Abstract: This paper makes use of related identity construction theories, taking Hillary ’s first presidential campaign speech as the main corpora to analyze the way how she constructed presidential candidate identity. Different from the previous researches, this paper studies the way of identity construction not only from the angle of rhetoric, but also from the female status, lexical-grammatical and pragmatic level. Through the pragmatic analysis of the speech from multiple angles, we can grasp the speaker’s intention in a better way.

Key words: presidential campaign speech; identity construction; feminism; pragmatic analysis

CONTENTS

Abstract

摘要

1.Introduction-1

2. Theoretical Framework and Literature Review-1

2.1 Identity

2.2 Previous researches

2.2.1 Public speeches

2.2.2 Speeches on presidential campaign

3. Hillary Clinton's ways of constructing presidential candidate identity-4

3.1 Shaping a strong female identity by fighting against sexism

3.2 Constructing presidential candidate identity at lexical-grammatical level

3.3 Constructing presidential candidate identity at pragmatic level

4. Conclusion-7

Bibliography 8

Acknowledgements. 9