Barack Obama’s Inaugural Speech and Rhetoric

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Rhetoric situation
Exigencies
Audience
Constraints
Conclusion
References

Introduction

Obama’s speech created a discourse of his political rhetoric of hope, change, and unity among the audience who constitute people from other nations apart from America. His speech can be classified as a Political Genre due to the nature of his message. Careful not to disappoint the electorate, his rhetoric gave hope, promised change, and brought unity to the United States. The exigency among the audience was the prime promise of the president which included hope, change, and unity. This paper seeks to analyze President Obama’s rhetoric to identify its discourse or the rational system of its meaning.

Rhetoric situation

The world seems to be embracing the idea of change from the different levels of our social settings. In response to the exigency to bring change for the nation filled with lost hope, Obama took advantage of the crisis situation by rebuilding confidence in the electorate. His rhetoric emphasized heated rivalry against the republican while influencing his audience to respond with the emergency that he held. Through antagonistic relations, Obama has been able to create a universal political project through his message of hope. Obama’s rhetoric can be described as a perfect way of universalizing his political plans.

In his speech, the president gave hope through words of affirmation pointing out that the American people thrive on hope and the strength of their constitution. This created an impression that his government was going to respect the basic principles of democratic governance. He cleverly dismisses racism when he mentions that the United States was brought together by the declaration of their forefathers’ commitment on equality. In an effort to persuade his audience to respond positively to his rhetoric, Obama brands his political ideologies ‘unending journey’. This creates the impression that the entire American population must leave in pursuit of the same.

Exigencies

In the rhetoric, Obama identifies the problems in the society and articulates them in very emotional phrases in order to catch the audience’s attention. He reminds his audience that skin color has brought division in America and the struggle for equality was a severe price paid by their forefathers. He emphasizes on a self-executing nation, one that runs its own policies and respects the rule of law and democracy. His rhetoric appeal for individualized responsibility to execute principles of national importance took precedence. His examples to prove his points are simple and very articulate. For instance, his demonstration of how freedom is a gift from God and that it must be secured by humans on the Earth attracted a lot of attention followed by applause.

In his speech, he reiterates that the American people have chosen to thrive in hope rather than fear and to embrace unity as opposed to division (Tomasky, 2008). This is an easily understood and extremely handy message of change, that builds around a sequence of unforgettable refrain (Lee, 2009). More exclusively, Obama’s narrative is made unequivocally personal by habitual appeals to the daily practice of the working American, “plight of the dishwasher in Las Vegas” and “the dreams of the boy who learns on the streets of LA”, “the waitress who lives on tips” or just “another worker telling me that his factory has shut down” (Hill, 2008). His utterances in the speech clearly show a personal grief in his rhetoric. Obama seems to be talking from a point of experience and his understanding of the challenges he articulates is a proof to his assertion.

Audience

His rhetoric shared the spirit of reconciliation when he said that the black community made a vow to forget the past and move forward together (Uhlenbeck, 2008). He asserted that for survival purposes, it is impossible for the black Americans to survive as half-slaves and half-free. His discourse about protecting the vulnerable also gathered major support from the audience whose exigency is mainly inequality, oppression, and marginalization of the minority communities. Obama’s narrative has been expressed in reaction to a dislocation of communal sense that is only half-done. Though his speech he has rationalized societal associations and reordered subject situations, his rhetoric has constantly sought integrity, obtaining influence from an amalgamation of recognizable policies and logics (Uhlenbeck, 2008).

The consequential sequence of events has structured a discursive dislocation, in spite of holding onto the rules of creation and conditions of adequacy of a more all-purpose discursive pattern (Washingtonpost.com, 2008). While emphasizing dislocation and invigorating bias, Obama’s discourse of hope has worked to streamline societal associations around a hegemonic belief that is domestic, not secondary, by lengthening conformist chains of correspondence. At the same time, Obama’s rhetoric has been endorsed and categorized as an element of a previously prevailing discursive structure (Washingtonpost.com, 2008).

Constraints

Identifying self-referentiality and intertextuality, Obama’s discourse can be conceptualized as a promising part of a stable discursive pattern (Washingtonpost.com, 2008). This is achieved seen by recounting the fabrication of a sensationalist narrative that is astounding, straightforward and personal. Nonetheless, such an analysis is difficult, materialized, and conflictual when matched by a negative scrutiny which portrays Obama’s discourse as a universalizing political project, expressed in reaction to disarticulation (Washingtonpost.com, 2008). Using the investigative structure of the emblematic circumstances, this substandard disagreement can be resolute by locating Obama indirectly, and recounting the chronological and political framework into which he is speaking (Washingtonpost.com, 2008).

All through every of the five articulations examined, Obama’s speech relies widely on personalization, linking an essential generalization of history (Von Drehle, 2008). After momentarily recognizing where his expression can be considered blatantly personal, straightforward or breathtaking, this concludes by describing his idea of history and a significant course of action. While Obama’s speech is constantly exciting, created around a roughly inimitable rhetorical aptitude to motivate, his point is in the same way effective through its lack of essence, characteristically gyrating around a recurrence of “stylistic felicities” (Von Drehle, 2008). Straightforward expressions which appeal to great listeners send in a perspective which for the time being put on a pedestal their sense higher than the trite (Uhlenbeck, 2008).

Conclusion

This paper has identified the Obama’s inaugural speech as a special artifact and has explored its discourse extensively. In the paper, Obama’s rhetoric has been analyzed and identified and it includes hope, change, and unity. His message has been classified as an easy to remember and straightforward text. However, in the essay the speech has been criticized for lack of content and for the repetition of ideas. Nonetheless, the speech has passed as a perfect rhetoric for influencing a political project like he’s. The personalization aspect of his speech has been overly emphasized in this essay balancing between whether it is an advantage or a disadvantage.

References

Hill, M., L. (2008). Not My Brand of Hope: Obama’s Politics of Cunning, Compromise, and Concession. Web.

Lee, C., E. (2009). Obama gets personal. Web.

Tomasky, M. (2008). 12 months that changed the world. Web.

Uhlenbeck, M. (2008). Shifting Landscapes: Obama and the Movement. Web.

Von Drehle, D. (2008). Why History Can’t Wait: Person of the Year 2008. Web.

Washingtonpost.com: Campaign Finance: A victim of president-elect Obama’s success. (2008). Web.

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