Abstract: Rhetorical devices are techniques used to increase the persuasiveness of a piece of writing or speech. Therefore, American presidents often use them in their inaugural addresses in order to make the audience support the policies of their government. This paper aims to investigate rhetorical devices in inaugural addresses of American presidents through the discussion from the aspects of semantic, syntactical and phonetic stylistic devices, thus helping readers to have a better understanding of the U.S. Presidents' addresses, and finds out that high frequency of occurrence of rhetorical devices in the speech or writing may contribute to improve students' ability of EFL in terms of communication.

Key words: rhetorical devices; U.S. presidents; address; 

CONTENTS

Abstract

中文摘要

1. Introduction....1

2. Literature Review...2    

3. An Analysis of Rhetorical Devices in Inaugural Address of American Presidents3

  3.1 Semantic Stylistic Devices

     3.1.1 Simile

     3.1.2 Metaphor

     3.1.3 Hyperbole

  3.2 Syntactical Stylistic Devices

     3.2.1 Antithesis

     3.2.2 Repetition

     3.2.3 Parallelism

  3.3 Phonetic Stylistic Device - Alliteration

4. Conclusion....10

Bibliography.11

Acknowledgments....12