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Rhetorical analysis of speech
Rhetorical analysis of speech
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On January 20, 2017, Donald Trump was inaugurated as the forty-fifth president of the United States. His first action as our president was presenting his inaugural speech in front of the Capitol building. His speech was broadcasted not only to the American people, but the rest of the world as well. This speech is arguably one of the most important pieces of rhetoric that has been released in recent times as it carries tremendous weight in the political world. Although the speech itself has many elements that lend to it being effective and moving, when presented by President Trump, the speech lost its effectiveness and power over the audience. President Trump faced many constraints in giving his speech, but was unable to overcome them thus rendering his speech ineffective. …show more content…
Every four years, the recently elected president stands before the American people and gives their inaugural speech to answer the question of what they plan to do with their time in office. This offers the exigence of the situation: what changes will the new administration make for the United States? President Trump answers this question with the first major point in the speech by stating: “we are transferring power from Washington, D.C. and giving it back to you, the American People” (Trump). This line clearly exemplifies President Trump’s desire to change the American government system by transferring more power to the citizens of this country. His proposal thoroughly addresses the exigence of the situation, but he fails to present his solution in a way that could sway the audience and gain their support due to several reasons. Although the written speech has some positive elements that make it effective to an extent, the structure and style of presentation lead this speech to fail in reaching the public and not taking its full effect. Before delving into how the constraints the President faced rendered his speech ineffective, Donald Trump should be commended on his use of ethos and pathos in the written speech. With lines such as “we are one nation” and “we, the citizens of America,” President Trump effectively emphasizes that he is one of the people (Trump). Through lines such as these, he’s aligning himself with the citizens of the United States and developing his ethos. After developing his connection to his audience, the President uses pathos to draw emotion from his audience. His strongest use of pathos in his speech is found in this line: But for too many of our citizens, a different reality exists: Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities; rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation; an education system flush with cash, but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of knowledge; and the crime and gangs and drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential. (Trump) This is an incredibly powerful use of pathos to evoke emotions from his audience. The mental images of starving mothers and children, students deprived of learning because of a corrupted system, and brutal gang violence all serve their purpose in evoking emotions of sadness from the audience. President Trump’s word choice also adds to the effect of this speech. Words like “tombstones” and “carnage,” used to describe different aspects of America, add a heaviness to his words. By describing American in this way, and successfully evoking emotions of sadness and even despair, the president establishes a platform to deliver a message of hope. Although he was able to successfully establish his credibility and an emotional platform to deliver hope from, the remainder of his speech could not live up to these standards. One of the major reasons for his speech being ineffective comes from how it was structured. Although all presidents give an inaugural speech at the beginning of their term, President Trump stands out from many of the others due to the circumstances of its creation and delivery. Interestingly, the rhetor of the speech is, in fact, the president himself. Unlike many preceding presidents, Donald Trump wrote this speech without the aid of a professional speechmaker. Additionally, the overall tone of the speech is a noteworthy difference in his speech from past inaugural speeches. In the past, most incoming presidents choose to present their speeches with a positive and uplifting tone that inspires hope in the audience, but President Trump opted for a different strategy. The tone used for is speech is melancholy as the President speaks of the darker aspects of American society to exemplify his point. This goes back to his use of pathos in the speech; the pathos is effective in drawing emotion out the audience but it’s not necessarily appropriate for this speech. The dark tone draws away from the underlying message of how he desires to fix America. The conflicting tone and message of the speech make it difficult to understand what he’s trying to convey to his audience. He’s saying that we can fix America, but all the audience hears is: “America is broken.” Hearing this coming from one of the most powerful men in the world can be difficult for the audience. They want to hear how Donald Trump is going to “make America great again” as he’s often said, but instead get a melancholy description of our country thus leaving this speech hollow in meaning as it never reaches its true potential. Along with his inability to drive home the full impact of his speech because of how it is constructed in tone, the President is also dealing with many outside constraints that he must overcome with a limited number of resources at his disposal. Like every rhetor, President Trump must find a way around his constraints to make his piece of rhetoric effective. In the case of this speech, that simply did not happen. President Trump had all the resources you would expect from an incoming president: supporters across the nation that will believe in every word he says and professional speechmakers to help formulate an effective presentation to the nation. Unfortunately, even with these resources in mind, the President was unable to overcome the constraints he faced in giving his speech. President Trump was being faced with a substancial opposition from the people that don’t support him or his administration. Along with the mass opposition, the main constraint that the President couldn’t overcome was himself. President Trump failed on the stage that day as he botched a perfectly acceptable speech with his abysmal speech-giving skills. At just over sixteen minutes long, the speech was shorter than inaugural speeches of other presidents in recent years. According to the American Presidency Project, Donald Trump’s speech contained 1,433 words compared to the 2,246 average word count of President Obama and 1,831 average word count for President Bush (Peters). Although having a shorter speech isn’t necessarily bad, in this case it worked against the President. He’s already known for being the “Twitter” President, with many of his political statements being 140 characters or less, and this speech only reinforces that stereotype. Not only was his speech comparatively shorter than recent speeches, the President’s manner of speech did nothing to aid the presentation. Throughout the speech, President Trump takes numerous pauses to allow for applause. Although this is good in moderation, he took more than he should have leading the speech to seem longer than it needed to be. This coupled with his monotone voice and his slow, dull manner of speaking caused this speech to drag on. Comparative to reading the speech, listening to it left the audience bored and uninterested in what the President was saying. In theory, President Trump’s written out inauguration speech could have been very effective, had it not been him who presented it.
Contained in this speech are rhetorical elements, such as ethos and pathos, that made it powerful and emotionally moving in its own way, however, only when read. What makes this speech rhetorically ineffective is how it was presented by Donald Trump. Through a combination of his odd choice of tone and poor manner of speech, the full effect of the speech went unrealized by those that listened to it. Compared to reading the speech, listening to it being given by the President leaves the audience underwhelmed and disappointed. What could have been a powerful and moving speech was ruined by the President’s inability to overcome the constraints he was faced with, leaving his speech hollow in meaning and ineffective in reaching its audience. Ultimately, President Trump failed not only his speech and the potential it had, but America. As this being his first act as the President of the United States, he disappointed his audience as his melancholy words rang out across the nation upon eager ears, only to fill them with an abysmal display of his skills as a public
speaker.
In the “George Bush’ Columbia” speech, George W. Bush used a variety of ways in order to make his mark and effectively assemble his dialog. One of the most prominent strategies Mr. Bush used was his sentence structure. He did a great job shaping his speech by initially addressing the problem at hand. He first stated what happened, who it happened to, and gave his condolences to the ones who didn’t make it, along with their families. Mr. Bush also seemed sincere throughout his speech as he made sure to mention each hero apart of the crew. Another technique George W. Bush displayed was the diction and tone he used while delivering the speech. From listening to the audio last week, I remember the passion behind Bush’s words and the sincerity
The purpose of an “inaugural address” is to inform the people of his or her intentions as a leader. Two of the most prominent inaugural addresses throughout history are Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s and Barack Obama’s. Franklin Roosevelt’s inaugural address stands the test of time because it gave the American people hope that they may overcome the terrible Great Depression. Similarly, Barack Obama’s address is well known because it inspired millions that we will be lifted out of economic crisis, but it was also remembered as the first inaugural address from an African American president. The inauguration speeches of Franklin Roosevelt and Barack Obama use the rhetorical devices parallelism, allusions, and emotive language to convey their messages
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In his “State of the Union” speech, President Barack Obama effectively uses the rhetorical devices of Ethos, Pathos and Logos to convey a more convincing message to the citizens of the United States to urge them to follow the example of the many people that have made their nation greater.
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“Today we are not merely transferring power from one administration to another, or from one party to another – but we are transferring power from Washington, D.C. and giving it back to you, the American People.” With this statement, Trump had set the tone for his entire speech, and exhibits another of his main points in uniting the American people. “Rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation; an education system, flush with cash, but which leaves our young students deprived of knowledge.” Trump’s use of descriptive language, to create vivid imagery for the audience here is one of the most powerful statements he makes in his speech. The emotional response Trump is able to strike in the listener, and the feelings he creates with his appeals to pathos throughout the speech is a big part of what makes this an effective inaugural
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The president’s inaugural address allows the president to lay out his plans and intentions to excite and motivate people across the country. Since the main reason for his sermon is to inspire rather than educate, Kennedy rarely uses any logical pleads. Yet, Kennedy adequately uses passionate dialect to make the people sense their involvement in what the President says. Kennedy composes the assignment to bring back tranquility and good-wealth as not only his aim, but of the public as well.
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