A Discourse Analysis Of Nick Vujicic’s Speeches On His World Tour

Abstract

This study focuses on describing and analyzing some discourse features in terms of the layout, speech acts and cohesive devices used in Nick Vujicic’ speeches on his world tours around the world from the years 2010 to 2013. The data for the study mainly collected from different websites, related newspapers, video and journals on the Internet. In this study, we analyzed and found some discourse features used in Nick’s speeches to millions of audience in different countries in the world. Firstly, the layout analysis shows that there are three main parts in a typical motivational speech: Introduction, Main Body and Conclusion. We also draw a motivational speech based on the contents which appeared in Nick’s MSs. The second one analyzed in this study is about speech acts such as motivation and encouragement which are used in flexible ways in order to make the high effect in delivering motivational speeches. From the description as well as a full analysis on speech acts, we draw five main types of speech acts such as directives, representatives, expressives, commissives and declaratives used in Nick’s MSs with their frequencies of occurrence. Finally, the cohesive devices which consist of grammatical cohesion including reference, substitution, ellipsis and conjunctions and lexical cohesions consisting of reiteration and collocation are examined. The cohesive devices are used to emphasize, link and connect the ideas that the speaker wants to convey to get the best effects and brings the audience a positive viewpoint leading a meaningful life. It is hoped that the results of the study will help Vietnamese learners of English to conduct good motivational speeches as well as improve their writing skill.