Comparative Communicative and Semantic Discourse Analysis of American Presidential Inaugural Speeches of Early 21st Century

Abstract

The article develops the traditional rhetorical “issues” contained in inaugural speeches of American presidents as macrotopical entities which are applied to construct communicative semantic structures of those speeches consisting of macrotopics and respective topics in the realm of discourse linguistics. We propose a major rhetorical macrotopical cycle (MRMC) as a basic structure of those speeches. Most general repeated topics (macrotopics) in the Inaugural Speeches are Domestic Issues, International Issues, American Traditions and Other (Reference to the Audience, Reference to God, Application to Himself). Research of communicative semantic peculiarities of the use of such macrotopics in the Inaugural Speeches of the US Presidents of the beginning of the 21st century and their comparison constitute the subject matter of this article. Analyzing MRMCs within each of the Inaugural Speeches produces communicative semantic discourse description of them and gives the possibility to compare them. A tendency to use certain macrotopics in repeated orders in the speeches is found out. To a certain extent in all Inaugural Speeches of the US presidents we singled out the phenomenon which can be called major rhetorical macrotopical cycle which most frequently consists of the following macrotopics: Reference to the Audience – American Traditions – Domestic / International Issues and Reference to God. Communicative semantic structures of those speeches differ between themselves in the of such cycles, forms and subtypes of MRMCs. The peculiarities of the use of MRMCs by American presidents of the beginning of the 21st century are analysed and compared.