III. Brief Introduction of Emma Watson’s Speech in UN 9

3.1 Characteristics of Public Speech 9

3.2 Background of Emma Watson’s Speech 9

IV. Pragmastylistic Analysis of Emma Watson’s Speech 11

4.1 Stylistic Analysis of Emma Watson’s Speech 11

4.1.1 Lexical Analysis of the Speech 11

4.1.2 Syntactic Analysis of the Speech 12

4.1.3 Semantic Analysis of the Speech 15

4.1.4 Register of the Speech 17

4.2 Pragmatic Analysis of Emma Watson’s Speech 18

4.2.1 The Illocutionary Act Performed in the Speech 18

4.2.2 Cooperative Principle and Its Maxims Performed in the Speech 21

V. Conclusion 24

Bibliography 26 

A Pragmastylistic Analysis of Emma Watson’s Speech in UN

I. Introduction

The use of language is one of the important characteristics of the development of human civilization. People masterly use language to achieve the expected effect, and thus have an impact on the hearer and even prompt some behavior. Pragmastylistics, as a branch of theoretical stylistics, has a practical and important role in linguistic theory in the study of language. Pragmastylistics is about the study of language-in-use in which the choices are made for the various grammatically correct ways of expression. It intends to show the different possible ways of saying the same thing as the case requires.

Emma Watson, a famous British actress who played Hermione Granger in the super popular movie Harry Potter, as “UN Women Goodwill Ambassador”, attended the United Nations-sponsored activity—“He for She” in September 2014. At the activity, she delivered a 12-minute speech, which aimed to appeal to men to do some things to facilitate the gender equality. As a world famous actress, it is immeasurable to estimate Emma’s influence in the world. After her speech, more and more people, more specifically, more and more men start to revisit their attitude towards the gender problem. As a successful public speech, Emma Watson’s words have its uniqueness. But few people study her speech from a linguistic perspective, let alone pragmastylistics. Therefore, this thesis analyzes Emma Watson’s speech in UN from pragmastylistic perspective, intending to find out the artistry of Emma’s words and some useful language skills. 

As for the structure of the thesis, it consists of five parts in total.源[自-优尔*`论/文'网·www.youerw.com/ 

Part One is the introduction, which introduces the significance and the purpose of the study. And it also works out the structure of the paper.

Part Two is the theoretical framework of pragmastylistics, including pragmatic and stylistic theories, which are the basis of the later analysis.

Part Three provides the brief introduction of Emma Watson’s speech in UN.

Part Four is the concrete pragmastylistic analysis of Emma Watson’s speech. The paper analyzes the speech from both stylistic and pragmatic perspectives.

Part Five is the conclusion. This part draws a conclusion about Emma’s speech features, and gives people some suggestions about how to speak more acceptably and artistically.

II. Theoretical Framework of Pragmastylistics

Before making a detailed analysis of Emma’s speech, adequate linguistic basic knowledge is a must. For pragmastylistics, both stylistics and pragmatics are focal points for the study.