| Acknowledgements | 第1-4页 |
| Abstract in Chinese | 第4-7页 |
| Abstract in English | 第7-10页 |
| Contents | 第10-12页 |
| Introduction | 第12-18页 |
| ·A Brief Review of Speeches and Political Speeches | 第12-13页 |
| ·Previous Study on Political Speeches | 第13-15页 |
| ·Methods Adopted in the Study | 第15-16页 |
| ·Significance of the Study | 第16-17页 |
| ·Organization of the Thesis | 第17-18页 |
| Chapter One A Survey of US Presidential Inaugural Addresses | 第18-25页 |
| ·Significance of Presidential Inaugural Addresses | 第18-20页 |
| ·Presidential Inaugural Addresses as A Persuasive Genre | 第20-21页 |
| ·General Features of US Presidential Inaugural Addresses | 第21-25页 |
| Chapter Two Theory of Metaphor | 第25-41页 |
| ·Definition of Metaphor | 第25-28页 |
| ·Linguistic Criteria | 第26页 |
| ·Pragmatic Criteria | 第26-27页 |
| ·Cognitive Criteria | 第27-28页 |
| ·Metaphor, Ideology and Thought | 第28-31页 |
| ·Metaphor and Pragmatics | 第31-33页 |
| ·Cognitive Semantics and Conceptual Metaphor | 第33-37页 |
| ·Conventional and Creative Metaphor | 第37-39页 |
| ·Summary | 第39-41页 |
| Chapter Three Metaphors in the US Presidential Inaugural Corpus | 第41-66页 |
| ·Researching US Political Discourse | 第42-43页 |
| ·Metaphors in the US Presidential Inaugural Corpus | 第43-64页 |
| ·Conflict Metaphors | 第45-48页 |
| ·Journey Metaphors | 第48-51页 |
| ·Building Metaphors | 第51-58页 |
| ·Light and Fire Metaphors | 第58-61页 |
| ·Physical Environmental Metaphors | 第61-62页 |
| ·Religious Metaphors | 第62-64页 |
| ·Body Part Metaphors | 第64页 |
| ·Summary | 第64-66页 |
| Chapter Four Implications of This Study | 第66-73页 |
| ·Implications of This Study for the Analysis of Metaphors in Political Speeches and General Speeches | 第66-67页 |
| ·Stylistic Role and Value of This Study | 第67-68页 |
| ·Metaphor as a Stylistic Feature of Some Texts | 第67-68页 |
| ·Metaphor as a Stylistic Characteristic of Some Writers | 第68页 |
| ·Implications of This Study for the Analysis of Metaphors in Non-oratorical Discourse | 第68-71页 |
| ·Summary | 第71-73页 |
| Conclusion | 第73-75页 |
| Sources of Data | 第75-76页 |
| Bibliography | 第76-80页 |
| Website Data Sources | 第80页 |
