Former President Barack Obama was known for being a good speaker, but was he actually a good speaker or did was he just a very intelligent man? Public speaking is one of the hardest things to do and Barack Obama does a great job of it. He does have a few tendencies that I picked up on such as hand motion and pauses. Barack Obama gives his speech in Washington D.C. in front of thousands of eager people waiting to hear what the president had planned for the country. Obama was clearly using a teleprompter to help recite his speech, which can be very dangerous as far as communication goes. Teleprompters can have a tendency to cause the speaker to rely on the teleprompter and never look up to the audience. Also speakers can have awkward pauses …show more content…
One of the places that Obama uses anaphoras is when he is talking about the founding fathers of our nation who went and discovered America. He repeats the words “For us” for three consecutive lines. Doing so makes those lines more meaningful because they relate to us personally. Another place that Barack Obama uses anaphoras is when he is describing how he's gonna treat all of the different people in the nation. He repeats the word “To” when he is talking about the muslim religion, the poor people of our nation, and to the leaders of other nations who are out to seek conflict. Obama's use of the anaphoras was effective, but I feel he could’ve used …show more content…
He says “ Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.” I think it was smart of Obama to put this in his speech because its very positive for americans to hear that. This section stood out to me because i like the fact that he's not telling the people to panic, he's basically saying stop crying, get up and do something about it. There are a few metaphors that i noticed in his speech. One of the metaphors is he compares the state of the nation to a stormy sea. Usually when i think of a stormy sea the sky is black with lightening, the waves are huge and it's raining hard. Obama was trying to convey to the reader that america is in a time of restoration but he gave us hope that he would get us out of the storm. Another metaphor that obama uses in his speech is he says the path towards prosperity and freedom is a “long rugged path”. The reason obama says this is because he knows that freedom and prosperity don't come very easy. A long rugged path gives me the mental image of rocky path out in the middle of nowhere that people have died on because it's very difficult. I believe this is the image President Obama wanted us to have in our minds showing us that the path to freedom is very tough but just like every challenging path they always have an amazing view once you reach the
(Obama, 2015, p.1) Explanation: Obama clearly states throughout his speech that he is here to celebrate America and Selma. A way to say look how far we have come. He feels that this was a stepping stone, a big moment in history that he admires.
This is the first terrorist attack that we have experienced in the 21st century. President Bush spoke out to the American people to empower and soothe them in a vulnerable time. President Bush reassures citizens and the victim’s families that America and its people are not only strong but are safe and will rise up again. Bush effectively executes his 9/11 speech and uses rhetorical devices to catch the citizens attention, calm the America people and unite them together again.
In President Bush’s address to the nation, he uses many rhetorical devices. A rhetorical device is a literary device that is used to persuade the audience to support the argument made. Bush’s address uses Ethos, Logos, and Pathos. They were invented and studied by the famous greek philosopher Aristotle. Ethos appeals to credibility, Logos appeals to logic or reason, and Pathos appeals to the audience’s feelings.
In Obama’s “ A More Perfect Union” speech he uses rhetorical strategies. Obama is acknowledging the current state of America, the good and the bad and how we could all help to make it better. He uses repetition, allusion, and many more to convince the American people that if they want a better America for everyone to vote for
(Kennedy “Remarks on the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.”). This specific example shows Kennedy 's use of anaphora. Kennedy could have just said, the United States does not need division, hatred,
He used rhetorical devices such as anaphora, parallel structure, and rhetorical questions to appeal to the listener and future reader’s sense of pathos. In Kennedy’s address to the nation, he used anaphora to trigger an emotional response from the listener. He gives the listener a sense of safety under his control, as he wants to “Let us begin anew--remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof. Let us never negotiate out of fear.
At the beginning of his speech, he conveys emotion through telling his own story and putting the audience in his shoes. He states “On the one hand he is born in the shadow of the stars and stripes and he is assured it represents a nation which has never lost a war. He pledges allegiance to that flag which guarantees "liberty and justice for all. " He is part of a country in which anyone can become President, and so forth”. This shows the audience how African American children feel when living in a country made on the premise of equality, but feeling anything but equal to their Caucasian peers.
Obama’s use of repetition in his speech makes his praise of John Kerry more powerful and by using the same words in different contexts, he shows that his ideas are important and relevant to all people. For example, “It’s the hope of slaves sitting around a fire [...] the hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores; the hope of a young naval lieutenant [...] the hope of a millworker’s son [...] the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name [...].” In this passage, the repetition of “the hope” applied to descriptions of different situations conveys the idea that everyone needs hope, and that America is a country built on hope. Obama also uses anaphora to drill certain ideas into the audience’s minds.
Study hard in school. Be focused. In the end it’s your own responsibility to succeed. The teachers, the government and your parents can be supportive without you being supportive of yourself. The only one who can fulfill your responsibilities is you.
Which bring us to the next rhetorical strategy, parallelism. Some of the parallelism used in Obama’s speech such as “…we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction.” (Pg. 688) makes the reader feel a sense of emotion from the writer and get an overview of the past. It allows them to be more engaged and gives them something to relate to. Which in this case, lead to a better approach of Obama getting his audience to interact and connect with him, and helped to put forth
So when President Obama at the end of his speech begins to sing, “Amazing grace how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me; I once was lost, but now I’m found; was blind but now I see.” It is not the paper in front of him belting out those lyrics, nor is it the way he wrote them on the paper that somehow makes them come out of his mouth in song, but it is his connection to the people that makes this melodious decision. Clearly, the writing of the speech helped the President organize his thoughts, but in the end, his delivery made all the difference to the citizens of the United States.
“We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense. And for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken -- you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you” (Obama par. 21). We will never back down to enemies; we will, in fact, beat you. Obama used anaphoras in his speech to persuade his audience that “we” are in this together.
He includes anaphora in the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth paragraphs, which state: “For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life. For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West; endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth. For us, they fought and died, in places just like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sanh.” From this repetition of “For us” Obama clues his audience in on the fact that people from earlier generations fought for the generation of today’s Americans to have a better life than them.
Barack Obama’s win for President in 2009 was a historical moment for the United States. His inaugural speech was much anticipated, because this was going to set the tone for his presidency. His speech told the American people that improving the economy is one of his priorities, but there were also other areas he would like to improve like healthcare and the education system. This was a speech that was meant to persuade the American public to take action for them to rise as a nation again, and for them to put their trust into him. His message addressed a couple of specific points like his gratefulness to the American people, the different crises America is facing, how America will overcome these crises, replying to his cynics, addressing the world, and then he reminded America again to be brave like they’ve always been to overcome the hard times (5 Speechwriting Lessons from Obama's Inaugural Speech, (n.d.).
His speech is similar to the one he gave in 2008 and contains repetition and conveys his political views. We notice how Obama opens his sentence with the same words such as: “We want”, “You’ll hear” and “That’s”. His speech is followed by the ideas about the USA, Americans or what the future holds for them. The first rhetorical device used by Barack Obama in his speech is an Anaphora. He starts his sentences with the same lines.