Even though Obama’s speech has great success on its rhetoric, what elements contribute to the effect of rhetoric, how many rhetoric devices have been applied in the inaugural address, what extent they fulfill their roles, the purpose of using rhetoric devices in the micro level and macro level, the purpose of using a specific device in a specific situation, these aspects needs further studying.论文网

This study tries to analyze Obama’s Presidential Inaugural Addresses in 2009 and 2013 from two levels---communicative and aesthetic rhetoric. Mainly the paper endeavors to explore what rhetoric devices have been used to make the speech more vivid, direct, clear, powerful, and persuasive for the public to understand. Secondly, the paper applies rhetoric analysis to probe into the effect of rhetoric devices from word, phrase, sentence and passage dimensions.

Although there are many researches on rhetoric devices in Obama’s speeches, few analyze his Inaugural Address. So the paper uses new text materials which are of great political importance. Secondly, this paper would reveal the power of political speech through rhetoric analysis. Thirdly, status quo has been combine with the address together, which is of practical use.

2. Literature Review

The word rhetoric can date back to classical Greek period. Aristotle defined rhetoric as the art of persuasion (Aristotle, 1991:28). It means that rhetoric can be a kind of persuasive skill. Actually it laid the theoretical foundation of the present rhetoric research. “Probability” and “Credibility” are two standards for the public to decide whether the speech is persuasive or not (Gao Xinyong, 1997:55).  

Aristotle came up with three proofs for artistic proofs: logos, pathos and ethos. Ethos appeals to reason, and it is mostly related to the orator’s credibility and characters. It’s an effective persuasive strategy for the orator to convince its audience. Pathos, according to Griffin (Griffin, 2003:24), means “not to take the advantage of an audience’s destructive emotions but as a corrective measure that could help a speaker craft emotional appeals that inspire reasoned civic decision making”. Pathos is all about how to link the orators’ emotions with the audiences’ emotions together. The orator is supposed to arouse a kind of emotional feelings of the audience through his speech. The last one “logos”, which is evident to identify, can be explained as “reasoning a problem” or” finding a logic proof”. 文献综述

To achieve those three principles listed above, several rhetoric devices have been invented in language use. 

In classical rhetoric theory, tropes are considered to be a kind of common figure of speech. Lanham (Lanham, 1991:154) put forward that the word trope is derived from Greek. It consists of some devices. Metaphor is a way of using one word or a group of words to represent or symbolize something with similar characteristics. Simile, a way of using comparison with words “as” and “like” in expressing an idea. Personification means attributing human qualities to animal or inanimate objects. Hyperbole, exaggeration, irony, metonymy and many others have been introduced. Burke classifies metonymy, synecdoche, and irony as four master tropes. And also he thinks those four are essential not only in the light of their “purely figurative usage, but also with their role in detecting and depicting the truth.

Since the independence of the United States, it has begun to form its special political speeches. (Hu, 2002:90). Political Speeches in the United States are not only equipped with those basic principles---logos, ethos, and pathos---mentioned above, but also with unique styles. 

In the previous studies, political speeches have been deconstructed and analyzed through rhetoric and linguistic perspective. Rhetoric has been introduced above, so here this study only summarizes from the linguistic approach.