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Rhetoric of Barack Obamas Victory Speech in 2008
The memorable speech of Barak Obama after his victory remains popular presently. This speech is unique as it is written for all Americans to encourage them to change and to show that they can do everything to improve their lives. Barak Obama addressed all essential issues in American society, such as racial inequality, economic problems, and other controversial troubles. Barak Obama described his vision for future changes in America to improve life quality. In the speech, Barak Obama uses contrasts, repetitions, audience segmentation, and stories to emphasize that each person matters, is equal, and can change and improve life and country.
Barak Obama used rhetorical strategies such as allusion, patriotic associations, simple language, parallel constructions, and repetitions to capture peoples attention. In the beginning, Obama used allusion when he mentioned the historical development of the USA: the Declaration of Independence, democracy development, the colonies, and the founders. Using patriotic words aimed to comfort people and emphasize equality between them and the President. Obama used parallelism to illustrate that Americans should further improve their country: This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. (Obama, 2008). Moreover, speech is written in simple language so that each person can easily understand the central theme and feel comfortable listening to it. In addition, repetitions were used to capture peoples attention and emphasize Obamas main ideas. For instance, Obamas slogan, Yes, we can, was repeated six times. Hence, many rhetorical strategies were implemented in the speech to attract peoples attention and emphasize the speechs central theme.
Barak Obamas speech is contrasting and full of different stories to comfort Americans. The contrast technique helped to keep the audiences attention, and Obama started his speech by contrasting: the diversity of the United States and unity of the United States (Obama, 2008). To reach each person, Obama used audience segmentation by separating people into subgroups: Its the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled, and not disabled. (Obama, 2008). In addition, Obama addressed not only Americans but also people worldwide. Telling stories about one of Obamas voters showed that President cares about Americas future and emphasized that each person matters for global change. Obama tried to address prominent issues such as poverty and racial inequality and to demonstrate that Americans can solve these problems. Yes, we can is the central theme of Obamas speech. Lastly, Barak Obama used autobiography to show that everything is possible if a person has faith and a desire to change and improve. Thus, Barak Obama used contrast, stories, and audience segmentation to address the main issues to reach each American and show that everything is possible.
To conclude, Barak Obama used different rhetorical strategies in his speech to address each problem and reach each person. Contrasting, audience segmentation, allusion, simple language, and parallel helped to comfort people and understand the theme of Obamas speech. Barak Obama made the audience the main hero, and as a result motto Yes, we can was created, encouraging Americans for changes. This speech shows the significance and importance of rhetorical strategies in persuading people.
Reference
Obama, B.H. (2008). Transcript Of Barack Obamas Victory Speech [Speech transcript]. NPR. Web.
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