Project 3 Portfolio: Genre Analysis of Political Speeches

Genre Analysis of Political Speeches
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One of the foundation of politics is the conflicting ideas that clash between two or more parties. The leader that will successfully influence the people will win any political conflict in a democratic setting (Charteris-Black, 2011). In order so successfully influence the people, one important part of politics are the delivery political speeches. A political speech is defined as an argument that attempts to persuade and express a conviction to provide the people a different perspective for thinking, feeling or acting in a certain way where the political ideas and beliefs of the person giving the speech will be supported. A political speech, then, is a way to influence the people to claim leadership (Carreon & Svetanant, 2017). Added by Carreon & Svetanant (2017), political speeches have three major elements, including: the addressor or the speaker of a certain speech, the addressee or the receiver of the speech, and the content of the political speech itself. These elements should be taken into consideration whenever a person will attempt to deliver a political speech. Although a political speech has other elements, the matter contained inside the political speech should be further studied since the quality of the content triggers the people to be persuaded by the speaker.
Focusing on the content of the political speech, the famous ancient philosopher, Aristotle, tackles five prescriptions or Canons of Rhetoric in making a political speech or any public speaking in general, which includes: invention, arrangement, style, delivery, and memory (Sherwani, 2010). Invention is the presentation of a reasonable claim or argument using logic and evidence. Arrangement is the method of organizing the speech using a structured partition that usually includes an introduction, a body, and a conclusion (Sherwani, 2010). The style is the way on how the speaker used language in a speech. This style depends on the preference of the speaker such as the use of metaphors, word choices, and an imagery to make the people easily understand the speech (Sherwani, 2010). Memory, on the other hand, is the ability of a speaker to retain information to connect the speaker to the audience without reading the prepared speech. Additionally, memory allows a speaker to easily respond to the situation at hand (Sherwani, 2010). Delivery is the manner of presenting the speech. The manner speech helps in establishing the credibility of a speaker to make him/her more believable (Sherwani, 2010).
Additionally, political speeches use the three modes of persuasion to effectively create a convincing argument about a speaker’s advocacy. These modes of persuasion are ethos, logos, and pathos (Ting, 2018). Ethos heavily relies on the speaker’s good characteristics to persuade the people. Added by Ting (2018), ethos can include the credentials and academic attainment to be more convincing. Logos is the use of evidences, statistics, and logic to persuade the people. Pathos is the arousal of the people’s emotion for persuasion. In political speeches, the most commonly used appeal is pathos (Ting, 2018). By targeting the emotions of the people, a speaker can create a convincing argument even with the lack of proof and evidences but the strategic use of the three modes of persuasion is more potent that only using one (Ting, 2018).
A political speech is type of argument; thus, political speeches aims to answer the stock issues, including: harm, inherency, topicality, and solvency. Stock issues are based on the proposition of policy to advocate the ways on how to solve political issues (Harpine, 2009). Harm are the part of the argument about the reason on "why" the political views of a person is needed such as the problems that is currently faced by the people (Bates, 2002). Solvency explains the steps or the plan of action that is laid in the political speech on "how" to solve the problems (Bates, 2002). Topicality is the argument that reinforces the plan of the speaker that is relevant to problem to arrive at a possible solution (Bates, 2002). Inherency is the argument that the current systems of the government or the status quo is incapable of solving the problem if left alone (Bates, 2002). Therefore, the political speaker’s advocacy is needed to solve the problems.
References
Bates, B.R. (2002). Inherency, Strategy and Academic Debate. Retrieved from http://debate.uvm.edu/NFL/rostrumlib/cxBates10102.pdf
Carreon, J. R., & Svetanant, C. (2017). What Lies Underneath a Political Speech?: Critical Discourse Analysis of Thai PM’s Political Speeches Aired on the TV Programme Returning Happiness to the People. Open Linguistics, 3(1). doi:10.1515/opli-2017-0032
Charteris-Black, J. (2011). Politicians and Rhetoric: The Persuasive Power of Metaphor. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
Harpine, W. (2009). Universalism in Policy Debate: Utilitarianism, Stock Issues, and the Rhetorical Audience. Speaker & Gavel, 46, 15-24.
Sherwani, K.A. (2010). Applying Rhetoric to Broadcast Political Speeches. Retrieved from /3785429/applying_Rhetoric_on_Broadcast_Political_Speeches
Ting, S.H. (2018). Ethos, Logos and Pathos in University Students’ Informal Requests, Journal of Language Studies, 18(1), 234-250. doi: 10.17576/gema-2018-1801-14.
Rhetorical Analysis of Two Artifacts
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The aim of a political speech is to entice the people to be enlightened towards the advocacy of the speaker. Among the different skill that are needed to have a successful political speech, the proper use of rhetorical devices can significantly improve its persuasiveness. The most notable political speeches are those given by a president of a country since their speeches are at the pinnacle of excellence since a president successfully persuaded the affection of millions of people. The two artifacts of political speech that will be analyzed in this paper is about the political speeches of two presidents of the United States namely Barack Obama and Donald Trump. Specifically, Barack Obama's speech about Immigration, delivered in a TV address from the White House on November 20, 2014 and Donald Trump's Immigration speech, delivered on August 31, 2016 in Phoenix, Arizona. I purposely choose the same topic in their respective speeches about the immigration policy of the United States to observe their conformities and rejections about the genre of political speech.
In Obama's (2014) speech, he tries to persuade the people by starting his speech about the problem about the illegal immigrants that don't follow the rules of the country. Obama wants to address the problem using the three plan of action that he announced: improve law enforcement personnel in the border of the country, make easy access for highly-skilled immigrants in the country so that they could contribute to the United States economy, and deal with those undocumented illegal immigrants that is already living in the country. These illegal immigrants according to Obama broke the immigration laws of America, thus, making him want to take accountability for their actions. Obama wanted to change the current system of immigration; however, only the congress can do that but Obama ensures that those who will register and pass the criminal background check will not be deported. He emphasized that treating the illegal immigrants with outmost respect is necessary since America is and always will be a nation of immigrants that the forefathers of the United States had crossed multiple oceans of the world to create a nation that our parents and grandparents built for us.
Using the conventions of the political speech genre, Obama followed the Canon of Rhetoric regarding the invention, arrangement, style and delivery. Most notably, are his method of approaching the stock issues regarding the illegal immigrants. In harm, Obama expressed the widely known problems about the illegal immigrants in the country. Obama tried to...