Rhetorical Analysis Of Stuart Scott's Speech

John F. Kennedy’s inauguration speech was considered one of the most inspirational speeches in American history. He gave the speech to bolster the fighting spirit and act as an inspiration for the Americans. The reason for this is quite simple actually. He used stylistic devices extensively in his speech to boldly proclaim his intentions. He has proven himself resourceful in his usage of stylistic devices such as antithesis, parallelism, pathos, and ethos. He uses them to fully express his message and to gain the attention and the support of his people in a patriotic fashion. One of the examples of his use of antithesis is when Kennedy is referring to “a new generation of Americans” where he vividly shows the separation between the old and

There are many things that a speech must contain to make it a well written and spoken speech. John F. Kennedy 's speech he gave on September 12th 1962, titled “Address at Rice University on the Nation 's Space Efforts”, better known as “We Choose to go to the Moon” contains many of the important factors of a successful speech. Kennedy used rhetorical strategies and skills to help him influence the American people to help accomplish the major goal of reaching the moon. Kennedy did not only want to reach the moon, but he wanted to be the first country to do so. President Kennedy effectively told the objective he found important by using ethos, pathos and kairos throughout his speech to help get the support of the people. By using these three rhetorical strategies Kennedy gave a moving speech.

On April 4, 1968 Robert F. Kennedy began his political campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in Indiana. Before boarding his plane, Kennedy found out that Martin Luther King, Jr. had been shot in Memphis, Tennessee. At his arrival in Indianapolis, Kennedy was informed that Martin Luther King, Jr. had died from the incident. Kennedy was scheduled to speak to a large African-American audience, and was advised by the Indianapolis Police to not speak. The Chief of Police warned Kennedy that he would not be responsible for whatever may happen, making this speech even more dangerous. Kennedy chose to ignore the warning signs, went into the conference campaign, and spoke to the audience. Robert Kennedy, putting his political aspirations aside, advises the Indianapolis African-American audience not to retaliate to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination with violence, but with prayer, understanding, and love as Martin Luther King, Jr. taught. This is done through the use of motivational appeals, rhetorical devices, and expressing to the audience a purpose.

On April 11, 1962, President John F. Kennedy held a news conference to discuss the 3.5% increase on steel prices across the country. With the country at war, and struggling to emerge from a recession, increasing the price of steel would have a negative impact. After his administration had taken steps to aid the steel companies to reach a non-inflationary steel workers union contract, the decision to increase steel prices was deemed to be a betrayal of the President and the American people. The speech was directed towards the “common man” in opposition to big steel companies. He speaks for the purpose of not only persuading the companies to lower their prices, but also to convince the public that he is looking out for their best interest. Kennedy employs a disapproving tone and strong diction in an effort to clearly achieve his goal in influencing the steel

In the year 2008 the world was a much different place. Before countless racial protests and riots in streets, before NFL players knelt during the National Anthem for what they believed in, and before our president spoke of nonsensical chauvinistic principles on a regular basis, our country appeared to have a greater sense of unification. This unifying bond between the American people was due in part by Barack Obama, whose entire campaign to become president may have been the most difficult struggle for anybody in the lineage of presidential candidates to go through. As part of his strategy to win over voters and soothe the skepticism of whites who may have had any doubting questions, Obama gave this speech on race; a speech which still

January 20th is an important day to all Americans; this is the day of the inauguration speech. Every four years the new president will announce their speech on this day. George Bush presented his speech 16 years ago, Barack Obama presented his speech 8 years ago and this year Donald Trump presented his speech. Each speech is expressed in their own style showing how the president is. For instance, Barack Obama uses numerous rhetorical devices, logic with emotions to perform a reassuring positive speech. In contrast to Donald Trump who lacked rhetorical devices but uses emotions to create a powerful straightforward speech. Both speeches revealed similar ideas yet were illustrated in very different ways.

John F. Kennedy was elected during the Cold War which was fought between the United States and the Soviet Union. Citizens of the United States needed a leader while communism was spreading and dangerous weapons were being manufactured. Kennedy’s inaugural address was delivered on January 20th, 1961 in Washington, D.C. Kennedy envisioned bringing peace with other countries and uniting democratic countries to conquer communism. He dreams of bringing enemies together and creating a global alliance. Kennedy provides appeal to patriotism, appeal to religion, parallelism and antithesis to express unity and peace.

Fredrick Douglas, a freed slave, delivered a speech on July fourth 1852. This speech highlighted the hypocrisy of the United States and revealed how citizens, slaves in particular, perceived Independence Day. Douglas’s speech exposed the nation, with a well constructed argument that effectively solidified the main and most important point. Douglas used several rhetorical strategies throughout his speech to argue his side. Fredrick Douglas used the rhetorical devices, ethos to gain credibility, allusions to show comparisons, and pathos to spark an emotional response in his speech to defend his claim about the hypocrisy of Independence Day.

Throughout the 1962 address to the American People about the rising in steal prices, President John F. Kennedy is able to use rhetorical appeals to relate to everyday Americans. His successful use of diction and pathos along with speaking about the pure disadvantages brought about by this change helped in scolding the steal companies while sympathizing to the side of the people.

In the speech “On the Death of Martin Luther King Jr.” Robert Kennedy must address the American people on the tragic death of King. This event proved to be a difficult subject for many Americans especially since King became a very influential figure. Robert Kennedy could easily relate to this death since his brother was recently killed just as King was. It did not make the topic any easier to address in front of the nation's eye but he could relate to everyone and step into their shoes as well. Kennedy establishes common ground to make an attempt at unifying the United States as well as inputting a direct reference to a greek poet and an empathic tone to convey his emotions.

The distinguishing voice Kennedy establishes is defined by his use of an inspirational, determined tone. It is evident that he has a goal of getting the audiences attention to understand his points in a meaningful way.

Actor, Patrick Stewart in his speech, “The Legacy of Domestic Violence”, recounts his personal experiences of domestic violence as a young child. Correspondingly, Stewart describing his violent, and brutal childhood advocates more awareness to the sensitive matter as well as it’s victims which is Stewart’s purpose of delivering the speech. Domestic violence is an emotional subject to many which is why Stewart targets his audience’s emotions with the help from the literary techniques he uses. Stewart’s main usage of pathos emotionally appeals to his audience; furthermore, contributes to the passionate, and empathetic tone emphasized throughout his speech.

In his speech, President John F. Kennedy insists that the steel industries should halt their incline of prices and consider stable prices, and wages, and help out the national sacrifice in a time of economic distress. Kennedy supports his claim first by calling attention to the harm that is caused by the inclination of steel prices and later explains what he expects the steel companies to do in order to benefit the nation. Kennedy’s purpose is to influence the nation’s largest steel companies to take responsibility and maintain a stable price and wage for their product in order to pull the nation out of a hole of economic distress. Because Kennedy spoke at a news conference, it is evident that he is writing to the American public and the steel company executives.

John. F. Kennedy, in response to the Soviet Union’s act of military buildup on the Island of Cuba, employs all the three kinds of rhetoric to deliver a powerful and compelling speech to his citizens. In this speech, John F. Kennedy uses the three kinds; deliberative, epideictic and forensics discourse at times separately and at times jointly to appeal to the people listing to his speech. Right from the start, deliberative discourse can be seen- “… the purpose of these bases can be none other than to provide a nuclear strike capability against the western hemisphere.” Aristotle explains, “Deliberative discourse always advices about things to come.”( Garver, E. 2009) In light of this, the above quote from John F. Kennedy’s speech tries to explain

Donald Trump’s speech addressed to the United Nations General Assembly on September 19, 2017 was not effective. Despite the speech having a universal message that is hard to disagree with, you can tell exactly which parts of the speech were written by a speech writer, and which parts of the speech were written by Trump himself. This wouldn’t be an issue if Donald Trump’s inflections weren’t full of fallacies and unnecessary statistics. For example, in the third paragraph, President Trump tries to establish his Ethos by listing improvements in the United States since he took office. But many of these cherry-picked improvements have absolutely nothing to do with him being elected. They also have nothing to do with the general theme of the speech. This speech did have examples of effective rhetorical strategies. However, the bad far outweighs the good in this speech and takes away from the good message it originally had.