以people为例，发现希拉里倾向于搭配特定人群，如劳动人民或年轻人；特朗普则是面向大众，如全体人民或美国人民。

这种基于语料库的研究以其真实的语言数据、严格的设计标准和独特的分析模式表现出较传统方法明显的优势，利用计算机语料库提取和分析语言素材，避免了研究者的主观性和片面性。

关键词：语料库语言学；美国总统竞选；政治语篇；语言风格

Abstract

Throughout the 200-year history of America, American Presidential Election, the first step of a presidency, is an indispensable part of American cultural and political life. In recent years, many domestic scholars have noticed the individualization of language features which may stand for a candidate’s political trends in the campaign and conducted lots of relevant researches. Driven by new media, 2016 U.S. Presidential Election attracted more attention than ever. Two candidates, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, have completely different language features which embody their personal charm and attitudes towards world issues. This paper analyzes and summarizes their language features based on corpus linguistics and attempts to find hot issues in the campaign and political viewpoints respectively in different parties.

Three corpora, CCTS, CCS and CTS, were built to research the language features of the two candidates, and Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump separately. Based on the analysis, hot issues discussed in the campaign are the result of the election, jobs, health care, diplomacy and terrorism. Hillary Clinton tends to use simple words, nouns and parallel sentences; while Donald Trump prefers simple words, adjectives and comments. The similarities between them are word length, choices of personal pronouns and top key words, especially top three. The differences are choices of verbs, adjectives and collocations. Hillary Clinton uses verbs to illustrate her ideas or blueprints with fewer adjectives. Donald Trump, except expressing opinions, chooses verbs to put forward his actions with more adjectives. This paper takes the collocation of people as an example. It could be found that Hillary tends to match adjectives targeting specific groups of people like working people and young people; while Trump mostly faces to all the citizens like the people and American people.

This study, based on Corpus Linguistics, researches on the authentic language data, scientific design and unique analyzing pattern, and provide a more objective result.

Keywords: Corpus Linguistics; American Presidential Election; Political Text; Language Features

Contents

I. Introduction 1

II. Literature Review 3

2.1 Definition of Corpus and Corpus Linguistics 3

2.2 Basic Elements in the Application of Corpus 4

2.3 Discourse Analysis 4

2.4. Presidential Speech Analysis at Home and Abroad 5

III. Methodology 7

3.1 Establishment of CCTS, CCS and CTS 7

3.2 Size 7

3.3 Analytical Tools 9

3.4 Research Questions 10

IV. Data Analysis and Discussion 11

4.1 Overall Statistical Properties and Analysis of CCTS 11

4.1.1 Word Length 11

4.1.2 Word Frequency 13

4.1.3 Studies on Personal Pronouns 16

4.1.3.1 I and My 16

4.1.3.2 We and Our 17

4.1.4 Studies on Auxiliary Verbs 18

4.1.5 Studies on Key Words 19

4.2 Overall Statistical Properties and Analysis of CCS 22

4.2.1 Word Length 22

4.2.2 Word Frequency 23

4.2.3 Key Words 25

4.3 Overall Statistical Properties and Analysis of CTS 26

4.3.1 Word Length 26

4.3.2 Word Frequency 27

4.3.3 Key Words 29

4.4 Comparison between CCS and CTS 30

4.4.1 Similarities 30

4.4.2 Differences 32

V. Conclusion 34

Bibliography 36