Obama Rhetorical Devices

In 2004, Obama walked up to the podium at the Democratic National Convention as a political novelty. The speech he delivered established Obama as a natural leader and transformed him into a future presidential candidate. Rich in demonstrative rhetoric, its purpose was to unite the American people through nationalism. The exploration of his rhetoric and style throughout this paper will cement why the speech was beneficially identity transforming for Obama's political career.

September 11, 2001, George W. Bush addresses America. After a horrific event caused by unknown terrorists, Bush reassures them. This short, five minute speech was made to help those of America who were drastically affected by the incident and to thank all of those who have sent their condolences. Within President Bush's brief speech, he uses a variety of rhetorical devices to reach his broad audience and make his points clear. Bush also makes good use of the three rhetorical strategies and syntax. The message he gave affected multiple people around the globe.

People need to have a certain type of voice to make a speech effective. To make a speech effective it depends on your tone of voice and how you deliver your speech. If you deliver your speech effectively, it could be memorable and even make a great impact on the world. An example of a speaker that made a great impact on the world is, Martin Luther King Jr, who delivered the famous I Have a Dream speech. Martin Luther King Jr. was a civil rights activist and he wanted to make a change in America. King wanted American’s to treat each other equally and not have discrimination against people depending on what race they were. King’s speech is effective because of the tone and rate he uses, his reasonable arguments, and his use of repetition

Barack Obama's powerful diction creates hope for the future of the United States with word choices such as “continue,” “shifted” and “ambitions.” Barack’s shift from informal to formal diction constructs an image of unity through the usage of simple, personal pronouns, such as “we” and “us.” The shifts from informal to formal and back appeal to the emotions of the audience because they feel as if Obama is talking directly to them. His allusions to the Bible are sentimental because when he says "the God given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness" he creates a bond between himself and his audience. His words have a motivating connotation that appeal to both logos and pathos. The way in which Barack Obama presents his ideas allows his audience to have confidence in him and his role as president.

He chooses his spots on where and when to address the audience on a certain issue. When listening to the speech, or viewing it, you notice this even more. He chooses his pauses wisely, something that is overlooked by many. He draws attention to his more important sentences by pausing for a little more than a second, then continuing on. When one pauses, it almost draws the reader into the importance of the next line, or even the line before. One is thought to believe that it has great importance, because it’s almost hard to say. He chooses to do this several times not only when discussing the Iraq war, but when discussing the current administration in the oval office. He states that “the pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into red and blue states; red states for Republicans, blue states for

The presidential inauguration is uniquely sacramental: the peaceful transition of power is representative of the strength that has made the United States the oldest democracy on Earth. Every 4 years, a new or incumbent president delivers this address to the nation, setting forth the principles that will guide the new administration, and uniting the nation under shared commonplaces. Each president is given the opportunity to establish themselves as distinct from the presidents before them. In the past decade, we have seen two unique presidents with two drastically different visions of America deliver their message to the United States of America. While both call upon shared national values and the unity of the nation under difficult circumstances, they differ in terms of inclusion and diversity within America. Both presidents deliver compelling arguments that encourage the American people to serve their country in diverse ways.

The use of repetition was one of the rhetorical devices used by Barack Obama in his speech, by mentioning some powerful words that advocate for for unity. Obama used phrases like “You and I,” and “Together, we.” He mentioned more than once the first sentence of the constitution of the United States “We, the people,” and declared that “Our Journey is not complete” (Klein) several times. These words reinforced his ideas of unity and evoked an image of that all Americans are equal and should have the same rights.

When attempting to present a certain perspective to an audience, the speaker must not merely string a list of monotonous and meaningless words together and call it a speech. Rhetoric, also known as persuasive elocution, has the power to captivate an audience and is essential to any effective oration. In his 2008 Republican Convention speech, actor Fred Thompson lends his support to John McCain’s presidential campaign in order to convince American voters to do the same. Appealing to his audience’s patriotism and sense of responsibility while also discrediting the possibility of a successful Democratic nominee, Thompson delivers a memorable presentation laced with passion, light-hearted humor, and, most especially, hope for a better future lead

Reagan was a well open speaker that impacted the audience. Before Reagan was president and the head of California, he was an actor. Since he was an actor, he knew how to talk to people out loud. In the speech, Reagan speaks effectively to the audience that gets a reaction out of them as well as making the audience interested in the things he says. After Reagan greets the crowd, he grabs the audience’s attention. Reagan remained a Democrat until he converted to the Republican side, the acting career was beneficial for talking to the audience to tell an anecdote about his switch.

The most obvious way President Reagan delivers rhetoric to his audience is through his own ethos. Ronald Reagan wasn’t just your average president; he was a communicator. Reagan started his career as a sports announcer and continued on as an actor, which led to his later career in state and national politics. By the time President Reagan had delivered his address, the president had been in the spotlight his entire career and was looked up to worldwide. He had established an extrinsic ethos well before delivering this speech. By being the president of the free world, Reagan’s audience

President Obama, like all Presidents before him, delivered a farewell address to the United States on January 20, 2017. As he stepped down as President he was eloquent and it was as clear as ever that he is a master of oration. Obama will go down in history as the first Black President as well as a strong orator who had the ability to captivate an audience through his use of ethos, pathos and logos amongst other rhetorical devices. His farewell address is a perfect example of Obama’s mastery of discourse as it is chock full of oratorical devices. Obama’s message to the American people and to the rest of the world is that it is essential that we maintain a sense of what it means to have a democracy and that in order to maintain peace and

The President begins his next point, starting his next paragraph with “but” , bringing out a change in tone and dropping in the central argument, or message, into perspective. Using deductive reasoning, Obama explains more plainly than before that America can’t function under a single person, but work as a single unit as “American people can no more meet the demands of today’s world” and “ No single person can train all the… teachers we’ll need…” but “… now, more than ever, we must do these things together, as one nation and one people.” At this point if you don’t sense a feeling of unity in the depths of your brain then you are Helen Keller and I respect that.

He speaks in a tone representing all the people of America (e.g. I also want to speak tonight directly to Muslims throughout the world. We respect your faith. It’s practiced freely by many millions of Americans and by millions more in countries that America counts as friends.)

On January 20, 2009, President Obama was officially inaugurated and sworn in as the forty-fourth president of the United States of America. The tradition of being inaugurated requires the president to give a speech about the goals they want to reach during their presidency. The president must make a speech that appeals to the audience while being professional. Rhetoric is a useful strategy to utilize in speech making. Obama uses rhetoric to achieve presenting his message of creating hope and change together in America while fixing the economic and social challenges and issues left behind from the previous president. Barack Obama uses syntax, the rhetorical triangle, and diction to portray his message.

President Barack H. Obama has been always using rhetorical strategies in his political speeches. He used these strategies to present important pointes and views of his in front of public. Delivering points and views properly and logically got him to be the president in the first place. President Obama used mostly ethos and pathos yet some logos to deliver his inaugural and the state of union speeches. Being that, he was able to reach audience emotionally and make the speech flow efficiently while he preserved his credibility. Each speech has own audience that differ from the other. In the inaugural speech the audience was the public and therefor the speech was short and used sort sentences that are easy to understand. On the other hand, the state of union speech audience was mostly the congers members and therefore the language was more specific and filled with political terminology. Both speeches will be discussed upon context and using ethos, pathos and logos consecutively.