A Genre Analysis of University Commencement Comedians’ Speeches

الملخص

Commencement ceremony speeches are a rich source of data.  However, very few studies tackle this social activity.  The present paper attempts to fill in the gaps in these studies.  A qualitative research method is adopted to investigate the selected data.  The data of this study consist of two comedian guests' commencement speeches delivered by Jim Carrey (2014) and Ellen DeGeneres (2009) at Maharishi University of Management and Tulane University, respectively. This study investigates the cognitive structuring of the two selected speeches and examines the typical strategies, techniques and tactics employed by two comedian speakers to realize their communicative purposes. 

However, an eclectic model has been chosen by the researcher to analyze the data.  This model consists of Zhan's (2012) genre analysis model and Rossette-Crake's (2019) techniques and tactics of public speaking.

          This study concludes that the cognitive structuring of the selected data obeys the five-move structure: Move 1 "establishing a favorable rapport", move 2 "orienting to the speech", move 3 "announcing the thesis", move 4 "developing the thesis", move 5 "drawing a conclusion".  However, the results reveal that there is a deviation in the move sequence in these two speeches.  For instance, Within Carrey's speech,  the second move came after the third move.  While within DeGeneres's commencement speech, the third move came after the fourth one.  On the other hand, this study shows that the strategies, techniques, and tactics employed to accomplish these moves were varied.  Both speakers use some of them during their speeches.  However, a strategy does not belong to only one specific move rather it can appear in another move but it does not in the same function(s).