1.0 INTRODUCTION
Chilton and Schaffner (2002:2) mention that political activity does not exist without the use of language and language constitute a great proportion of the political activities held. The relationship between language and politics stems from the fact that language can be thought of as a resource which is drawn up on to achieve socio-political goals. For the current assignment my partner and I are doing, we choose five inaugural speeches from five different presidents of America. Inaugural speech is the first speech made by a President at a ceremony which is also called the inauguration. This word is highly associated with Presidents, but it can apply to any kind of official occasion or function. Language has become a very important
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George W. Bush’ Inauguration Speech The American Presidency Project 1592 20th January 2001
4. Bill Clinton’s Inauguration Speech American renewal 1598 20th January 1993
5. George H. W. Bush’ Inauguration Speech Moment Rich With Promise 2320 20th January 1989
The study focuses only on inaugural speeches where we think it is interesting to find out the types of metadiscourse markers used by the presidents and the frequency used. The inaugural speeches were selected from four former presidents of America, which are George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, and the current president of the United States, Donald Trump. All five of them are chosen because they are the latest person to hold the position of the Presidents of America.
The data in this study were taken from the internet in the textual text form of the transcriptions. The corpus of this study comprised of 9338 words altogether. In order to explore the distribution of interpersonal metadiscourse markers used in the speeches, a manual corpus analysis and corpus analysis using lexical software called Antconc was carried out. The corpus were examined for all instances of interactional metadiscourse markers listed by Hyland
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49)” and “the writer’s efforts to control the level of personality in a text and establish a suitable relationship to his or her data, arguments, and audience (Hyland, 2004, p. 139)”, entails the following five groups of markers.
The types of interactional metadiscourse includes hedges, boosters, attitude marker, self mention and engagement
During Abraham Lincoln’s presidency at the start of the 1860, an issue that had divided the nation was slavery. Lincoln’s election to presidency as a republic was not received well by the Southern slave states, as they thought that as a republican he was out to abolish slavery. In an effort to calm southern states and keep them from seceding from the United States, he attempts to ease them with his First Inaugural Address. In his First Inaugural Address his key points are to clam southern leaders of slave states, keep the states from seceding, and make them at ease as he enters presidency.
For my speaker and speech analysis assignment, I chose JFK’s inaugural address speech. I chose this speech because I think he has an interesting story and with this speech, he inspired a great amount of optimism and patriotism in America. It is often considered one of our country’s most important speeches. In my analysis, I will be focusing on JFKs background, and many aspects of his speech including his delivery, organizational, persuasive and rhetorical techniques.
Rhetorical Analysis In April 30, 1789, President George Washington gave his inaugural address in Wall Street, New York. Beginning with the words, "...summoned by my country whose voice I can never hear but with veneration and love..." Washington uses personification as he describes the American people that called out for him for his help and his being in office as the whole country with nothing but positivity. The country had just voted for him, not to mention the 69 presidential electors.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s State of the Union Address in the year 1942 opened with a powerful start. He remained good in posture, strong verbal skills, gestures and strong eye contact with his audience which goes to show confidence and being in control of your speech (Stephen D. Boyd, 2017). He addressed the Americans, the citizens of the United States before he mentioned anything. He went to show that the President, himself found faith in their spirits and how he was merely proud of his citizens. He presented a powerful statement to his audience by acknowledging them and according to Matt Eventoff, “a statement or phrase can catch the audience’s attention by keeping them guessing as to what you’re about to say next.
Bush made his speech on September 11, 2001 he spoke outright to America. He spoke to citizens, victims, families that have lost their loved ones and military families that have their life on the line. Bush gave his country strength when there was a dire need for it. His speech was filled with rhetorical devices that brought peace to the chaos that riddled the country. Bush’s use of anaphora, homily and antithesis gave faith, wisdom and harmony to the country.
A domestic terrorist bombing in Oklahoma City on April 19th, 1995, killed 168 people (including small children) and injuring more than 680 others. Four days later, on April 23rd, 1995, President Bill Clinton gave a speech addressing this event at the Memorial Prayer Service. Clinton speaks to everyone affected from the bombing to unite the country in this feeling of tragedy, and to show the victims, and their families, that they are not alone. In his speech, President Bill Clinton uses pathos to unite the country in a feeling of tragedy and loss.
As President Kennedy enters office he gives an speech on the celebration of freedom; symbolizing an end, as well as a beginning of a new nation. Kennedy rises for the opportunity for persuasion after his inauguration has been addressed and he scarcely beats nixon. President Kennedy uses his authority for persuasion to bring the american people together under his power. The president uses the experience of war,poverty,and the desire for peace to develop an emotional appeal between the U.S and the world population. In this speech Kennedy uses ethos,pathos,logos,as well as other rhetorical devices to convince the audience.
In the Inaugural Adress from John F. Kennedy he used different figures of speech such as anaphora and zeugma. Meaning he replaced certain words to refrain from repition and also applying words in different order to make different senses of them. In Kennedy’s speech, he uses words such as “Freedom , Poverty and Devotion “ showing on how our country has been through so much to get to where we are now.
The importance of the words chosen is what determines a good speech from a bad speech. And the speech the President addressed to the nation was a good
On January 20, 1981, Ronald Reagan gave his “First Inaugural Address” with the United States listening; some people were able to experience firsthand Ronald Reagan’s passion and views for our country, in Front of the Capitol Building, while others tuned in to listen on the momentous occasion. Ronald Reagan sets the stage for his presidency using logos through logical sentences that are meant to bring the audience a better perspective on his point of view. Diction was a key factor in showing Ronald Reagan’s strong sense of nationalism; he chose powerful, hopeful words and phrases that were intended to unify the people. He shows syntax through anaphora, repetition, and parallelism. By using these rhetorical devices, he states key phrases more than once to create an urgency and therefore grab listener’s attention.
Multiple presidents throughout history have presented their Inaugural speeches, but not all have been as influential as a speech presented with complete thought and various rhetorical devices. An inaugural speech or inaugural address is the first speech made by a President at a ceremony; this ceremony is called an Inauguration. In Ronald Reagan's inaugural speech, which was held on January 20th of 1981, he presents many Rhetorical Devices in which engage both to the audience's emotions and provide information throughout his whole speech. Ronald Reagan used many rhetorical devices and got his point across to the people which made his inaugural address nothing short of excellent. The first Rhetorical Device Ronald Reagan used in his Inaugural speech was the use of Pathos.
As example, in this speech, “Your imagination, your initiative and your indignation will determine(…)”, “expansion is eroding(…), and “They require us to create new concepts of cooperation, a creative federalism, between the National Capital and the leaders of local communities.” 4.0 CONCLUSION In the Great Society speech that was delivered during graduation day of Michigan University, the speaker, Lyndon Baines Johnson delivers his speech very successfully. His speech consists of all five rhetoric canons which are invention, arrangement, style, memory and delivery. This speech also contains appeals such as ethos, pathos and logos.
It was important that Bush use rhetorical appeals such as ethos, pathos, and logos in his address to the nation. He also needed to use the hope and history on which America was built on to unite the
In his inaugural speech given on January 20, 2001, George W. Bush address the country for the first time after being sworn in as the 43rd president of the United States. Millions of people from around the world tuned in to watch the president give his address. The people who voted for and against him are both wanting to hear what the president has to say. George W. Bush gives an effective inaugural address by using biblical allusions, collaborative language, and an anaphora in order to unite the country after a contentious election. Bush used biblical allusions to appeal mostly to the evangelicals who were listening to his speech.
Rhetorical Analysis Former Illinois State Senator and soon to be Forty-fourth president of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama, recounts what happened in the past to make America what is today and how he intends to maintain the ideas of America’s founding fathers throughout his term of presidency. His intended audience of the first inaugural address is the citizens of America and his purpose was to comfort them about the past and encourage the future of America. He creates a patriotic and empowering tone in order to appeal to pathos. His diction throughout the speech illustrates patriotism, allusions, and anaphoras. Obama opens his speech by discussing the views of our forebears and documents and how we have followed through with those views.