Stylistic Analysis of Obama’s Campaign Winning Speech

【Abstract】The speech of Barack· Hussain· Obamas is praised because of his excellent public speech skills. Therefore， this paper offers an attempt to analyze his style of public speech from phonetic， lexical， sentence and rhetorical devices level in order to understand his style of public speech.

【Key Words】Barack· Hussain· Obama； campaign winning speech； stylistic analysis

【作者簡介】蔡天航（1994- ），女，苗族，貴州人，中央民族大學(xué)，在讀研究生，研究方向：翻譯理論與實(shí)踐。

1. Introduction

Public speech， as a special style of writing， is different from the oral genres such as daily conversation， as well as literary genres such as novels， plays and poems. It combines the linguistic features of both spoken and written forms of writing， and at the same time has a clear difference from the two forms of writing. The speech delivered by Barack Obama is quite appealing as his speech includes his gratitude to supporters， showing his determination and confidence to the audience.

2. Sound level

This fragment has 2047 words in total. The duration of the speech is 20 minutes. Therefore， the speech rate of this fragment is slower. It will not only help the speaker to express his point clearly， but also help the audience to think about these points of view.

Pause has also been used many times in this speech. There is almost a pause in each sentence， giving the audience enough time to think and understand the content and speakers intentions.

3. Lexical Level

3.1 Vocabulary difficulty

According to Qian Yuan， the difficulty index of an easy-to-understand speech is about 10. In this passage， the difficulty index of the speech is 7.74. It shows that the overall Obama speech is easy to understand and acceptable because his speech is aimed at the entire American public.

Difficulty index（Fog Index）=0.4（H+L）（Qian Yuan，1991）（L= average sentence length；H=difficult word ratio）

difficult word ratio =（difficult word total / Word total）×100%

3.2 Personal Pronouns

Another feature of this speechs vocabulary is the use of personal pronouns. In this speech， the most frequently used personal pronouns is first person. It is used 128 times， accounting for 67.72% of the usage of total personal pronouns. And the second person is used 35 times， accounting for 18.52%， while the third person used less， 26 times， accounting for 13.76%. The frequent use of “I” and “We” makes the information more specific and personal， creating a more intimate feeling， shortening the distance between the speaker and the audience emotionally.

3.3 Modal Verb

In this speech， Obama used a large number of modal verbs， as shown in the table：

It can be seen from the table that Obama used 19 times of “will” in this speech in total. This shows his prediction of the social problems facing the present and in the future as well as his confidence in the bright future of the United States. Likewise， “must” is also used to express his firm stance on political tactics.

4. Sentence Level

4.1 Sentence length

In this speech， the shortest sentence has only 4 words， and the longest sentence accounts to 58 words. The following table shows the sentence length of the speech：

Generally speaking， most of the sentence in this speech are between 10-39 words. These sentences contain larger amount of information and are easy to understand. There are 28 sentences with less than 10 words， which makes the speech more forceful. For example， when Obama was referring to the fact that he was victorious， he attributed his victory to ordinary working-class Americans， ending with a short sentence at the end of the paragraph. There are only ten sentences in more than 39 words， with the main purpose of transmitting information， and reflecting the more complicated concepts of Obama.

4.2 Tense

The present tense taken for this speech is used in large scale. It shows that Obama is paying close attention to the current U.S. situation and advancing with the times. He clearly expressed his concern over the current dilemma in the United States and his willingness to take the lead in leading the United States to victory in the further， to encourage Americans to overcome their difficulties and to have full hope for the future.

4.3 Sentence Type

According to features of the sentence， sentences can be divided into declarative sentences， imperative sentences， interrogative sentences and exclamatory sentences. We can see from the table that there are almost 102 declarative sentences made by Obama during this speech， to balance the tone and give a serious and formal feeling. The imperative sentence appeared four times in the speech and all of them begin with “l(fā)et”， in order to achieve the foreground feature. The purpose of using imperatives sentence is to appeal to all Americans to actively participate in the nations construction and face the challenges.

5. Rhetorical Devices

In order to increase the appeal of the lecture and to get the support and approval of the audience， speakers always prefer various rhetorical devices. And rhetorical devices can be divided into three categories： structural rhetoric devices， semantic rhetoric devices and phonological rhetoric devices.

5.1 Parallelism

Parallelism is the same structure， similar， semantic-related， or consistent tone of several phrases or sentences used in parallel. In this speech， Obama uses a 9 times parallelism in total. for example：

Theres new energy to harness， new jobs to be created， new schools to build， and threats to meet， alliance to repair.

The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep.

… block by block， brick by brick， calloused hand by calloused hand.

5.2 Repetition

Repetition refers to a linguistic phenomenon in which the same language structure （words or sentences） repeatedly appears. Repetition not only can make the language has a strong sense of rhythm， but also cause the audience attention， left a deep impression. （Hu Zhuanglin， 2000） For example， Obamas four-repeat-let-imperative sentence leads audibly to a foregrounding feature， arousing the confidence and determination of the people to change：

5.3 Antithesis

Antithesis refers to put the opposite things， or the same thing the opposite or relative two aspects together with each other， so that the characteristics of things， nature， state become more prominent. （ Lu Xu， 2004）

Obama clearly expressed his attitude here that his support for patriots and his strong opposition to those who wanted to split the country， which made the discourse semantic strong and sharp：

“So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism， of responsibility， where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves but each other. Lets resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long.”

5.4 metaphor

As a very important rhetorical device， metaphor is to compare two kinds of things that are different in nature， so as to highlight the common tactics. （ Qin Xiubai， 2007 ） For example：

“The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep.”

Here， Obama compared “the road” to “ the road to change，” and “our climb” refers to the difficult process of change. The use of metaphor makes the speech more understandable， easier and acceptable， and whats more， makes it rich in literature.

6. Conclusion

The article analyzes the Obama presidential election speech from the perspective of stylistics. Through the use of specific vocabulary， syntax and rhetoric devices， Obama pointed out to the American people various problems and challenges facing the United States at the moment and inspire the American people to work together to actively respond to these problems and challenges. In short， the use of various stylistic elements has given this speech a good effect of convincing people.

References：

[1]黃任.英語修辭與寫作[M].上海：上海外語教育出版社，2002.

[2]胡壯麟，理論文體學(xué)[M].北京：外語教學(xué)與研究出版社，2000.

[3]錢瑗，實(shí)用英語文體學(xué)[M].北京師范大學(xué)出版社，1991.

[4]秦秀白.英語語體和問題要略[M].上海外語教育出版社，2007.