...Ph.D AN INVESTIGATION INTO STYLISTIC DEVICES IN POLITICAL SPEECHES BY US PRESIDENTS Examiner 1: ……………………………………………………… Examiner 2: ……………………………………………………… Field Study Code : THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE : 60.22.15 This thesis will be presented to the Examining Committee at the University of Danang on October 30th 2010 M.A. THESIS (SUMMARY) This thesis is available found at the library of DANANG - 2010 - College of Foreign Languages, University of Danang. - Information Resources Center, University of Danang. 3 Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1. RATIONALE The effectiveness of a speech depends on many factors, including the mood of the crowd, the ability of the orator, the situation the crowd confronts, the topic of the speech and the using of words- the using of stylistic devices. The goal of any political speech is persuasion - you want to bring the crowd around to your point of view, whether that means convincing them to vote for you. So the frequent and wide use of stylistic devices is an important characteristic of political speeches which is an effective way to make these speeches more attractive, lively and more persuasive. A stylistic device is an example of the figurative use of words, which produces a particularly rhetorical effect when people use the language creatively in a specified context so all politicians use stylistic devices in political speeches. In the realm of discourse analysis, the typical linguistic features of political speeches have so far been the...
Words: 5898 - Pages: 24
...RHETORICAL ANALYSIS 1 Rhetorical Analysis of “I Have Dream” Speech Alfonso Gonzalez Itt Technical Institute Instructor Deana Schoneberg EN 1320 RHETORICAL ANALYSIS 2 The main point of Dr. Kings speech was that an injustice had been done to the black people. They were promised freedom from the emancipation proclamation and up to that point they still were not free. They were segregated and treated like second class citizens. Were they suppose to sit down and let white men at that time humiliate them, beat them, bomb their houses, and strip them of human dignity? No! Dr. King was preaching to all who listened, that now was the time to metaphorically cash this check, a check that will give them upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. But to do this, not with violence or retaliation, “we must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence.” (Carson, 1998, p225) This would be the way Dr. King would want to see his dream played out, with non -violence. Were all his efforts done in vain? On August 28, 1963, The March on Washington was organized by Bayard Rustin and led by union leader A. Philip Randolph. The backdrop ironically took place on the steps...
Words: 1127 - Pages: 5
...Obama's victory speech rhetorical analysis. The democrat Barack Obama held a famous victory speech after being elected for president on November, 4th 2012 in his home town Chicago, Illinois. If we starting of by introducing the pentagon model, we know that a speech usually is centred around an intention of the speaker and is depending on the interrelationship between the listeners, the topic, the writer, the language and the circumstances. The topic of this speech is the political campaign, the election, the American population and having high hopes in the future America. The listeners is mostly Obama's supporters as it was being held in Chicago in a building full of democrats, but also for the entire United States and the world in general, considering that America has so much influence on the world. President Obama starts off by being grateful and appreciating the audience. He says thanks three times, which is to calm down the audience but also to highlight his thanks. Afterwards he voices his opinion on how America has been moving forward” It moves forward because you reaffirmed the spirit that has triumphed over war and depression, the spirit that has lifted this country from the depths of despair to the great heights of hope, the belief that while each of us will pursue our own individual dreams, we are an American family, and we rise or fall together as one nation and as one people.” This sentence shows his patos. Obama develops the cohesion by speaking about the...
Words: 948 - Pages: 4
...Rhetorical analysis of Mitt Romney´s republican victory speech On the 7th November 2012 the presidential in America ended. Two candidates, one from each party, the Republican and the Democratic Party participated in the race. The results were as followed; Obama was re-elected for another 4 years in the White House. The participant from the Republican Party was the former governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney. Even though he didn´t win the election as he had hoped, his road to the top of the Republican Party is also very interesting to follow. For example the Super Tuesday Victory Speech he gave on March 6th 2012 after having won the Republican presidential candidacy on Super Tuesday. Perhaps if this speech had been different he would have been elected president in America? To look closer into this speech, will at first use the SOAPSTONE model to analyse it. The speaker of the text is of course the one delivering it, Mitt Romney. The speech where given as said before on Super Tuesday after having won the Republican presidential candidacy, which is the occasion for it. Especially the occasion is very important for Mitt Romney and his speech, since it will be showed on national television, where his audience most likely will be millions of republican voters, both those who supported him and those who didn´t. Which means that Romney will get the change to convince the republican voters, who supported other candidates in the run, to keep their vote republican in the presidential...
Words: 915 - Pages: 4
...Rhetorical Analysis: “The Challenger Address” The rhetorical situation refers to “a situation in which people’s understanding can be changed through messages.” (Zarefsky, 12). The rhetorical situation analysis consists of four elements: audience, occasion, speaker and speech, each assessing the quality of speech. In this essay, I will analyze the rhetorical situation of the historical speech “The Challenger Address” delivered by the 40th president of the United States, Ronald Reagan. Americans had high expectations of the space programs which intended to provide the United States a great sense of achievement. The significance of the space program lies in essence in which symbolized American glory in science and technology. (Lambright) Therefore, the audience of Reagan’s speech was American public; those who had experienced the tragic national loss of seven American astronauts resulted from the failure of space regime. Evidence of Reagan constantly involving American citizens prevail throughout the speech. He specifically engaged the audience by employing words such as “we,” “us,” “schoolchildren of America,” giving the audience a sense of involvement in the national matter. Reagan also acknowledged pain of the families of the seven astronauts. He showed his understanding of pain of families by saying “we feel the loss, and we are thinking about you so very much,” “your loved ones,” which was an attempt to console them by implicitly suggesting that the families are the primary...
Words: 710 - Pages: 3
...Arnold Schwarzenegger’s speech to the Republican convention Arnold Schwarzenegger's speech given at the Republican national convention in 2004 is clearly of persuasive intent supporting the current President, George W. Bush and the Republican Party. The speech is given just before the presidential election in 2004, and Schwarzenegger is recommending sending George Bush to the white house for four more years. He praises the president of that time: “We are one America, and President Bush is defending it with all his heart and soul. That’s what I admire most about the president. He’s a man of perseverance.” (l. 41, p. 3) As the speech is given on the Republican convention, the audience is probably all Republicans, and throughout the speech, it is clear that it is given to an audience that has already been convinced. Especially in the introduction to his speech, we see that Schwarzenegger speaks to his sympathizers: “My fellow immigrants, my fellow Americans, how do you know if you are a Republican? Well, I tell you how. If you believe that government should be accountable to the people, not the people to the government, then you are a republican. If you believe that a person should be treated as an individual, not as a member of an interest group, then you are a Republican. If you believe your family knows how to spend your money better than the government does, then you are a Republican.” We see here that he focuses his speech on an audience which he addresses as "my fellow Americans"...
Words: 1556 - Pages: 7
...Comm 301 May 8, 2014 A Pentadic Analysis of Hillary Clinton Interview The artifact we are analyzing for our study is a live television interview that Hillary Clinton was giving to San Francisco’s KTVU-TV in late February of 2008. This interview was broadcasted via television and is also available on YouTube and other video media sources. The interview was being hosted by a man named Ross McGowan of KTVU-TV to senator Hillary Clinton, and that within itself makes it a significant artifact. The live interview about healthcare that Hillary Clinton was giving had to be cut short when the New York senator began having a coughing fit. Prior to the cough attack, the interview was directed but not limited to the subject of health care. Senator Clinton was speaking of issues such as the pulling troops from the Iraq war, California’s mortgage crisis, Americas current health care system, and the idea of a universal health care system. In the end of the interview Clinton fails to answer the question regarding her husbands role in her campaign by coughing for the remainder of the interview abruptly ending it. Whether or not the actions by Clinton were intended, speculation of this interview arose. In 2000, Hillary Clinton became the first women to be elected a seat in the United States Senate. At first glance, Clinton’s aggrandizement to such a respectable political position seemed like a victory for herself and the ongoing women’s movement effort. However, the continual reminder of...
Words: 2682 - Pages: 11
...Ronald Reagan speech analysis In this assignment I will be examining a speech brought by Ronald Reagan. I will put the speech in the rhetorical pentagon and afterwards analyze it. I will especially focus on Ronald Reagan’s use of language, cause it’s really relevant when it comes to speeches, and also the choise of composition in the speech. The speaker of the speech is of cause Ronald Reagan. Reagan was the 40th president of the United States in the time between 1981 to 1989. He preached this speech in March 1983, at the Annual Convention of the National Convention of the National Association of Evangelicals. As said, the time was 1983, and at this time, the cold war was continuously going on, and the relationship between the Americans and the Soviet Union with its communism were therefore extremely bad, which also reflects in this speech. So the communism is a huge topic in this speech, and Reagan accomplishes to compare America to goodness, while he attacks the Soviets by comparing them to evil. The other major aspect in the speech of Ronald Reagan is about the increase in illegitimate births and abortions involving under aged girls. He mentions the clinics that were established in well-intentioned faith are offering different kind of services to the girls, without their parent even knowing it. He wants to change that, and maximize parental participation. This is the other major aspect of the speech, which of course is being told to the evangelicals of Orlando...
Words: 858 - Pages: 4
...Cammie Denton Dr. Foster WR 122 April 17, 2016 Rhetorical Analysis of Barack Obama’s Remarks on Economic Mobility On December 4th, 2013 Barack Obama spoke on the subject of income inequality and upward mobility. This speech was delivered to, and hosted by, the Center for American Progress (CAP). The president uses striking language to appeal to the emotion and logic of the audience. Obama executes his appeals in a variety of ways with the express purpose of painting the issue of growing inequality and decreased upward mobility as the “defining challenge of our time.” President Obama describes these issues as what drives everything he does as POTUS. Obama’s speech was quite intellectual and technical, peppered in detail with the numbers and statistics of current social and economic inequalities, appealing to logos. While he builds his argument based on these substantial facts, the overall feeling of his language is that of compassion. This compassion seems to drive his purpose and thus emotionally connecting to his audience. Further, Obama appeals to ethos during his speech as he outlines how current market-caused inequalities are threatening everything that makes America great. Obama masterfully balances his passionate language with solid facts and straight-forward logic in this effectively persuasive speech. Before expanding upon the specifics of the rhetorical methods utilized by the president in this speech, I think it is important to highlight that the audience (CAP)...
Words: 1831 - Pages: 8
...Rhetorical analysis - Bush’s speech. On a cloudless fall day in September 2001, 19 terrorist attacked USA and made it into front pages of every newspaper in the entire world. The whole world’s population were shocked, and never before have people conjectured that the terrorists would attack the United States of America. Same evening, at the time president, George W. Bush held a speech, whose intention was to calm the U.S. population and to warn the terrorist and the rest of the world about an eventually war. Bush’s intentions with the speech is to calm the country, and be their president. Since Bush is the president, he already has a big ethos. However, he also points out in the speech, to underscores his ethos even more, that he has control over the situation, and that America does not need to be worry about theirs safety even though what just happened a few hours ago. He says:” Immediately following the first attack, I implemented our government's emergency response plans. Our military is powerful, and it is prepared.” He underscores that America is strong and powerful and that they are not afraid of the future because they can and will handle it. In addition, he also warns the terrorist about an eventually war with the same quote. The US is ready for war in any minutes, and they want to fight for peace and security and win the war against terrorism. The speech bears the mark of pathos in particular. In the first part of the speech, Bush keeps mention the victims and theirs...
Words: 874 - Pages: 4
...Further Oral Activity: Barack Obama 2012 Victory Speech Task: Analyze the rhetoric used in the speech. This is a Special News report on the 7th of November - President Obama has won second term the elections for president of the USA - we are now live in Chicago at the McCormick Centre , where President Obama just held his victory speech, and I am going to do a quick analysis of what the newly re-elected President said. It is an absolute pandemonium after Barack Obama has just delivered a 20 minute speech, during which he expressed his gratitude towards his family, his friends, his supporters, and laid out his vision of what America has already achieved, what it can achieve and what it will achieve after he has been re-elected President of the United States to Mitt Romney with 281 electoral votes to 191. Through the use of various rhetorical tools like Anaphora, rhetorical term for the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses or verses, President Barack Obama delivers a speech through which he fully expresses ideas like the American dream and the future. Similarly to other speeches of his from the past, as for example the 2008 speech at the Democratic Convention, this one contains different forms of repetition and "between the line political views" - for example in the first paragraphs he purposely begins his sentences with the same couple of words - "You'll hear", "We want...", "That's ", followed by his ideas for the future of...
Words: 908 - Pages: 4
...Criticizing Bill Clinton Speech Essay “If a President of the United States ever lied to the American people he should resign” William J. Clinton,1974 Introduction: Critics should pay a very special attention to the Bill Clinton apology speech. The speech of the ex-president Bill Clinton was a bright example of how perfect rhetoric techniques might fail to deliver the message of a president to a mass audience if it goes about his morality. In his speech, Clinton, actually confesses he had a private relationship with Monica Lewinsky. It is a rule that such a confession and especially from a person of the highest position in the society means the end of the career. It took William Jefferson Clinton seven month to realize that people need apologies not for the deed, but for the lies. A close look at the speech opens a wide range of elements did not manage to make it truly appealing for the citizens of the United States of America. In his speech, Mr. Clinton admitted he did a wrong thing and at the same time he did not truly show how much he regretted that his “misbehavior” lead to irreversible consequences in his private and political life. The key failure of the speech is that Mr. Clinton moved the accent away from the affair he had to the necessity to concentrate on more important things. In other words he told the society that they are stuck on unserious matters, while important political events are taking place. Bill Clinton’s goal was to make people get over the scandalous...
Words: 743 - Pages: 3
...Final Rhetorical Analysis Martin Luther King, Jr. Was an African American, nonviolent, civil rights activist and leader from 1956 until his tragic passing in 1986. On August 28, 1963 King proudly presented his well-known “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington, one hundred years after former President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation as well as delivered his prominent speech, the Gettysburg Address. King’s purpose of his speech was an intended aspiration to aim at the white population to advocate for the justices of African Americans as well as to encourage the nation to not stand alone but together for the rights appointed to each citizen under the Constitution. King accomplishes his ambition for his speech as he uses different rhetorical devices with his audience such as: ethos, logos, and pathos, as well as using several different figurative language techniques that include, allusion, anaphora, diction, and metaphors. King begins his speech contended and determined, as he explains this specific day will be one remembered forever. His use of archaic...
Words: 1244 - Pages: 5
...criticism holistically. To practice the skills of a rhetorical critic. To teach someone about how this particular, significant message works. As a critic, you will closely examine the message, analyze it, and develop some insight about how it functions. This insight will become the claim that controls your essay. Remember, what you write is the report (product) of your thinking and insights discovered. To get to that point, you must engage in four kinds of critical thinking: description, analysis, interpretation and evaluation (process). You will select, edit, and organize portions of all your thinking in each of these areas in order to teach the reader how the message works. So, your in-class paper will reflect these kinds of thinking, but the paper will be an integrated whole rather than a list or string of critical activities. Assume you have a reader who does not know what you are doing, why or how. Thus, you must define terms and elaborate on your ideas, showing the reader how your ideas relate to one another. Listed below are the specific criteria (rubric) by which the essay will be graded: 1) The essay contains an introduction that describes the context of the message and characterizes the message. (10 pts) 2) The critic states a reasonable, arguable claim about how the message works. The claim must go beyond what any average reader could conclude after encountering the message and feature the rhetorical dynamics discovered in the message. (20 pts) ...
Words: 2253 - Pages: 10
...Comparative Rhetorical Analysis: Donald Trump and Jeb Bush “I’m officially announcing my candidacy for President of the United States of America.” Members of the Republican Party have heard this seventeen times so far during the duration of this presidential primary cycle. It’s safe to say that anyone who gives any attention to presidential elections in America have been enlightened with a very interesting presidential primary so far to say the least. It’s important to analyze what statements the candidates are trying to present to the potential voters in their party's primary election. Businessman, Donald Trump and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush campaign announcement speeches are considered to be in the top tier of effectiveness. While they both have very different views on how to govern our country and Governor Bush mentions about "we" a considerable amount of times while Donald Trump lectures...
Words: 678 - Pages: 3
