| Summary: | 碩士 === 銘傳大學 === 應用英語學系碩士在職專班 === 107 === This thesis presents a study of Nelson Mandela’s beliefs in his speeches, which developed the South African democratic system. It is corpus-based. To further investigate his beliefs, two of his works, Long Walk to Freedom and Conversations with Myself, are also complemented to reinforce its integrity.
The corpus was compiled from 154 events of his speeches and messages (from his speech delivered to ANC Youth League Conference in 1952 till his inaugural speech in Capetown in May 1994, http://www.mandela.gov.za). The prologues and concluding remarks are deleted from the contexts. The reason why raw materials compiled for this study is that those speeches delivered during this period mostly related to overthrow the apartheid system. A corpus access software, AntConc 3.2.4w, was used to investigate word frequency list, collocations of important words and four-word lexical bundles in his speeches. The word frequency list shows his idea about the changeover of a political system as well as hope and steadfastness also come through in many Mandela's speeches. Collocations of important words are used to investigate the implications from Nelson Mandela's speeches, which provides an array of meaningful sources for further study. The most frequent four-word lexical bundles imply that this highly determined hero would certainly succeed in abolishing the system of apartheid of all South African people.
It is hoped that these results may help researchers find a better way to investigate a specific theory or hypothesis in social science research.
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