This paper analyses Obama’s speech from Perelman’s argumentation and take Obama’s 2004 keynote address as the example。 Many researches on Obama’s speeches are focused on the theory of universal audience。 But the difference of this paper from other papers is that   this paper not only do research on Obama’s speech from the perspective of audience theory , but also from the starting points of argumentation and the argument techniques which made a more complete analysis of Obama’s speech。   

2。 Literature Review

2。1 Brief introduction to political speech

Political speech is aimed to express position, expatiate view point and publicize opinion on national affairs and international relationships。 It is the important weapon for political compete which has rich connotation and wide extension。 The election speech, the policy speech, inaugural address, the speeches which the leaders at all levels used to propagandize the major policies and implementation plans and the speeches which people made on behalf of the certain class, political party or just themselves at the political rally are all political speeches。 In the broad sense, military speech and the speeches with the purpose of ideological and political education are all political speeches 。 (Li & Zou 27)

Since politics is quintessentially a linguistic activity, an activity to he purpose of political         

“The purposes of political speeches can be pided into three types。 The first type is to explain, convince, persuade people and to appeal to them by affecting their desires, emotions and feelings so that they would give their support。 The second type is to arouse interest, sympathy and concern of the audience and work them into taking the desire action。 And thethird type is to shape or lead the public opinion for or against certain matters。” (Yang 261-262)

2。2 Features of political speech

Political speech has three obvious and important features—the strong political opinions, the rigorous logic and powerful persuasion。

1) The strong political opinions

The purpose of the political speech is to propagandize the political opinions and assertions of the political party, group or just themselves。 To arouse interest, sympathy and concern of the audience and work them into taking the desire action。 Therefore, a good political speech always contains a wealth of ideas and content, incisive political opinions and clear standpoint and viewpoint。 Also, the points of a good political speech are always advanced and of great beneficial, they accord with the objective law of historic development and propel the society forward。 (Li & Zou 27-28)

2) The rigorous logic

Rigorous logic is another feature of a successful political speech。 Especially in the argumentative political speech, the speaker cannot success just with the truth, the argumentative thoughts, the rigorous logic, the tactical maneuver and incisive words are also needed。 Therefore, to achieve the purpose of the political speech quickly and successfully, the speaker must take deep consideration of his viewpoints and make his persuasion powerful 。(Li & Zou 28)

3) The powerful persuasion

A successful political speech must have the powerful persuasion。 Especially in some political rally speeches, the content is extremely important and concerned by the audience。 The speaker often mobilize or publicize or criticize or denounce。 And the speech not only has clear points, rigorous logic and powerful argumentation, but also has sincere emotions which can strike a chord with the audience 。(Li & Zou 29)

2。3 Previous research 

There are a lot of books and articles and papers do researches on Obama’s speeches since both at home and abroad。 

As to the books or articles or papers abroad, for example,Samuel Gunawan wrote a paper—Style of Obama’s Inaugration Speech in 2010。 And this paper is to find out how Obama’s inauguration speech addresses the confidence of the new President to cope with the domestic problems and renew the American role in the world in terms of its theme, plot structure, linguistic and stylistic categories。 Willam L。 Benoit wrote the article—Barack Obama’s 2008 speech on Reverend Wright: Defending self and others。 With the paper, the author found that Obama attempted to repair his image using denial and differentiation; however, Obama did not repudiate Wright entirely。 Instead, Obama also engaged in engaged in third party image repair, using attack accuser, bolstering, and differentiation to repair Wright’s reputation。文献综述