Obamas acceptance speech is a political speech that holds a
lot of political power. It contains snippets of the Presidents home life as
well as his opinions. The speech holds a lot of modal verbs in which I believe
are used to give an effect to a certain situation. In this case deontic
modality is running throughout. For example, ‘We are and forever will be’ and
‘We can never’. Another type of modality that makes a few appearances is
epistemic modality; this modality is used to express the speaker’s opinion and
statements on the pragmatically chosen subject of the political rights of
America, ‘whether you’re black or white or Hispanic or Asian or Native American’. By using these types of modalities, the
speaker is addressing the audience showing his determination to accept those
who feel unaccepted within the United States.
At the start of the acceptance speech, Obama clearly uses
anaphora. This is where he repeats the same words at the beginning of his
sentences. For example, ‘Thankyou, Thankyou. Thankyou so much.’ By repeating
these words at the beginning of his speech, the speaker is clearly addressing
the audience therefore acknowledging that they are within his presence.
Similarly, Obama uses the words ‘stirs passions, stirs up controversy’ to
lengthen and enhance the effect of his words. This is called an epistrophe.
Looking back at the speech, I realised that the speaker uses
a lot of repetition, like ‘The best. The best ever’ and more towards the end of
his speech he used the words ‘God bless you. God bless these United States.’. By
using repetition in the last line of his speech, Obama successfully secures the
audiences hopes of a communal life and relieves them of their worries that
America will not overcome the racial divide. In addition, the repetition of the
last few words, help to persuade the audience of the new found aims.
On top of that, throughout the speech, the speaker Barack
Obama, has directly addressed the audience by the use of pronouns such as ‘I’,
‘We’ and ‘Us’. By using such pronouns, the speaker has directly appealed to the
audience thus increasing the amount of attention he will receive. It also
relates to the Presidents power over American civilians. By using, ‘We’ and
‘Us’, the President is convincingly addressing himself as one civilian who is
the same as each and every audience member in his presence. From this powerful
connection, Obama can help encourage those who do not believe, to believe.
Lastly, the president uses facts and figures to secure the
feeling of intelligence and/or authority that he must hold. For instance he
uses the words ‘Democracy in a nation of 300 million can be noisy and messy and
complicated’, not only does this provide the audience with the understanding of
how hard it must be to govern their country, but a new form of respect arises
to the President and all those that help behind the scenes.
Finally, Obama uses Antitheses to compare and contrast two
ideas, forming a relationship that is clear to help clarify information. For
instance, he uses the words ‘depths of despair to the great heights of hope’.
Obama uses this to explain how our negative thoughts may affect our spirits and
compares them to how all American civilians must form hope to achieve a
positive spirit.
Gemma Lucas
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