Obama and Bush: their victory and non-victory speeches (original) (raw)
Related papers
Personal Pronouns in American Presidential Political Discourse
2021
This research examines first-person personal pronouns which arise in political speeches given by Obama in his victory as American President in 2008 and 2012. Employing qualitative and quantitative methods, this research explores the occurrences of first personal pronouns to reveal the forms and its discourse function through political speeches. Abstracting from 458 personal pronouns found in Obama’s speeches, 272 pronouns are identified as first personal pronouns. The findings of the first personal pronouns employed in Obama speeches illustrated that Obama produced pronoun we and its variants, 183 times, and pronoun I and its variants, 89 times. Obama exploited singular personal pronoun to convey personally his deep appreciation and gratefulness, personal experiences, personal professional experiences, his personal argumentative opinions, hopes, and his commitment as well. The use of inclusive we and its variants indicate Obama’s desire to shares responsibility and construct nationa...
Personal Pronouns in Biden’s Inaugural Speech: A Critical Discourse Perspective
Journal of language and literature/Journal of Language and Literature, 2024
Article information This research primarily examines the first-person personal pronouns in political discourse, political speech in particular. This research aims to reveal how the pronoun I and we are exploited by the politician for the specific intention in political discourse. This research contextually investigates those personal pronouns and their inflectional forms based on the critical discourse analysis perspective, revealing the function and the purpose of producing a particular and an intentional personal pronoun to refer to specific addressee(s). That linguistic strategy in political context indicate the social and political relation between the speaker and the referents. The data in this research were taken from the script of Biden's inaugural speech given in 2021. From 224 first-person personal pronouns, Biden produced the pronoun I and its inflectional forms 63 times or 28,1% and the pronoun we and its inflectional forms 161 times or 71,9 in percentage. Even though the plural form was identified as the most first-person personal pronoun produced by Biden, the occurrence of the pronoun we and its inflectional forms excluded Kamala Harris as his vice president. Biden exploited the first-person singular personal pronoun to express his gratitude, quality, positive image and persuasively to ingratiate the citizens. On the other hand, Biden expressed the pronoun we and its inflectional forms to establish a sense of national unity, togetherness to confront the challenges, and sharing responsibility. Personal pronouns no longer deal with language structure analysis only, but they are also employed to persuasively affect socio-political position, especially in a political context.
UJAH: Unizik Journal of Arts and Humanities, 2021
A political speech is usually characterized by the use of different linguistic techniques and strategies that allow politicians to convey their political messages and persuade people of their ideologies and thoughts. The American presidential inaugural address is therefore a form of political discourse that imbues the characteristics of both written and oral discourse. This study consequently looked at how Presidents Barrack Obama and Donald Trump of America have used Linguistic resources (Pronouns and metaphors) to construct individual and collective ideologies and persuade America to accept their political ideologies. This exploration was carried out within the frameworks of Lakoff and Johnson Conceptual Metaphor Theory, Charter is – Black’s Critical Metaphor Theory and the content method of data analysis. The corpus was drawn from the respective official websites of Barrack Obama and Donald Trump. It was discovered that their speeches were characterized by skilful choice of rheto...
A Discourse Analysis: Personal Pronouns in Donald Trump's Inauguration Speech
The discourse analysis may seem quaint to discuss. One of the common domains of analyzing the critical discourse covers the public speech by which the speaker is trying to gain best response from the listener or audience. This article attempts at exploring the use of subjects in Donald Trump's Inauguration Speech. Subjects are mainly examined from a critical discourse analysis approach concerning on speech functions. The transcript of the speech is analyzed to describe personal pronouns used by Donald Trump in his inauguration speech. The result shows that by using pronouns, Donald Trump tries to represent himself and others indicating that the pronouns that he used is one of the devices to maintain a good interaction with the audience through the speech.
Presidential Studies Quarterly, 2015
Presidents plagiarize and paraphrase. They cannot help themselves. As the office has evolved into the modern-day rhetorical presidency, it has become part of their job. Sometimes they just purloin phrases. Abraham Lincoln is one source of rhetorical inspiration. John F. Kennedy is another. More often, though, their speeches simply conform to generic conventions, as presidents fall back on well-worn rhetorical tropes. As Frank Aus-term€ uhl observes in his forensically researched account of presidential intertextuality, their "discourse can thus be understood as a network of texts.. or, to apply a less-often used metaphor, a discursively erected cultural 'scaffold'" (p. 8). In The Great American Scaffold, Austerm€ uhl examines the intertextual exoskeleton that supports and preserves the essential precepts defining America's national identity. His book plants itself at a disciplinary crossroads, drawing upon "approaches from political studies, presidential studies, communication, American studies, as well as applied linguistics and discourse analysis" (p. 27). Scholars from these disparate fields will find much of interest in Austerm€ uhl's analysis. The author begins with an initial survey of competing theoretical approaches to intertextuality. Those for whom this methodological terrain is unfamiliar might encounter prose that is sometimes dense but never impenetrable. Successive chapters then consider the different manifestations of intertextuality in presidential speeches: discursive, thematic, hypotextual, and allusory. There are fascinating nuggets for the aficionado. For example, although the presidency has increasingly become the focus of national attention, the book's detailed quantitative analysis demonstrates (pp. 51, 65) that, in inaugural addresses and State of the Union messages, presidential use of the personal pronoun "I" has declined over time while that of the collective "we" has increased. Austerm€ uhl provides an illuminating discussion of the conventions surrounding the president's inauguration and of the speech itself, investigating the essential continuities that underpin this quadrennial reaffirmation of national identity. He identifies 13 common themes that recur in just over three-quarters of inaugural addresses. America's mission, expressed in terms of advancing peace and the democratic ideal, domestically and internationally, has appeared in all of them. Only George Washington's second inaugural (historically, the shortest) failed to allude to values, and only Herbert Hoover and Harry S. Truman omitted the vocabulary of union (p. 137). Inaugurals are the republican equivalent of coronations, their democratic protocols serving to celebrate the nation's past as much as articulating a vision for its future.
Linguistic Representations in Selected Presidential Concession Speeches
2020
Defeat comes to politicians with shock and the default response of disappointment; nevertheless, its management has implications for peaceful transition, national stability, and aspirants' democratic and public image. Extant works on election speeches have focused on different aspects of meaning in defeat concession, but have overlooked the ideational aspect of the speeches. Yet, it has the potential of revealing how losing aspirants use language in the realisation of their experiential meanings, within the context of their election defeat. Therefore, this study investigates the linguistic representation of candidates' election defeat experience as embedded in variant themes, together with associated realities that suggest certain political postures. A Plea to Fight on, and Benediction. More specifically, the study reveals the actual act of concession to be a Verbalisation in a clause. The paper concludes that the ideational reading of a concession speech transcends yielding...
Transformative Rhetoric- How Obama Became the New Face of America - A Linguistic Analysis
His brilliant use of rhetoric made Obama the face of 21 st century America. His ability to portray himself as the embodiment of the American dream and to relate to the stories of other Americans brought many to support his candidacy. This article presents a discussion of his use of personal narrative, stories, repetition, metaphors, clichés, audience involvement, and humor with illustrative examples from Obama's most memorable speeches.
2011
This paper examines the art of linguistic spin in three popular speeches given by Barack Obama during October 2, 2002 to February 5, 2008. Obama's linguistic spin has been approached through the model of transitivity systems proposed by Halliday. The analysis and interpretation reveal the way he became successful in persuading the people gather around him. These linguistic features have been taken as tools for analysis as these relate closely to the ideational function of language, quite suitable for the analysis and interpretation of a political discourse since political discourse also deals with the ideational function. The results of the study show that Obama uses material processes of action and event as well as mental process of affection to physically gather the people around him. He uses relational processes as well to create his positive image in the minds of people. He seems much interested in using circumstance of location, both spatial and temporal, and circumstance o...