重复的力量――美国总统雄辩的启示

重复的力量――美国总统雄辩的启示

美国总统大多都是雄辩家，皆因他们在竞选期间要凭自己三寸不烂之舌去舌战群儒，过五关斩六将最终胜出。

他们深谙驾驭选民听众耳朵之道。其中一种最行之有效的修辞手段，就是不厌其烦的重复（repetition）。

林肯著名的《盖茨堡演说》就是重复的经典范例。他在短短的演讲中六次使用了dedicate/dedicated :

一开始他就说美国"dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal" ，而内战在考验美国这个国家究竟是否 "so dedicated can long endure." 然后他说当天出席的听众 " dedicate" part of the battlefield for those who died so the nation might live. 接着又说"we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate" 因为这个任务已经由生还的或阵亡的士兵完成了。我们反而要 " dedicated" to the unfinished work the soldiers began, "dedicated to the great task" of ensuring the survival of this government of the people, by the people, for the people（保证民有，民治，民享的政府得以生存下来。）

重复的力量――美国总统雄辩的启示

克林顿总统在抨击布什总统时，也采用了重复的技巧：

"Of all the things George Bush has ever said that I  disagree with, perhaps the thing that bothers me most is how he derides and degrades the American  tradition of seeing and seeking a better future. He mocks it as the 'Vision thing. "

But just remember what the Scripture says: "Where there is no vision, the people perish." （他先引用了《圣经》的一句：“没有远见卓识之处，人类必定消亡。”）

紧接着，他连续用了四句以“I hope ”开头的句子：

I hope—I hope nobody in this great hall tonight, or in our beloved country has to go through tomor row without a vision. I hope no one ever tries to raise a child without a vision. I hope nobody ever starts a business or plants a crop in the ground without a vision. For where there is no vision, the people perish.

他巧妙地改用了刚刚引用的《圣经》句子，来强调自己的论点：

And so I say again: Where there is no vision, America will perish."（没有远见卓识之处，美国必定消亡。）

重复的力量――美国总统雄辩的启示

奥巴马总统在2004年7月27日民主党全国代表大会上的发言，一脉相承地采用了重复的修辞手段，达到震聋发聩的效果：

If there's a child on the south side of Chicago who  can't read, that matters to me, even if it's not my child. If there's a senior citizen somewhere who can't pay for her prescription and has to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it's not my grandmother. If there's an Arab-American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties. 

（连续三个以“if there is . . . ”开头的句子。）

Yet even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there's not a liberal America and a conservative America; there's the United States of America. There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America.

（两个“there's not. . . . There's. . . ”的句子。）

The pundits like to slice and dice our country into red states and blue states; red states for Republicans, blue states for Democrats. But I've got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the red states. We coach Little League in the blue states and have gay friends in the red states. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported it. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and Stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.

（三次重复了“blue states”和“red states”。）

历届美国总统为语言修辞曾经作出如此杰出的贡献。这一伟大传统恐怕要终止在现在这个“推特总统”这里了！

重复的力量――美国总统雄辩的启示