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rhetorical strategies in george w bush president speech to the nation
rhetorical devices used in george bush speech
examples of rhetorical devices in bush's speech on iraq
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Rhetorical Strategies Used by President George Bush After the September 11 Terrorist Attacks
On September 11, 2001, the Islamist terrorist group known as al-Qaeda launched a series of terrorist attacks on the United States of America, specifically in the New York City and Washington D.C areas. Nineteen al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four planes with the intention of using them as suicide attacks that would crash those planes into designated buildings, or targets. Two of the four passenger jets were flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, both of which collapsed entirely within two hours of being hit. The third plane was crashed into the Pentagon, and the west side of the building, which is the Headquarters of the US Department of Defense, partially collapsed. The fourth hijacked plane was intended for the US Capitol Building in Washington D.C, but instead crashed into a field in Pennsylvania after the passengers of the plane interfered with the hijackers. The attack on September 11th was devastatingly fatal—almost 3,000 people died in the attacks, including all of the al-Qaeda hijackers and every passenger aboard the four planes.
On the evening of September 11, 2001, in the wake of these attacks, President George W. Bush issued an address to the nation. In his speech, Bush addresses the citizens of the United States, which is his target audience. However, due to the nature of the attacks, people from all over the world viewed Bush’s address from their televisions, and people from both the United States and the rest of the world were able to access the speech later on the Internet. Bush’s main purpose in his address is to issue a formal presidential response to the terrorist attack, but more i...
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...s audience’s emotions of fear and sadness, but also of patriotism through charged language and by compelling his viewers to identify with the victims, in order to galvanize a sense of anger and commitment to justice, which he is able to achieve this charged language through use of metaphor and periphrasis. By presenting his argument as one of policy and supporting this claim through the formal topics of definition and concomitant, Bush is able to ultimately use his address to argue that America should be defended, because defending America means defending the doctrine of freedom itself.
Works Cited
Bush, George W. "A Great People Has Been Moved to Defend a Great Nation." Oval
Office. Washington D.C. 11 Sept. 2001. American Rhetoric. N.p., n.d. Web. 7
Mar. 2013.
gwbush911addresstothenation.htm>.
And to this day, these values hold up and serve as the basis for all aspects of our country, whether it range from politics to social issues. But on September 11, 2001, these fundamental principles that stand for freedom were put into serious jeopardy by maniacal terrorists who refused to accept the progressive role that America played on a global scale. But as America slowly began to recover from this tragedy, the responsibility to lift the American spirit was left to the hands of the politicians who we ironically know to cause so much chaos and bipartisan gridlock. Nonetheless, world leaders such as Rudy Giuliani eased the pain for the American populous in a manner that called for reform in order to prevent an attack like this from ever occurring on American soil. Ultimately, in his address to the United Nations General Assembly following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Rudy Giuliani makes effective use of tone, rhetorical devices, and logical and emotional appeals to soothe the wounds that the
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...n their backs, but while Roosevelt devotes his efforts into defending the nation through logos, Bush is alleviating the emotional distress of America's problems through the use of pathos.
Rhetorical analysis assignment: President’s Address to the Nation. Since the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration has been calling on all citizens and all nations to support his Middle East policy. Nonetheless, the U.S. has been involved in the Middle East struggle for more than half of the century, wars were waged and citizens were killed.
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It all happened in an instant. One minute thousands of civilians were on their way to work when everything changed. President George Bush gave an iconic speech that was not only memorable but gave hope to the Americans that justice would be served to those associated with the terrorist group al-Qaida. George Bush’s speech rallied the Americans to fight back against the terrorists because he used rhetorical devices such as parallelism, analogies, and repetition.
President George W. Bush use of symbolic strategies is admirable, regardless of one’s beliefs with politics. With his crucial tone combined with anaphoras and pathos, Bush created a speech that was inspiring and provoking. Looking back at everything, it is apparent that Bush used his successful speech as a stepping stone to go into Afghanistan, and then later Iraq. Bush’s 9/11 speech will go down in history and nobody will ever forget about this tragic, horrendous event that shocked our country worldwide.
Because of the controversial issues surrounding President G.W. Bush before and during the time of his reelection, the acceptance speech that he delivered is an important piece of literature to study. This diplomatic speech is a piece of rhetorical contribution because the motives and meanings behind any President’s speech is significant to us as citizens of the United States of America. It further warrants our attention because if the audience is able to comprehend the inner meanings and motives behind a presidential speech, then they will eventually be able to differentiate the actual stances and platforms of future presidential candidates and nominees.
President George W. Bush is notorious for horrible public speaking, tripping over his words and making silly mistakes are not uncommon in President Bush’s speeches. When 9/11 struck the heart of America we turned to President Bush to guide us back to the path of calm and reason. The American population tends to lean on our President in time of tragedy to serve as a system of support. Instantly after the World Trade Center buildings were attacked President Bush addressed the nation on live television. Bush used neo-Aristotelian tactics: ethos, pathos, and logos to instate a sense of patriotism, argue that America will recover from this tragedy and bring justice to our nation.
These acts shatter steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve.” George Bush was president at the time when the 9/11 attack happened. George Bush wrote this quote for the thousands of lives that were hugely affected. To the kids worried about their parents while they are in school, to the worried husbands and wives, and brothers and sisters. The 9/11 attack did not only change the lives of people who lost a loved one, and the people who were there where the planes hit, but also people who just saw what was happening and people who heard about it, cried. The increase and patriotism and the rise in security will make people feel more secure and protected but it will never change the the amount of people affected by 9/11. Millions of people around the world know about what happened on September 11th, 2001. Millions of people will be changed
He emphasizes the horror when he states, “I regret to tell you that very many American lives have been lost.” He tries to gain the confidence of the the American people by stating that other countries have been attacked, as well. He uses parallel structure and repetition to indicate that places other than the US were attacked. He repeats this framework to emphasize that many other places were attacked. He does this so that his audience can understand the greater impact of the event. FDR then concludes this section of his speech by stressing the fact that he knows what the Americans are feeling and the opinions that have been formed. Roosevelt implies that he knows their lives will change and that the people are concerned for their safety. He does this to make the listeners understand that they are not alone in their reaction to this attack and that everybody in America feels this
On the brink of two different wars, two United States’ Presidents rose up to the challenge of calming the American people and fighting for the belief of justice. A day after devastation on December 7, 1941, Franklin D. Roosevelt gives his “Pearl Harbor Address to the Nation”. At the beginning of a terrorist crisis in 2001, George W. Bush announces a “‘War on Terror’ Declaration”. Both Presidents have many similarities in common, yet their differences set them apart with uniqueness. These two speeches, separate by nearly sixty years, weave an outright and assertive tone into their diction and detail.
Bush opens his speech by acknowledging the events of September 11, and those that lost the lives of loved ones and to those that gave their life trying to save others in the buildings. He appeals to those that remain strong by saying that, “These acts of mass murder were intended to frighten our nation into chaos and retreat. But they have failed. Our country is strong.” His use of pathos helps Bush to calm and control the public in order to keep the country together. This
Bush demonstrates that with the use of metaphors, personification, and also repetition. Using metaphor, he compares America to steel, saying that America is like steel, but not pliable. Portraying that whatever dangerous act comes to America, America will stay strong and not move. Personification is to explain the reasoning behind the terrorists’ operations and the motives behind this move. Bush gives feeling and visualization traits to the nation, consequently putting it in the nation’s point of view, highlighting what the nation felt and saw. Repetition is to bring America together and strengthen everyone. It is to show that this heartbreaking event did not just affect the victims, but it affects the entire country. The way Bush uses repetition to get the people of America together makes America stronger because the more a country is together, the more power and strength it will possess. As a final point, President Bush’s usage of these three rhetorical devices grabs the attention of the people and helps Bush express the type of tone he wants to get