1 2

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING The study has been completed at College of Foreign
Languages, University of Danang
UNIVERSITY OF DANANG

NGUYỄN THỊ MINH HƯỜNG

A DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF Examiner 1 : Assoc. Prof. Dr. Phan Văn Hòa

ENGLISH OSCAR ACCEPTANCE SPEECHES

Field : The English Language

The Origin of the thesis is accessible for the purpose of

Danang, 2011
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Chapter 1 1.2.2. Objectives
INTRODUCTION - To examine the discourse features of Oscar acceptance
1.1. RATIONALE speeches in term of the layout, lexical choice, syntactic features,
People cannot live without language, because language cohesive and stylistic devices.
is very important in communication. Communication is a process - To suggest some implications for teaching and learning
of transferring message from a sender (the speaker) to a receiver English
(the hearer). 1.3. RESEARCH QUESTIONS
In fact, language is the most effective and practical means of 1. What are the discourse features of English Oscar
communication. It is really a master key in all fields of society. Acceptance Speeches in terms of their layout features, lexical choice
People use language to exchange information, express their thoughts, and syntactic features of EOASs?
their ideas or their opinions.
Nowadays, with the development of the society, speeches occur 2. What are the discourse characteristics of EOASs in term of
in almost every field of our life. Speeches are dispensable for any cohesive devices and stylistic devices?
seminars, workshops or any other ceremonies. It is not easy to make a
3. What are the implications drawn from the analysis of
good speech that is appropriate to various audiences. In order to deliver
EOASs for Vietnamese teachers and learners of English as well as
an attractive and persuasive speech, one must master the speaking skill
as well as know how to organize and develop their writing. for those interested in the field of public speaking?
There are so many interesting things that need to be studied in
1.4. SCOPE OF THE STUDY
Oscar Award Acceptance Speeches. Therefore, I have decided to This thesis focuses on describing, analyzing, synthesizing
choose to do research on the topic “A Discourse Analysis of English some discourse features namely the layout, syntactic features,
Oscar Acceptance Speeches Delivered by Film Award Winners in cohesive devices and stylistic devices
the USA”. It is hoped that the findings of this study would provide
1.5. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
some useful information about the linguistic features of Award
1.6. ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY
Acceptance Speeches This study consists of five chapters.
1.2. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter5,
1.2.1. Aims
- Raise the awareness of learners of English in effective
communication. In addition, based on the analysis, some suggestions
have been made.
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Chapter 2 USA” is conducted with the aim of contributing a minor part to fulfill
LITERATURE REVIEW the overall picture of this field.
AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 2.2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
2.1. LITERATURE REVIEW Discourse analysis is concerned with the study of the
Discourse analysis is concerned with the study of the relationship between language and the contexts in which it is used.
relationship between language and the context in which it is The following sections deal with the key concepts related to
used.Brown and Yule [5] suggested discourse theory of cohesion, discourse analysis.
coherence, theme –rheme structure, information structure, frame, 2.2.1. Concepts of discourse
schemata, role of context, genre, register, and so on . Halliday [21] defines “Discourse is a multidimensional process”.
According to Crystal [12] discourse is seen as “a continuous stretch of
Cook [9] explained the theory of discourse analysis aand Mc
language larger than a sentence, often constituting a coherent unit such
Carthy [28] gave an insight into how texts are structured beyond the
as a sermon, argument, joke, or narrative”.
sentence –level;
Cook [9] has a similar perspective of discourse; he considers
As for cohesion, Haliday and Hasan [20] regarded a coherent
discourse as “stretches of language perceived to be meaningful,
text as having two characteristics somewhat different from those in
unified, and purposive”.
the traditional definition : cohesion (i.e. ties between sentences) and
Widdowson [48,p.100] considers discourse as “a communicative
register (i.e coherence with a context).
process by means of interaction.
Discourse analysis is an important and discipline which has
From the above – mentioned concepts, discourse is employed
attracted the interest and concern of many linguists and researchers. in this research as follows:
context, topics, information structure and coherence by Brown and - Discourse is language in use, for communication.
Yule [5], cohesion, speech acts and discourse processing by Nunan - Discourse is a language unit which has meaning, unity and
[36], formal links and conversation analysis by Cook[9], speech purpose.
events and contextual analysis by Hatch [23] cohesion by Halliday - Discourse is a process and its linguistic product is text.
and Hassan [20], etc. 2.2.2. Discourse and Text
To the best of my knowledge, although there have been many Actually, it is not easy to make a clear-cut distinction between
researches into speeches, up to now, there is no evidence that any “text” and “discourse”. The concepts of discourse and text defined by
research on discourse analysis of Oscar Acceptance Speeches has Halliday [21,p.290] maybe the most comprehensive. He states that
been done. Thus in this thesis “A Discourse Analysis of Oscar “discourse” itself is a process and the term “text” is usually taken as
Acceptance Speeches Delivered by Film Award Winners in the referring to the product. Obviously, cohesion and coherence are
typical of text as a language unit.
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2.2.3. Spoken and Written Discourse 2.2.5.1. Cohesion
Spoken discourse is often less planned and orderly, more open Halliday and Hasan [20] give the most comprehensive
to intervention by the receiver while the written one is well structured description analysis of cohesive devices five major types of cohesive
and the possibilities for subordinate participants are very limited. ties: reference, substitution, ellipsis and conjunction and lexical ties.
Brown and Yule [5] suggest that spoken and written discourse serve The first four types are grouped as grammatical cohesion and the
various functions: later is lexical cohesion.
- The first is used for the establishment and maintenance of Grammatical cohesion
human relationship (interactional use); a) Reference
- The second for the working out of and transference of Halliday and Hasan [20] categorize reference as three groups:
Personal reference, Demonstrative reference and Comparative reference
information (transactional use)
b) Substitution
2.2.4. Register of Discourse
Haliday and Hasan give out the following list of the items that
Inevitably, there is a close relationship between language and
occur as substitutes:
context. Language is produced in a certain context and that context
Nominal substitution : one, ones; same
becomes understandable because of the apparent purpose expressed
Verbal substitution : do
through language.
Clausal substitution : so, not
Halliday [21] further defines register as “the variety of
c) Ellipsis
language used in a particular situational context”.
As with substitution, there are three types of ellipsis:
Galperin [15] considers registers “the functional styles” and nominal, verbal and clausal ellipsis.
Galperin also divides registers into five categories: d) Conjunction
•The language of belle-letters Conjunction refers to specific devices (conjunctions) for
•The language of official documents linking one sentence to another. There are a number of words -
•The language of scientific prose conjunctions and adverbs - which fulfill this function. Basically, they
•The language of publicistic literature may be divided into four groups: additive, adversative, causal and
•The language of newspaper temporal conjunctions
2.2.5. Cohesion and Coherence . Lexical cohesion
Cohesion and coherence are two terms which become very There are two major categories of lexical cohesion: reiteration
popular in discourse analysis. They are closely interrelated in the way and collocation.
that cohesion is regarded as one of the ways of making a text Reiteration includes repetition, synonym, antonym, super-
coherent. ordinate, and general words..
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2.2.5.2. Coherence Chapter 3
Coherence is embodied by a system of cohesive devices and METHODS AND PROCEDURES
cohesion is mainly used to ensure coherence. 3.1. RESEARCH METHODS
2.2.6. Some features on Styles and Stylistics In order to achieve this aim, I carry out my investigation based
2.2.7. Classification of Stylistic Devices on the combination of several methods as follows :
In the scope of this study, some features of stylistic devices - Quantitive and Qualitative methods
are found and discussed as follows. - Descriptive methods
2.2.7.1. Alliteration - Analytic and Synthetic methods
2.2.7.2. Interjections - Inductive methods
2.2.7.3. Parallel Construction
3.2. SAMPLING
2.2.7.4. Climax
3.3. DATA COLLECTION
2.2.7.5. Hyperbole
In this study, 100 samples of EOASs selected for the analysis are
2.2.7.6. Epithet
in the form of written texts on the Internet. All EOASs are downloaded
2.2.8. Some General Features of Oscar Acceptance Speeches
from the famous website: http://aaspeechesdb.oscars.org/.
2.2.8.1. Acceptance Speech as a Type of Discourse
3.4. RESEARCH PROCEDURE
2.2.8.2. Notions of Acceptance Speech
In order to prepare the base for the research, I proceeded to
An acceptance speech is a speech delivered on accepting some
carry out the tasks as follows.
award or a high rank (e.g. presidency). Structurally, the acceptance
speech can be considered a variant of a thank you speech but the - Collecting data
expression of gratitude it contains is rather symbolic because the - Analyzing data
nominee him/herself has made a great contribution to art - Discussing the findings: synthesize the findings and draw
/science/politics/etc.[62] conclusion.
2.2.8.3.Some Notes on the Oscar - Putting forwards some implications.
Wikipedia cites “An Academy Award, also known as the 3.5. DATA ANALYSIS
Oscar, is granted by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts On the basis of 100 EOASs, the data will be investigated into
and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film some discourse features as: the layout, the lexical choice, the
industry, including directors, actors, and writers. syntactic features, cohesive devices, and stylistic devices.
2.2.8.4. Origin of the Oscar’s Name Finally, conclusion is drawn from the above analysis results.
2.3. SUMMARY 3.6. VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY
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Chapter 4 Here is an example of a speech by Graham King in 2006.[95]
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION While the first two models of EOASs represent in concrete
4.1. THE LAYOUT OF EOASs structures. Particularly, these speeches are mentioned to the
4.1.1. General Layout of EOASs speaker’s personal story, social matters, gratitude to his family etc..
In this study, I have surveyed 100 EOASs with various However, the order of these elements presented may be
elements forming their layouts. As a result, EOASs generally interchangeable.
contains several logically bound sections as follows. 4.1.2. Specific contents
Introduction Attention Catching Through examining and classifying 100 of samples of EOASs,
I withdraw some results in Table 4.1 as follows.
Table 4.1 Frequently Used Contents in EOASs
Body Gratitude Expression Order Frequently used contents Occurrence
- Transition
1 Model 1 35 instances
2 Model 2 55 instances
Conclusion Closing 3 Multiforms 15 instances

Figure 4.1: The Layout of EOASs - Model 1 The elements emotion and gratitude expressions in Model 2
Below is an example speech of by Nicolas Cage in 1995 to are mainly presented in EOASs. In addition, closing contributes a
represent the above – mentioned matter.[137] minor part in finishing the speech. This is also a important element to
Another popular model of layout also appears in this corpus. make a good impression on the audience. The indispensable part in
Here is the second model of EOASs. the speech to get the audience's attention, capture their hearts and
Attention
Introduction Catching minds and convince them to listen to the speech is attention
catching.
Emotion Expression 4.1.2.1. Attention Catching
Body Here are some among the various examples.
- Transition Gratitude Expression (5) Oh my heavens, I can't believe it. [Clutching the Oscar]
A man at last! [Laughs.] [121]
Closing
Conclusion 4.1.2.2. Emotion Expression
Here are some illustrations:
Figure 4.2 The Layout of EOASs - Model 2
 13 14
(7) Oh my God. I have to just take this moment in. I
cannot believe this. Look what God can do. If my Table 4.2 Frequently used Personal Pronouns in EOASs
grandmother--I didn't think I was going to win but, Order Frequently used Occurrence Rate
wow, if my grandmother was here to see me now Personal Pronouns
[111] 1 I 975 76.4%
4.1.2.3. Gratitude Expression 2 You 200 15.7%
Let us take a look at the following examples. 3 We 101 7.9%
Thanking the Academy Total 1.276 100%
(10) I would like to thank the Academy for inviting me
here tonight alongside so many talented people: As for the personal pronoun I with 975 instances accounting
Holly, Patricia, Marcia and Shohreh. I am honored, for 76.4% is found in this study. In these cases, the speaker sets a
honored to be here with you. [145] subject position for himself as an individual –the award winner. One
Thanking the cast and crew or co-worker interesting thing is that the speaker used the great majority of
Thanking the family Personal Pronoun I in EOASs to show his /her emotional
(13) And on a personal note, I'd like to thank my mother and expressions, his thoughts about Oscar award and his gratitude to
my sister for holding me together and just plain old everyone.
holding me. And my kids, Peter and Eli, for being Here are some examples.
my constant inspiration, and no matter how many (17) I would like to thank The Academy from the bottom
awards I win, if it weren't them I wouldn't be worth a of my heart. [97]
damn. [151] (21) This moviemaking experience was magical for me
4.1.2.4. Closing because of you. You believed in me, you trusted me
People usually remember two things about a speech, the and you gently guided me to very scary places. [98]
beginning and the end. Closing a speech in a powerful way will have (22) We found real beauty in this extraordinary script by
the audience thinking about your speech for a long time. This is Sam Mendes – by Alan Ball. [119]
emphasized to the audience key statements.[61] 4.2.2. Commonly Used Terms in EOASs
(15) And as for you [looking at Oscar], at long last! Good These words are frequently found in various parts of speech:
night and God bless you. [123] nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, participles, etc. The list is as
4.2. LEXICAL CHOICE below.
4.2.1. Personal Pronouns
 15 16
Briefly, among the common terms tabulated above, the verb
Table 4.3 Frequently Used Words in EOASs thank is used with the highest frequency (552 times). It appears in
Part of Frequency most of EOASs.
No. Term Meaning
speech (times) 4.3. SYNTACTIC FEATURES OF EOASs
an institution for the 78 4.3.1. Voice
1 Academy Noun advancement of art or In term of voice, there are two types of voice occurring in
science or literature
English grammar: active voice and passive voice.
something awarded, 66 The following are some illustrations of passive voice.
2 Award Noun such as a prize or (29) Let me say before continuing any further that I was
medal overwhelmed to be mentioned in the same breath as
a form of entertainment 47 theother four gentlemen who were nominated with
that enacts a story by me. [76]
sound and a sequence In a nutshell, the active voice is favourable in EOASs in order
3 Movie Noun of images giving the
to highlight the active role in the acceptance speech.
illusion of continuous
4.3.2. Sentence Types
movement
Among 1.720 sentences, 1.641 sentences belong to the
The actors in a play, 37 declarative type, 39 sentences are questions, 25 sentences are
4 Cast Noun movie, or other exclamatory and 15 sentences are imperative. The following table
theatrical presentation will show this.
an organized group of 33
5 Crew Noun Table 4.4 Summary of Types of Sentences
workmen
Types Occurrence Rate
High respect, as that 30
Declarative sentence 1.641 95.4%
6 Honor Noun shown for special
merit; esteem Interrogative sentence 39 2.3%
Chance A favorable set of 27 Exclamatory sentence 25 1.4%
7 Noun
/Opportunity circumstances Imperative sentence 15 0.9%
To express appreciation 552 Total 1.720 100%
8 Thank Verb or gratitude to (someone)
for a favour, service, gift We often see such sentences as follows.
 17 18
(33) Stephen Daldry, you took a huge chance on me. I am As can be seen in Table 4.5, the number of lexical devices
so grateful. David Hare, you gave me magnificent (1008 instances) was a bit more than the number of grammatical ones
words to say. [138] (626 instances.). The use of each type will be analyzed in details as
Most of the questions here are rhetorical ones, that is to say the
follows.
way the speakers poses the questions is just an art in guiding the
4.4.1. Grammatical Cohesive Devices in EOASs
listeners to the matter and the speaker himself/herself has to find out
the answer. Here are some examples. With regard to grammatical cohesion, the grammatical devices
(35) Why do you come to the Academy Awards when the most used were reference (68.5%), followed by conjunction (28.9%)
world is in such turmoil? Because art is important. and ellipsis (1.7%). Substitution accounts for a relatively small
And because you believe in what you do and you percentage (0.9%).
want to honor that. [138] 4.4.1.1. Reference
The noticeable thing to emerge in EOASs is exclamation. It In English, items which have the property of reference are
takes up about 1.4% of all types of sentences.
personal, demonstrative, and comparative reference.
(37) Regina King, I love you! You did a great job when we
Below are some illustrations.
made the movie! [84]
In terms of the imperative mode, it rarely occurs in EOASs (41) But my gratitude goes to six beautiful women. They
with the modest rate 0.9%. Most of imperative sentences in EOASs love me, they keep me young: my wife Martha, my
starts with “let me”. daughters Veronica, Raffaella, Francesca, Carolyna,
(39) Let me share this award with all people, talented little Dina -- for the moment. [85]
people, all the young working on my films behind In the first instance, the italic word is an example of personal
the camera. [85] reference. The item They in the second sentence is interpretable only
4.4. COHESIVE DEVICES
by reference to six beautiful women. By using such pronoun, the
Following Halliday’s point of view, I embark on analyzing
speaker maintained the relationship between two sentences without
cohesive devices in EOASs and achieve the result as shown in Table 4.5.
Table 4.5 Cohesive Devices in EOASs having to repeat the phrase.
Device Ref. Sub. Ellip Conj Rep. Syn. Ant. Hyp. (43) I found desire for what I do early in my life and I'm
. .. lucky because I had people who encouraged that
Occurrence 401 5 10 169 962 29 11 6
desire. [66]
Percentage 25.2 0.3 0.6 10.6 60.4 1.8 0.7 0.4 In the above extract, Demonstrative reference that followed by
Gra.devices 36.7 % a noun desire is a selective nominal demonstrative with anaphoric
DEEDDEdevi function.
ces devices
Lex. 63.3 %
 19 20
Rarely do we find the comparative reference in EOASs and the also, madmiration (Ø goes to all the other four who
preferable choice of such kind of reference is often such and same. didn’t ) [117]
Here is an illustration. The majority ellipsis in EOASs is verbal and nominal ellipsis.
(45) I mention their names because they are two of the Clausal ellipsis which is common in conversation discourse is not
finest gay Americans, two wonderful men that I had found in the English corpus.
the good fortune to be associated with, to fall under 4.4.1.4. Substitution
their inspiration at such a young age. I wish my We sometimes see nominal substitution realized by items such
babies could have the same sort of teacher, the same as one, ones. But so is rarely used for clausal substitution in award
sort of friends. [159] acceptance speeches. Below are some examples.
4.4.1.2. Conjunction (52) And all the people who have been rooting for me
Here are some among various examples. back home. Also Jessica Kolstad, my friend, Paul
(46) I'd like to thank the Academy, Fox Searchlight, my Lyon-Maris and Chris Andrews, for bearing with me
wife Suzanne, my sons Adam, Matthew and Tony through some of the less fortunate moments as well
for their endless support. My representation: Estelle, as the good ones [83]
Lee, Frank and Melody. And for the great teachers 4.4.2. Lexical Cohesive Devices in EOASS
I've had throughout my life, both in and out of the 4.4.2.1. Repetition
profession [67] From the data analysis results, it is found out that there are four
In other words, conjunctive elements show whether the sub-types of repetition; namely repetition of the pronouns “I”, “you”
relationship between the following sentence and the preceding one is and the possessive adjective “your”, repetition of nouns, repetition of
additive, adversative, causal or temporal. adjectives, repetitions of verbs and repetition of adverbs.
The following are some nice illustrations. The following are illustrations of repetition of the above
(48) So many movies are just brilliant but nobody ever circumstances.
knows about them, you know? So we're so lucky to (54) I, and I want it to be very clear that I do know how
be here tonight and have people recognize that. [78] hard I make it to appreciate me, often. But I am
4.4.1.3. Ellipsis touched by the appreciation and I hoped for it. [153]
Let us have a look at this illustration. Following is another instance as the repetition of verbs,
(50) You live in a kind of haze for several weeks, and the adjectives and adverbs accounts for a rather moderate portion. Here
terrible thing is that somebody's got to win. My heart are some examples .
goes out to all the other four who didn't (Ø win). And
 21 22
(56) To be standing here where the Queen of England that I thank my family. My mother Blythe Danner,
just stood, Idi Amin, is pretty incredible. To be who I love more than anything, and my brother Jake
standing here where Martin Scorsese won his Oscar Paltrow, who is just the dearest person in the whole
is such a joy, such a joy. [95] world. My earthly guardian angel, Mary Wigmore*.
4.4.2.2. Synonymy And especially to my father Bruce Paltrow, who has
As stated before, synonyms are the type of repetition which surmounted insurmountable obstacles this year. I
ranks the second with the low percentage of 2.9%. love you more than anything in the world. And (1)to
Following are some frequently occurred synonyms in EOASs. my grandpa Buster, who almost made it here
(60) I want to thank Orion Films, past and present, tonight, but couldn't quite get here. Grandpa, I want
especially Marc Platt for letting us do this very you to know that you have created a beautiful family
peculiar little film in the first place….To the writers who loves you and loves each other more than
of course, who created a marvelous character. To the anything. [97]
players, a wonderful group of actors that I was In conclusion, repetition overwhelms other cohesive devices in
fortunate to work with, especially Mr.Tommy Lee terms of quantity.
Jones who really made the performance that I gave 4.5. STYLISTIC DEVICES
possible. [113] Based on Galperin’s views [15], I examime EOASs and find
The pair of synonymy here is “marvelous” and “wonderful” six stylistic devices frequently appear in the corpus. After analyzing
4.4.2.3.Antonymy 100 EOASs, we get the results the distributions of stylistic devices in
Antonym receives less attention than synonymy (1.1%)in the EOASs in the following table.
EOASs. Let us consider the following examples. Table 4.7 Stylistics Devices in EOASs
(63) This is, you know, it fills me with great joy, but I am also Devices Interjec. Epit. Para. Hyper. Clim. Alliter.
filled with a lot of sadness tonight because I am accepting an award No of
103 72 45 20 15 6
at such a strange time.[65] occurrence
The antonym is taken advantage of as a way to express the % 39.5 27.6 17.4 7.6 5.7 2.2
speaker’s thoughts and show emotions to the audience.
4.4.2.4. Hyponymy 4.5.1. Interjections
Let us take the following nice illustration Among stylistics devices in EOASs, interjections occupy a
[64] I would not have been able to play this role had I not rather high position with 39.5% of the whole corpus.
understood love of a tremendous magnitude, and for Let us take some examples of the use of interjections.
 23 24
(66) Oh boy! Wow. Thank you so much, members of the (75) And Jamie, this is, you're just, I have nothing
Academy. [158] without you. You are the strongest, most amazing
4.5.2. Epithets man I've ever known and I love you. And thank you
Epithet is another stylistic device used by the Oscar winners. It so much. [71]
accounts for 17.4 % of the whole corpus. 4.5.5.Climax
Here is one illustration for this : It can be seen in Table 4.8, 10 instances of climax, accounting
(69) So this is really a proud and hopeful moment for for a rather moderate rate of 0.8%
me, because I want to thank the Academy for giving Emotional climax is mainly found in sentences. Below are
us a gift of encouragement. [66] some examples.
Most of speakers used a lot of epithets in his speech. In fact, (77) Carey, your grace and your elegance and your
without them their speech is dry, awfully plain and not interesting. beauty and your talent makes me sick [152]
(70) It was a wonderful adventure. To make a picture in (78) Thank God we live together. May all of us find in
thirty-seven days it takes a well-oiled machine. And our hearts and in our homes and in our world a way
that well-oiled machine is a crew--the cast. [82] to nonviolently end violence and heal [157]
4.5.3. Parallelism 4.5.6.Alliteration
There are many successful paralleled sentences in Oscar Award Ranking right after climax in the list of stylistic devices is
Acceptance Speeches, which can be divided into sentence alliteration. It is the last one in order of Table 4.7. This shows that the
parallelism, word parallelism, word phrase parallelism. Following are phonetic stylistic feature is also used but rarely occurred in EOASs
some examples. (80) And for reminding her daughters that there's no race,
(72) Stephen Daldry, you took a huge chance on me. I no religion, no class system, no color, nothing, no
am so grateful. David Hare, you gave me sexual orientation, that makes us better than anyone
magnificent words to say. Scott Rudin, you fought else. We are all deserving of love [152]
so hard for this film, to get it made. Paramount and 4.6. SUMMARY
Miramax, you made it. [138]
The above two are the parallelism of clauses.
4.5.4. Hyperbole.
Hyperbole also appears in OASS with 5.7%. Here are some
examples.
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Chapter 5 5.2.IMPLICATIONS FOR LANGUAGE TEACHING AND LEARNING
CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS - For teachers: Our findings provide general features of
5.1. CONCLUSION acceptance speech and hence help the teachers a lot in giving some
- In terms of the layout, EOASs contain 3 parts : Introduction tips in writing and making a presentation persuasively and
section – Body Section – Conclusion Section with different contents. impressively.
Noticeably, the speakers uses the model 1 with the highest frequency. - For students: Mastering some discourse features in OASS
It is to show that emotion expression is favourably expressed in most such as the layout, lexical and syntactic features, cohesive devices
of EOASs. and stylistic devices, students will have a better insight into making a
- As regards the lexical and syntactic features in EOASs, the unified and logical speech.
structures and the words are used to express the speaker’s emotion - For those who are interested in the field of public speaking as
and thanks to the related people. Especially, the prominent personal an acceptance speech: Nowadays, with the integration into the trend
pronoun I is used through all speeches. Furthermore, the speaker of world, award acceptance speeches are not delivered related to film
applies the type of declarative sentence most of all to give industry, but also in the other fields. In this sense, fully mastering of
information, express thoughts and create clear messages. Passive some discourse features as well as having the knowledge of culture,
voice is rarely used in EOASs to avoid unclearness, ambiguity and art, life help to make a coherent, successful speech.
misunderstanding. 5.3. LIMITATIONS
- Referring to cohesive devices, we see a large amount of 5.4. SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH
repetition to underscore the speaker’s main themes and make the Discourse analysis covers a broad domain. Thus, there are
audience bear in mind longer. The synonymy, antonym with diverse some interesting points that need deeper research :
forms also appears with a low rate in EOASs make the speaker’s 1. An investigation into speech acts in EOASs.
words more flexible and easy to understand. Besides, hyponymy 2. An investigation into thematisation in EOASs
sometimes occurs in EOASs providing the audience with background 3. More study on word order in EOASs.
knowledge and enriching words in the speech. Additionally,
reference and conjunction also contribute a large part to link the ideas
logically and create the effective use of language.
- As for stylistic devices, the speaker employed a number of
devices as interjections, epithet, parallel, hyperbole, climax and
alliteration to create attention to the audience.