Rhetorical Criticism Using Ernest Bormann Fantasy Theme - Essay Example

Rhetorical criticism using Ernest Bormann’s Fantasy theme approach and Neo-Aristotelian approach on Barack Obamas first Inaugural Address Tutor Date Introduction On September 2008, President Barack Obama took office as the president of united State of America (USA) and the first black American to hold this office. He came into power at the time when America faced difficult times, and he had a big task ahead of him. Among the thorny issues included the ongoing war in Afghanistan, rising unemployment, and faltered economy. The concern of Americans, over these issues, has turned to beacon of fear with respect to the future of the Americans. To a good number of America the election of president Obama represented hope for a new beginning and a chance to perform reforms for the better. However, many Americans questioned his ability to lead with enough background and skills to address these concerns. This thesis examines the president 2009 inaugural address. The analysis of this speech shows how the president rhetorically managed to alleviate the concern of the USA’s people. And, in what manner he was rhetorically able to convince Americans that he is the right person to led the nation to the right direction through this difficult times. First, present and explains the chosen theories within classical rhetoric and the genre of the address. He then uses the selected theories to analyze the Obama’s inaugural address. The writer then makes assessment and discussion of the thesis statement from this analysis. The thesis has Ernest Bormanns Fantasy theme approach and Neo-Aristotelian approach to determine the type of speech, the usage and appeal form used. By utilizing this approach, it was possible to deduce whether Obama’s inaugural speech was rhetoric. The Obama’s rhetoric inaugural address has its own genre. Themes such as reconciliation, renewal, and national unity are an example of what is crucial in the American political discourse of inaugural addresses. In most of the cases, the writer quotes examples from the past to unify the nation and show the people of the America how goal can be achieved, and issues dwelt with. Inaugural addresses always contain three key themes; ability to rediscover the united state of America, emphasis on what it mean to be an American citizen and to show people that it is time for a new beginning. Inaugural address is supposed to be non-partisan and unifying. They should make people feel that if they come together they can achieve more (Fafner, 1998). Most of the Americans have a major concern about domestic and international issue. With the election of a new president, people want to feel that the needed reforms are steered for the better especially with the new leader in power. Obama’s inaugural address was an opportunity for him to show off his prowess with respect to his capacity to alleviate the concern of the Americans. In this regard, therefore, the thesis will answer a number of questions such as question: 1) how did the president rhetorically manage to alleviate the concern of Americans? 2) In what way was president Obama rhetorically able to win the hearts and minds of the Americans convincing them that he is the right person to lead them through this trying time? Method of Analysis To answer the question, the author describes theories used for them. Then a rhetoric analysis of the president inaugural address will be made based on the selected theories. While accounting for the selected theories, the focus will be linguistic analysis that utilize five cons of Aristotle ‘classical rhetoric, (memoria, action, elocutio, disposito and inventio) and the three appeal forms- (ethos, pathos and logos.) Background and literature review Classical rhetoric arose in 5th century in Athens Greece. Rhetoric refers the art of speaking and is the theory about shaping the language in a way that both the person speaking and the intended audience gains sympathy. The objective of rhetoric is to convince actuate and stimulate the audience. In the recent past the term, rhetoric has been used wrongly – as fancy speech. However, this is not the true meaning of the word. According to the classical concept of rhetoric, the content and the form of speech are inseparable. The objective is to unify the content and the form of speech in the best way possible. The speaker may have a lot in mind and the heart, but if he is incapable of expressing it in a manner that the audiences understand, communication fails. The genre characteristics of an inaugural address Inauguration refers to ritual ceremony during which the executives peacefully transfer power from one president to another. Inauguration is a regularly scheduled event held after every four years in the United States subject to successful lectoral process. The regularity of the inauguration ceremony offers a sense of stability and permanency to a political system that allow peaceful turnovers of office holders. The inaugural address is a unique genre. It reflects the things that the incoming president finds important, and if he reflects his intentions successfully, generations will remember it through ages as one that stood up (Fafner, 1998). The president cannot entirely decide by himself how he wants to compose the inaugural address simply because inaugural addresses are part of long traditional. The genres of the inaugural address are more defined as compared to all other garners used by the president. There are eight elements that are found in the inaugural address: 1) the address is used to unify people as one of. 2) The addresses praise people’s traditional values. 3) The president also illustrates the political philosophy that his administrations will utilizes. 4) The president acknowledges the limit in his power by appreciating the help of the congress and the citizen. 5) He acknowledges that there is God, who is all-powerful and invite him to guide him and the nation. 6) The president uses history to show how the new administration’ vision can succeed and restores the hope of the people that the country has a future. 7) The address uses epideictic style to praise constitution system of America institution. 8) The address reflects a high style language- they contains several linguistic features e.g. allusion, metaphor and quotable quotes. The five classical cannon of rhetoric Classical rhetoric contains five canons that nearly all speech has. These are – inventio, elocutio, dispositio, memoria and actio. Inventio- in this phase (invention) the author discovers the material, ideal and gains knowledge of the subject he has to choose. It involve coming up with the idea and finding the right material that will support the idea in persuading the audience. Dipositio- this canon deals with speech composition. It orders the material found in the invention to find a place and a function in the speech. Elocutio- this is the third canon. It refers to the style. Elocutio simply means placing the ideas found in the inventio and classified in dispositio into a sentence.The manner in which the writer put words into a sentence is very critical for the writer to convey the intended message. It determine how much he persuading the audience. It is the situation of the audience and the subject, are the one that determine the writers stylistic level. Style her refer to the implemented features in a text. In broad term, there are three levels of style: low, middle and high. High style distance itself from the audience and the present reality. It is mostly applied in, future journalism, poem and certain type of speech like those in inaugural addresses. Middle and low style are less formal and are seen in commercial and journalism. The most critical question that the author asks himself is: what language to use? Memoria and action - these are canon that deal with speech memorizing and speech presentation respectively. Memoria include the different techniques that the author can use in order for him to remember what to say. Actio on the other hand deals with speech presentation and use of voice and body language. Persuasion-ethos, logos, pathos The task of persuading the audience is carried out by this three means- ethos, logos and pathos. While logos are appeal to intellect, pathos and ethos is appeal to emotion. Ethos is the writer’s emotional appeal that deals with his credibility. The etho’s of the writer is dependent with the audience perception of him. It therefore, goes without saying that if the audience does not like the author; it is unlikely they will go along with his case. An author should therefore, work on his image and charisma if he is to persuade his audience. Logo: they deal with the speech itself. It is the argumentations provided by the author. Using the logos, the author refers to the audience common sense and he state the cause very objectively providing the supporting facts and statistics. Pathos refers to the intense feeling that the author tries to evoke from the audience. The author will affect the emotion and feeling of the audience e.g., excitement anger and compassionate. For him to attract the attention of the audience fully, the creation of the internal pictures in the minds of the audience is necessary. Report and findings Communicative situation The situation under which president Barrack Obama gave his speech was after the outcome of November 4th 2008 presidential election. Obama won the elections after an intensive campaign against John McCain. The inaugural ceremony was carried on January 20 2009, and it was during this ceremony that the president gave his address to the Americans. President Obama had big task ahead- USA is currently struggling with bad economy, two ongoing wars Iraq, Afghanistan, and unemployment (Campbell & Kean 2008). The focus of this address was to unite the country and to set the direction to take into the future. The main purpose of the address was to reassure the Americans that they chose the right president. The address therefore, belonged to both the genre of deliberative speech and epideictic speech. The genre characteristic in Obama’s inaugural address The president address utilizes all eight characteristics of an inaugural address. 1) Unification and redefinition of the people: Obama attempts to unify the nation by beginning with “my fellow citizen” and “we the people.” By saying this, he tries to convince people that he is one of them. Obama regularly used the term “we,” “us” “and” “our” thought out the speech (Foss, 2004). This is a deliberate attempt to unify the people. Obama also attempt to bring the US and the world together when he say “to all other people and government who are watching today----know that America is a friend of each nation and every man and woman and children who seek a future of peace and dignity” Obama in his address redefine Americans, when he say “shaped by every language, drawn from every end of the earth” Obama’s aim was to unify and redefine the Americans in order for them to feel that if they came together then their problem a can be solved. 2) The second characteristic of the inaugural address is praising the traditional values. The president incorporated traditional values of Americans by stating, “ all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to peruse their full measure of happiness.” The people of America have always been willing to share their vale with the lest of the world. 3) The third characteristic in the address was outlining the political direction of his administration. The third characteristic was brought out when he said “ we will act not only to create job, but to lay new foundations of growth.” furthermore he state, “we will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people.” The current state of united state of America economy, high rate of unemployment and the ongoing war prompted him to spell out his intension on these real issues, which are facing America. 4) Obama acknowledges that he cannot be able to carry out the propose without the help of the congress and the people of America. He says “America has carried on not simply because of skill and the vision of those in high office but because we the people have remained faithful to the ideals of our fore bearers and true to our founding document.” Obama clearly indicates that he cannot achieve alone, but he will need contributions of every American. 5) Obama calls upon helps and support from the almighty. As he begins his speech by reminding, Americans that God exist. “The God given promise that are equal, all free and all deserve a chance to pursue their full nature of happiness”. Interestingly Obama does not humbly evoke God’s blessing upon himself. The reason for this, possibly being, the president needed to present himself as a strong leader who could rise to the task. 6) The sixth characteristic was utilizing historical analogy. In a number of cases, the president utilized this historical analogy, probably because he needs to show Americans even though they are experiencing a difficult time, they will persevere. E.g., “they saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions…” “This is the journey we continue today” 7) The seven characteristic in the address was the president constant attempt to praise the constitution system. He does this by stating, “Our founding father faced with perils that we could secretly imagine, draft a charter to assure the rule of law and the right of man…. Those ideals still light the world and we will not give them up for expedience’ sake.” Obama refers to the constitution to bring out the feeling of national pride and establish Americans identity. 8) The last feature in the address was high style language, quotable quotes and linguistic features. The entire address written filled of many quotes and linguistic features (Campbell et al, 1998). Overall, Obama’s address contained all eight characteristics and thus fit to be called a typical inaugural address. Dispositio- composition of the inaugural address Here, the composition of the address is analyzed to determine whether it is rhetoric. The first element in the composition is exordium- to gain the audience attention and create sympathy for the speaker. Obama attempts to gain audience sympathy is indicated by his opening remarks “ I stand her to day humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifice borne by our ancestors.” He use the statement to show Americans that he does take his election seriously. In his address Obama appreciate former president Bush, this is seen as an attempt to gain the sympathy from the republican. However, Obama does not make the use other element narratio and partitio. . It can therefore, be conclude that this inaugural speech does not entirely meet classical composition. Confirmation-this element is well dwelt within the president address. Obama clearly re affirms Americans that the struggles they are going through are reflection of the past and they will overcome them. He goes ahead and tells them what need to be done. Conclusion- the last part of the speech summaries the main points and appeal to the feeling of the audience. However, in his last paragraph the president summaries the point and he does not appeal to the audience feeling. The president tries to unite people by convincing them that together everything is possible. This is typical of the inaugural address. Based on the composition one can argue that the address does not follow classical composition carefully. Elucutio- linguistic presentation: Here, the emphasis is placed on elocutio’s and ornatus. High style language is the characteristic of the address; most of the words used are formal. Throughout the address, he employs many rhetoric strategies. The alliterations, metaphor and anaphora are most conspicuous. There are several uses of modal verb like can, must and will. The verbs express obligations, this indicates that the things he says are not for discussion, and he will do them. The use of this element helps to portly Obama as a principled man (Fafner, 1998). One can conclude that the address is a remarkable linguistic achievement. It is written well, in high level of style. However, did not entirely use formal language that only the educated can understand. Despite being very formal at the beginning, it caters for all people from all social layers. This is necessary as it helps unite Americans. Ethos, logos and pathos. Ethos all the three element of the entho- arête, eunoria and pronesis – are evident throughout the address. The fist element arête is expressed when he says, “I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed me, mindful of the sacrifice borne by our ancestors”. In this statement, Obama acknowledge the big responsibility that he has; he also assures Americans that he can be trusted and that his intensions are good. The second element –eunoria- is seen when Obama commits himself to the promise. He first acknowledge that the challenges are big but go ahead and say they can and will be met. The third element is seen in the manner he criticizes bush and his administration; he does it fairly and does not mention names (McCroskey, 2006). Logos; this characteristic is not present in the Obama’s address. The president only makes claims and omits the arguments or warrants. The probable reason as to why he omits logos might be that the address is both legislative and epideictic. Pathos -there are also very few example of the use of pathos. Obama use pathos to make Americans feel responsible and bring out the need for them to fights for the country as their ancestors did. After the analysis, it is clear that the address used mores ethos appeal, few pathos and no logos at all. By employing more ethos, the president was able to show Americans who he is, what he stand for and what need to be done to steer the country into the right direction. Throughout the address, the president employed a firm and confident tone that assured his determination to improve the united state of America. The address had a certain political character, and so minimal use of pathos appeal was necessary. Conclusion Based on the communicative situation that the address was held, it is concluded that the inaugurals speech is a combination of the epideictic and legislative speech. This is because the address does not necessarily address a specific political question. Based on the general characteristic of the inaugural address, the address contained all eight characteristics and hence typical rhetoric. Analyzing the composition of the speech, the Obamas’ inaugural address does not follow the classical composition. Basing analysis on the usage of rhetoric strategies, the reiterations, modal verbs, anaphora all help bring out Obama’s vision and message to Americans: Americans must come together in order to solve their problem. Concerning the usage of the ethos, logos and pathos appeal, one can conclude that Obamas used more ethos appeals, whereas pathos are usage limited and logos not at all. Reference Campell, K.K. & Kean, A. (2008). Americans cultural studies. Oxon: Routledge. Campell, M.N., Karlyn, K.M., & Jamieson, K.H. (1998). Deeds done in words – presidential rhetoric and the genres of governance. Chicago: The university of Chicago press. Fafner, F. (1998). Our country’s president. Washington D.C. National geographic society. Foss, S. K. (2004). Rhetoric criticism exploitation and practice. Long Groove III: Waveland press, 2004. Globe staff “inaugural crowd size reportedly D.C. record. “ The Boston globe22 Jan 2009. Retrieved on 15 Feb. 2009 from www.lixisnexis.com.ezproxy.lib.calpoly.edu McCroskey, J. C. (2006). An introduction to rhetoric communication- a western rhetoric perspective. Essex: Pearson Education Inc. Read More