MASARYK UNIVERSITY BRNO

FACULTY OF EDUCATION

Diploma thesis

Brno 2011
Author: Bc. Peter Adamec Supervisor: Mgr. Olga Dontcheva-

Navrátilová, Ph.D.

MASARYK UNIVERSITY BRNO

FACULTY OF EDUCATION
Department of English Language and Literature

Persuasion in Political Discourse

Diploma thesis

Brno 2011

Author: Bc. Peter Adamec

Supervisor: Mgr. Olga Dontcheva-Navrátilová Ph.D.

 Bibliography

ADAMEC, Peter. Persuasion in Political Discourse; diploma thesis. Brno: Masaryk

University, Faculty of education, Department of English Language and Literature, 2011. 83
pages, The supervisor is Mgr. Olga Dontcheva-Navrátilová Ph.D.

Annotation
The diploma thesis "Persuasion in Political Discourse"

investigates on the examples of Barack Obama's speeches which

methods are used in order to reach the main purpose of this

genre - to persuade the others about the validity of

politician's suggestions and make them willing to act according

to him. During the analysis, five speeches intended for the

domestic audience and five speeches devoted especially to the

foreign one are investigated. The speeches are evaluated either

by qualitative criteria when the main ideas and themes are

commented, as well as by quantitative approach when the content

of the speeches is evaluated in percentage on the ground of

particular paragraphs. The aim is to compare Obama's approach

to domestic and foreign audience and to find out possible

similarities or differences.

Keywords
political speeches, political rhetoric, domestic
audience, foreign audience, persuasion, comparison
 Declaration

I hereby declare that this diploma thesis was done by my own and I used only the
materials that are stated in bibliography.

I agree with the placing of this thesis in the Masaryk University Brno Information
system, in the library of the Department of English Language and Literature and with the
access for studying purposes.

In Brno 9 December 2011 Bc. Peter Adamec

..............................................
 Acknowledgement
I would like to express gratitude to my supervisor Mgr. Olga Dontcheva-Navrátilová,
Ph.D. for her valuable advice as well as for having been very kind and supportive throughout
my work on this thesis.
 CONTENT

CONTENT ..................................................................................................................... 6

1 INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................... 8

2 THEORETICAL PART ............................................................................................ 10

2.1 Pragmatics .......................................................................................................... 10

2.1.1 Syntax, semantics and pragmatics ............................................................... 11

2.1.2 Reference, inference, presupposition and entailment .................................. 12

2.2. Discourse ........................................................................................................... 15

2.2.1 Discourse Analysis ...................................................................................... 16

2.2.2 Critical Discourse Analysis ......................................................................... 16

2.2.3 The Role of Cohesion .................................................................................. 17

2.2.3.1 Discourse, Context and Co-text ............................................................ 18

2.3 The Nature of Discourse and Political Speeches ................................................ 20

2.3.1 Politics and its Theoretical Bases ................................................................ 20

2.3.2 Features of Political Participation ............................................................... 21

2.3.3 The Features of Spoken Political Speeches and their Gradual Changes ..... 22

2.3.3.1 Changes of the Features of Political Speeches through the Time ........ 23

2.3.3.2 The Influence of Media on Changes in Political Speeches .................. 24

2.3.4 Problems of Analysis of Political Discourse ............................................... 26

2.3.4.1 Some Features of Analysis of Political Discourse ............................... 27

2.3.4.2 Necessary Principles of Analysis of Political Discourse ...................... 28

2.3.5 The Presence of Power, Ideology and Persuasion in Political Speeches .... 30

2.3.5.1 Ideological Argumentation and Persuasion .......................................... 30

2.3.5.2 Tolerance and Opposition to Persuasive Argumentation ..................... 32

 2.4 The Position of the US in Contemporary World ................................................ 33

2.5 Summary............................................................................................................. 34

3 PRACTICAL PART .................................................................................................. 35

3.1 Corpus under Investigation................................................................................. 35

3.2 Scrutiny of all speeches ...................................................................................... 37

3.2.1 Obama's domestic speeches ......................................................................... 37

3.2.1.1 Victory Speech ..................................................................................... 38

3.2.1.2 Inaugural Speech .................................................................................. 39

3.2.1.3 Address to the Congress on February 24, 2009 .................................... 41

3.2.1.4 State of the Union Address 2010 .......................................................... 43

3.2.1.5 State of the Union 2011 ........................................................................ 46

3.2.2 Obama's Foreign Speeches .......................................................................... 48

3.2.2.1 Remarks by President Obama at Strasbourg Town Hall; ..................... 48

3.2.2.2 Remarks by President Obama at a New Start Treaty Signing Ceremony

and Press Conference ................................................................................................... 50

3.2.2.3 Remarks at the Meeting with Future Chinese Leaders ......................... 52

3.2.2.4 Remarks by President Obama at G20 Press Conference in Toronto, ... 54

3.2.2.5 Remarks by the President to Parliament in London ............................. 56

3.3 Comparison of the speeches ............................................................................... 58

3.3.1 Comparison of Obama’s domestic speeches ............................................... 59

3.3.2 Comparison of Obama`s Foreign Speeches ............................................... 67

4 COMPARISON AND CONCLUSION .................................................................... 75

5 BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................................................................................................... 79

5.1 Primary Sources.................................................................................................. 79

5.2 Secondary Sources.............................................................................................. 80

 1 INTRODUCTION

People use various methods when they want to win their fight. The most traditional

one is the fight in its original sense, i.e. to overthrow a rival with the help of common tools

such as sword, spear or knife in the past or various modern guns more recently. The other

methods are sports or various competitions where competitors fight according to exact rules in

order to win some kind of price or simply to be the first in a particular area of sports or

competitions. However, a man could struggle and even win an imaginary fight just with the

appropriate use of words. Human speech as a whole may become an instrument which could

serve for various purposes.

Speech itself is the main element which distinguishes a man from other living beings.

Though also the other animals use various kinds of signs or even sounds in order to convey

information and come to an understanding, only the human beings are able to decode several

codes as people speak different languages. This human ability depends on the knowledge of

these particular languages. If people do not know some of them it follows that they would not

be able to communicate in these languages. However, in order to understand what the speaker

or writer wants really to tell the hearer or reader has to be able to decode the speaker's/writer's

aim in particular speech. This ability is important especially in the field of political speeches.

Political speeches are just the most evident case where the exact choice of words and

expressions may influence the audience to think or even do what a political speaker wants

them to think or do. In this sense, with the appropriate choice of words the politicians may

win their political battles and fights.

The aim of this diploma thesis is to explore how political speeches can persuade

different audiences that those words which are proclaimed are really truthful and the only
correct. In other words, the work tries to trace the words and phrases that move the people to

do what the politician wishes them to do in various situations and various environments.

The work itself is divided into four parts: introduction, theoretical part, practical part

and conclusion. The theoretical one looks more deeply into theoretical background of political

speeches, how they are formed, which principles and methods may be applied and also

describes more deeply these methods. The main, third, practical part of this work analyzes the

form of political speeches. As a corpus for the research serve speeches by U.S. president

Barrack Obama delivered either for the audience inside the United States or the speeches

which are determined mainly for the foreign audience. The purpose is to compare whether the

methods, phrases and words which Obama uses are relatively the same or whether his

approach to a domestic audience differs from his approach to a foreign one. The corpus is

described more deeply inside the practical part. In the final part, the results from the practical

part are summarized as a whole and compared with the findings from the theoretical part.

Finally, a short remark on the use of citations in this thesis should be made. The basic

MLA format is generally used with its general rules. The cited item is followed by the name

of cited work's author or by the name of particular title if the author is unknown; such entry is

then usually followed by the putting the cited page(s). Unfortunately, this is not always

possible. As some of the sources are just the electronic copies of printed sources where

original pagination was not preserved and it is not possible to access these sources without

registration which is restricted to the narrow group of users, as a specification of the cited

item it is here put just the relevant chapter. This is especially the case of the majority of the

sources retrieved from The Support Centre for Students with Special Needs at Masaryk

University.
 2 THEORETICAL PART

This part tries to introduce and describe briefly and simply the key terms that are

important with regard to the practical part of this thesis. The first sub-chapter deals with the

explanation of the term pragmatics. Here pragmatics is compared with other branches of

linguistics; in the second sub-chapter, approaches of discourse analysis, such as critical

discourse analysis, are presented and explained. The attention of the third sub-chapter is

devoted to political speeches. The aim is to investigate the key principles of such speeches,

their motives and main strategies that are necessary for everybody who wants to be a skilful

political speaker. Consequently, the focus is shifted to the persuasion in political speeches.

The purpose is to briefly introduce the methods of persuasion in the speeches of politicians

and the principle that makes a political speaker also a political leader, or, at least, to scrutinize

his effort to militate as such. And finally, in the fourth sub-chapter©, a few remarks of the

current position of the United States are made. Only after examination of these terms it would

be possible to approach responsibly to practical analysis of the corpus of this work.

2.1 Pragmatics

The term pragmatics may involve various meanings when uttered for the first time.

Most people would probably connect it with human behavior, i.e. such behavior which

enables someone to gain what he/she wants to gain. Nevertheless, the situation with

pragmatics as part of the linguistics is more complex, though some similarities may be seen.

Yule defines pragmatics as the branch of linguistics which "is concerned with the

study of meaning as communicated by a speaker (or writer) and interpreted by a listener (or a
reader)" (ch. 1). Leech is maybe more abstract as pragmatics for him is "the study of how

utterances have meanings in situations" (10). And thirdly, Fairclough connected it with the

analytical philosophy of Austin and Searle of so-called speech acts and adds that "spoken or

writer utterances constitute the performance of speech acts such as promising or asking or

asserting or warning (10). Such more or less complex definitions exist in a quite abundant

amount so it would be probably more useful to ask: what does it mean for our purpose for the

analysis of political speeches?

In all three cited definitions (and also in many others) it is stressed that not only what

is said but also when and to whom it is said is important when dealing with pragmatics. Each

participant in communication, even passive listeners, is taken into account because even

him/her is expected to decode the message that active speaker is offering. This aspect should

be remembered even more precisely by politicians when they write and lecture their speeches.

Such speeches should be clear and appealing; however, the politicians should be even rather

careful in their expressions as these expressions may be interpreted differently according the

audience to which the politician is speaking to. Pragmatics thus would be a helpful discipline

in our attempt to decode the effect of political speeches.

2.1.1 Syntax, semantics and pragmatics

To distinguish and understand it more properly it would be helpful to put pragmatics

among other branches of linguistics, such as syntax and semantics and try to show possible

similarities and mainly the differences between these linguistic disciplines. Moreover, also the

other two disciplines may be helpful in the process of decoding political speeches.

It has been stated in the previous chapter that an important aspect that has to be taken

in consideration when applying pragmatics is the meaning related to concrete situation and the
participants of communication. In other words, meaning in pragmatics relates to user of the

language, while the meaning in semantics is engaged just with the expressions as the property

of the particular language itself. Thus, dyadic relation, between the form of the word and its

physical object, is applied in semantics; in pragmatics, beside this, also the relation to the

situation and participants is accounted, thus this relationship is triadic (Leech 6).

Furthermore, semantics considers the relationship between forms and their equivalents

in the world as unique and truthful regardless of who is speaking about them (Yule; ch. 1). It

is clear from what has been already stated that this is not possible in pragmatics.

The third branch, syntax, for many laymen is sometimes confused with linguistics

itself, or more often, with grammar. The situation is naturally more complex. Fairclough

labels grammar as linguistics proper and distinguishes other sub-branches: phonology which

studies the sound system of the language, morphology which focuses on the grammatical

structures of words, and syntax dealing with the structures of whole sentences; moreover,

Fairclough describes semantics as the analysis of more formal aspects of meaning (9).

And finally, how could be syntax compared with pragmatics and syntax? Syntax,

unlike semantics, does not take into consideration any kind of reference to the real word and

the real objects in it; nevertheless, syntax and semantics together do not consider as important

the users of the utterances, unlike pragmatics which does. Or, in other words, from this triadic

relationship only pragmatics admits that humans may be active agent in human analysis (Yule

9).

2.1.2 Reference, inference, presupposition and entailment

It has been depicted that pragmatics uses a broader context. It means, in order to do its

work properly, a skilful speaker has to count with the effects of the words, sentences and
whole utterances that he is planning to deliver. In other words, the speaker presupposes the

possible conditions and consequences; and thus, pragmatics works with four tools - reference,

inference, presupposition and entailment - which help to decode this effort. For the beginning,

it would be helpful to divide these terms into 2 groups - reference with inference and

presupposition and entailment - because they are slightly related.

When a speaker says something he uses words which point to entities in the world. He

reckons that a listener will recognize what is said because of the clear familiarity of the words

and entities in the language they both take control of. The words just refer to concrete entities

and thus, the process is called reference. During inference, the speaker is also pointing to the

real person or thing; nevertheless, as he/she often does not know the proper or right name he

uses expressions such as "that old man" or "this pen on the table" and thus he awaits that the

listener will infer which man or pen he has in his mind. It is word pointing that as far as

reference and inference are connected, people naturally do this even without knowing they do

this (Yule; ch. 3).

The situation with presupposition and entailment is slightly different. Firstly, it is

necessary to distinguish between semantic and contextual presupposition. A semantic

presupposition is bounded just to the grammatical context, i.e. grammatical structures, e.g.

sentence type, in which it occurs; the contextual presupposition, on the other hand, depends

also on the context in which the utterance occurs. In other words, semantic presupposition

applies naturally to sentences, while contextual one applies to whole utterances (Katz and

Langendoen 2). It is just logical that when doing an analysis of the speech not only the

semantic presuppositions but mainly the contextual presuppositions must be taken into

consideration because only the realm of syntax would not be sufficient and pure lexical and

sentence semantics require also the reference to the sociolinguistic context (Keesing 16). This,
of course, does not mean that when someone wants to interpret the sentences in context he

would abandon semantic presupposition (Katz and Langendoen 15).

So far no mention of entailment has been made. By doing this, it would help also to

distinguish it from presupposition. While presupposition is simply the relationship between

two propositions which consequently makes a statement, for instance, from the statement

"Barrack Obama visited the Czech Republic”, it is clear that there exists a person named

Barrack Obama and a state named the Czech Republic. By using presupposition, the

awareness of such things comes just from presented facts and neither part of the sentence is

considered to be known more than the other. Nevertheless, if someone wishes to stress some

kind of information he would do it by using the focusing particular piece of statement either

by pitching of the voice on some part of the statement (usually during oral communication) or

by it-cleft constructions (more often in written text). With the help of entailment, the previous

statement may thus be presented as "it was Barrack Obama who visited the Czech Republic"

or "it was the Czech Republic that was visited by Barrack Obama". The former sentence

stresses that Barrack Obama visited "something" and presupposes the Czech Republic to be a

shared well-known fact, the later, on the contrary, that it was just the Czech Republic that was

chosen for the visit by well-known Barrack Obama. It follows that the entailment has more

powerful sense than presupposition because the producer of the message decides what should

be stressed and what should be taken as a shared knowledge (Yule, ch. 5). And it would be

also useful for decoding the political messages.

This thesis does not undertake to offer a thorough description of all kinds of

presuppositions and entailments simply due to the fact it does not aim at such descriptions.

However, one distinction could be made. According to Grice, it is necessary to differentiate

between the so-called conventional and conversational implicature. While the later rests on

various principles that govern discourses, the former one consists in the meaning of the words
in a sentence and as such it is pure semantic entailment (qtd. in Katz and Langendoen 13). It

may be illustrated on the example of the sentence "she was poor but she was honest" where

according to the conjunction “but” it is nearly automatically assumed that when a person is

poor he must be also unfair and honesty is considered to be something like exception (Leech

10). Nevertheless, the key notion is that this conclusion has been made purely on account of

the sentence without knowing any further details about this woman. In a public speech,

however, such assumptions should be uttered very carefully and with regard to the customs of

particular culture. For this task politicians should rely more on conversational implicature that

observe variations of different cultures. As Lakov points out "there are culture-specific

assumptions that have to be characterized in order to understanding various aspects of speech

acts in a given culture" (qtd. in Keesing 17). If a politician omits this rule he may evoke

useless misunderstanding and sometimes even dangerous consequences.

2.2. Discourse

Our attention has been so far devoted just to the questions of pragmatics. In the

following chapter and sub-chapters, the focus is shifted to the question of discourse and its

methods of analysis.

The term discourse is sometimes attributed to any kind of communicated information.

This description is not so far from the truth; however, attention should be paid to all of

premises which influence real discourse. All of the meanings which accompany the act of

communication are joined in order to form clauses, sentences and utterances. Nevertheless,

these structures have sense as a well-formed discourse only in particular situational context

(Dontcheva-Navrátilová; ch. 5). It means, for its analysis, not only syntactic and semantic
features are important but also the pragmatic features of particular situation, as it has been

stressed in the previous chapter.

Nevertheless, the discourse includes all of its possible forms i.e. spoken or written and

also the monologue or the dialogue. The first pair is distinguished under the heading of the

medium; the second pair, on the other side, is the result of the nature of the participation

during a concrete communicative event and may be bring together under the heading of

various aspects of modality. All of these four types have their typical features; nevertheless, it

sometimes happens that features that are usually associated with informal dialogic speech are

part of a written text, or, on the contrary, when some formal features usually ascribed to

writing are incorporated into a public speech (Crystal 69).

Crystal elsewhere tells that "any piece of discourse contains a large number of features

which are difficult to relate to specific variables to in the original extra-linguistic context even

though the may be felt to have some kind of stylistic value" (63). The analysis thus should be

done very carefully in order to catch all contextual features as much as it is possible.

2.2.1 Discourse Analysis

It is not surprising to say that there are various kinds of discourse which may be

characterized by various features. However, more intriguing is the question how to recognize

these features and how to analyze them. In the following sub-chapter, there are examples of

some of the methods of critical discourse analysis.

2.2.2 Critical Discourse Analysis

 The word "Critical" prompts that an analyst should be truly careful when he is trying

to decode the particular discourse. Various analyses of different kinds of discourse (such as of

the misrepresentation of political demonstrations, as "violent riots", or of bias in favor of the

authorities) has proved that such detailed critical analyses bring the analyst to the wider

context of the authorities and their power as a core for political action (Handbook of

Discourse Analysis 3: 7).

Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is a helpful method in multiple areas, such as

education, literacy, gender, racism, ideology, economic, advertisements, institutional and

media language, and, most importantly for this thesis, political discourse. In all these areas

CDA focuses on issues like power asymmetries, manipulation, structural inequalities and

exploitation (Blommaert 451-452).

Each critical discourse analysis usually consists of 3 steps. The first one is the

descriptive stage which examines the basic formal properties of the discourse. It is also the

pre-step for the next two steps. The second stage, interpretation, endeavors to link the

discourse with interaction, i.e. to see the discourse as a result of process of production and

also as a resource in the act of interpretation. And the third stage, explanation, which is the

most important but which would not probably possible without previous two steps, attempts

to find the relationships between interaction and social context i.e. which social determinants

are necessary in the processes of interaction, production and their social effects (Fairclough

26).

2.2.3 The Role of Cohesion

The term reference has been explained so far with regards to pragmatics features of the

discourse. It has, moreover, also a connection with the cohesive devices that join the text
together and as thus they are a part of syntax which, as it has been demonstrated as well, is an

aspect of language studies by CDA.

Cohesion has to be, above all, distinguished from coherence. These two features of

discourse are loosely related one to another and one may predetermine the other.

Nevertheless, coherence encompasses the unity of the whole discourse, i.e. the unity in the

sense of meaning and communicative purpose which the reader or hearer perceives through

discourse in a context of use; cohesion, on the other side, is connected with semantic and

formal relations between all discourse elements which are dependent one to another because

the interpretation of the meaning of one element is possible only with regards to the

interpretation of the meaning of the other (Dontcheva-Navrátilová; ch. 5). Or as Halliday and

Hasan have explained "we can interpret cohesion in practice as the set of semantic resources

for linking a sentence with what has gone before (Halliday and Hasan 10).

It follows from what has been told that coherence relies just on the reader's/hearer's

interpretation and that the coherence is, in this sense, a bit subjective; on the other hand

cohesion is explicit and may be, with the help of its devices, thoroughly traced through the

piece of text or discourse. This is always an objective task because there are always concrete

elements to be defined. Moreover, to define cohesive devices helps also to define whether and

how much the discourse is coherent.

2.2.3.1 Discourse, Context and Co-text

It has been stressed several times so far that the important element of the practical

discourse analysis is the reference to the context in which the discourse is appearing. On the

top of that it should be referred not only to the general context but also to so-called co-text.

How may be these two terms distinguished one from the other?
 Basically, everything that is referred to in the discourse is considered to be a context;

nevertheless, if the referred item is inside the text or the discourse it has a linguistic reference

and as that it is marked as a co-text or linguistic context. The context in its broader meaning,

i.e. everything outside the text, is marked as the context of situation or extra linguistic context

(Dontcheva-Navrátilová; Glossary). The co-text, moreover, helps to interpret the meaning

because it simply narrows the possible interpretative meanings for particular word or sentence

(Yule; ch. 3). These words or sentences would be misguiding for the analyst unless they are

placed in the discourse environment; only then the analyst is able to decode their correct

meaning and he may feel to be deceived otherwise (Halliday and Hassan 301).

The extra linguistic context operates within the domains of field, tenor and mode. The

field, also referred as the domain, helps to narrow the interpretative meanings according to the

activity (e.g. in our case political speech). The tenor defines the relations between the

speaker/writer and hearer/reader, e.g. their statuses predetermine whether the discourse will

be polite or familiar, formal or informal etc. And finally, the mode is predefined by variation

according to the part the language is playing and according to the participants expectations in

this situation; in other words, the key elements are the rules of written and spoken, interactive

or non-interactive communication, but also the text structure and organization and

communicative purpose of the writer/speaker (i.e. to deliver a speech). It is worth to point out

that the identification of registers and styles is to a large extent dependent on domain.

However, tenor and mode are highly important for both stylistics and discourse analysis

(Dontcheva-Navrátilová; Ch. 2).

The context of situation, or the meaning which is gained from this context,

furthermore, belongs to the culture rather than to the language (Caldas-Coulthard 35). It is not

thus surprising that such analysis may be a hard task to do but responsible sociolinguistic

researchers have proved that the order and structure may be found even in the situations
where these phenomena had been perceived to be messy and on the periphery of previous

analyses. Pragmatic rules, beside the fact that they deal with cultural standards such as

formality or distance, point to more general assumptions about the social and culture

environment. If they would not do this, they would seem to be meaningless (Keesing 28).

2.3 The Nature of Discourse and Political Speeches

In previous chapters, the attention was devoted just to the explanation of some

theoretical principles which are a part of general discourse analysis. It must be stressed here

that the explanations are not exhaustive and discourse analysis is a more complex process

with more disciplines and sub-analyses to be done in order to fully understand the particular

discourse. The information presented in previous chapters is just the chosen elements of such

process because the thorough description of the pragmatic disciplines and all methods of

discourse analysis may not be listed in this thesis. Instead, in the following chapters and sub-

chapters, the focus will be shifted to the definition and description of the political discourse or

speech. And it is evident that the necessary features of political speeches which would be

needed to know during the practical analysis of political discourse will be presented and

explained as well.

2.3.1 Politics and its Theoretical Bases

There are several definitions of the word politics. Above all, it represents any kind of

human management of public affairs; beside this, the word politics also encompass constant

debates about these affairs or, probably even more often, various disputes about the meaning
of political expressions. Such disputes about the meaning of words like democracy, liberation,

socialism, communism, nationalization, terrorism etc. may be attributed the status of familiar

and constant aspect of politics (Fairclough 24). And even though according to Halliday and

Hasan for whom the language exemplifies the whole story in the majority of formal and

informal discussions on various abstract themes, e.g. politics, business and intellectual life, it

is not useful to put too much emphasis just on the language while back grounding other

factors; surely, Halliday and Hassan are right when they suggest that the language plays a key

role in these discussions, however, it may be doubted whether the language is furthermore

self-sufficient and all relevant situational factors are recognizable just from the language (Ch.

1.3.3). The term political demonstration is sometimes interpreted as riots while denoting the

same event; the only difference is just in the speaker's view of interpretation and in his

opinion on the matter. Thorough discourse analysis can be undertaken to decode the message

with respect to the wider context of challenge of authority and power. Furthermore, it enables

us to understand better various political actions (Handbook of Discourse Analysis 4: 8).

2.3.2 Features of Political Participation

Political participation may be defined not only as the activity of politicians on one side

and mere voting of citizens on the other, but also as the effort to persuade someone how to

vote, attend a protest for a political candidate or particular cause and also to write an

apologetic or protesting letter to the newspapers. Action like these may be perceived as social

because unlike the act of voting which is usually in developed democracies a secret act the

public participation consists of some exchange between the person who want to say or

change something by particular activity and the audience to which this activity is primarily
devoted to. In other words, these actions are forms of public opinion expression (Hayes,

Scheufele and Huge 263).

To become a skillful political speaker means to manage all aspect of intelligence:

analytical, creative and, especially, practical. The last of them may be considered the most

important one because, above all, practical intelligence helps to manage the so-called political

skill. And this political skill which may be learnt only to some degree is presumably

dependent on the so-called tacit knowledge. Tacit knowledge may be defined as social skill

gained through various experiences during a particular time. Tacit knowledge may be,

furthermore, compared to intuition, common sense, good feeling or a snack. Politicians who

have acquired a management of tacit knowledge and consequently also the political skills

have a higher probability of success in their communication because they can appropriately

"read the situation" and, for instance, know when to use humor to reduce the tension (Perrewé

et al. 117).

2.3.3 The Features of Spoken Political Speeches and their Gradual

Changes

The feature that prevails in spoken political discourse - especially with regards to the

fact that it is otherwise used in the written one - is relatively high degree of formality. It is

then just logical that formality is usually accompanied with more polite forms and higher

degree of impersonality; such discourse is characterized with the choice of specific

vocabulary and syntactic structures as well (Dontcheva-Navrátilová; Ch. 7). Examples of such

speech are shown in the Practical part of this thesis; nevertheless, as it is explained later, there
are some tendencies to bring political speech nearer to the everyday discourse and that is why

political speeches have been becoming more informal and personal.

2.3.3.1 Changes of the Features of Political Speeches through the Time

So far just a general concept of extra linguistic reality has been stressed out. Due to the

fact that it has not been described more thoroughly it might seem that this reality is dependent

just on the place where the political event is held and on the public whom the political speech

is dedicated to; nevertheless, within the analysis of the particular political event and in setting

it into particular extra linguistic environment it should be born in, the mind furthermore, the

time when it has taken place. The terms like "negroes" are generally felt as inappropriate in

recent days and not only the politician, but he foremost, has to be very sensitive during his

preparation of the speech. It is just not surprising that even the political environment in 1960s

differs significantly from the contemporary one. Thanks to the further steps in movements

like feminism or racial equality it would be felt as politically inappropriate to ascribe the role

of women only as secretaries making coffees to her male bosses or to show black waiters

serving coffee to white men in a fancy hotel dining room (Hirschman, Scott and Wells 43).

Expressions like these are a matter of political and moral evaluation. Among the

characteristics of popular features in political speeches is often an effort to empower the

powerless, give the voice the voiceless, expose power and abuse and mobilize people to

remedy social wrongs (Blommaert and Bulcaen 450).

 2.3.3.2 The Influence of Media on Changes in Political Speeches

Though political speeches are a type of discourse with its typical features, it is

indispensable that they have to more and more conform to the new media which occupy a

significant space in everyday lives of people and, viewed from the perspective of politicians,

the potential future voters. Undoubtedly, it must be taken into consideration that media have

played gradually a more significant role because they more or less determine which interests

control the government. For easier and clearer comparison, it could be expressed also in the

amount of money which have been spent on political campaigns in media which constitute a

considerable portion of it: while in 1952 all candidates for The House of Representatives, the

Senate and the presidency spent together 140 million dollars, in 2000 this number reached 5

billion (bagdigian in Stoll 256). In order to reduce the connection between money and paid

political speeches, political campaigns in the United States are being financed by direct and

non-direct federal and state funding systems. For instance, during the presidential election in

1988 it was expected that 170 million dollars would be raised from the candidate’s voluntary

election fund box which was sponsored by tax payers who had checked off that they are

willing to contribute from their personal tax income forms. Thirty per cent of American tax

payers did it. Consequently, primary candidates for the presidency would receive up to 11

million dollars, each of them in federal matching funds. Moreover, general election candidates

who had won their battles in primary election received another 40 million dollars from public

funds (Caywood and Preston (208). This sum of money is used to a great extent to media

campaigns. A mutual dependence of politics and media and vice versa is therefore

increasingly evident.

By using the term media we must recently understand not only the so-called traditional

media like newspaper, radio or television but, even with the increasing tendency the Internet
as well. Since there is still not extensive research on this matter, it would be interesting to

investigate the impact of online or offline political mobilization efforts. It is possible just to

guess that still many political mobilization efforts conducted by face-to-face communication

do not directly encourage online participation while mobilization conducted online stimulates

some kind of activity and in this sense some kind of political participation (Best and Krueger

188).

Although that with the emergence of the Internet and the most recently new social

networks such as Facebook or Twitter it is the users of this networks who decide what they

would be reading, listening or watching, or even what they would be writing in various forms

of their Internet blogs, the prevailing influence on what would be presented and discussed lays

in the so-called traditional or old media, such as newspapers, radios and televisions and their

editors and reporters. The politicians are thus confronted not only with their potential voters

but also with these media workers because politicians must catch foremost them in order to

persuade them to report the politician’s ideas. Thus, the political programs and speeches

sometimes try to mimic the common language of television’s programs and to echo humorous

sketches or publicity announcements. The critics sometimes doubt that traditional political

discourse degrades and subordinates to the norms of commercial media too much;

nevertheless, it should be stressed out that by using some humorous forms of

communications, such as parody or television jargon, the political speeches reach the interest

of more people while they simultaneously do not become less critical or les lucid than in case

of the use of traditional rhetorical tools (Miguel and Resende 127). And therefore, it is not

rare to find many examples of casual manners, colloquial expressions, reciprocal addresses or

repetitions in contemporary political interviews (Blommaert and Bulcaen 454).

On the contrary, with the knowledge that media may even feasibly influence who

would win the election, a particular moral obligation of media, and therefore what is
presented here, should not be marginalized and a partial self-control and control of those who

want to say something there should be realized. It is also crucial to remember that media

enable to create a world of cultural meanings and provide the arena in which most political

debates must occur. This results in determining the types of images and styles of

argumentation that will influence various aspects of life such as our subconscious desires

(Stoll 256).

2.3.4 Problems of Analysis of Political Discourse

So far only general features and qualities of politics and political discourse have been

briefly introduced. But the key question remains unanswered till now: how to undertake an

analysis of political discourse correctly and with the aim to find out what would be the focus

of investigation. It is crucial to remember that apart from an analysis of the wording of

discourse the structure of deeper communication must be examined. The key point is not to

forget that it is just an exception if all discursive exchanges are clearly understandable from

pure communication. And although that politics is conducted through the language which is

clearly uttered, the political goals are gained more effectively also through the speech where

such acts are not necessarily articulated. And it is here again the discussed problem between

what is said and what is implied. During the interpretation of political speeches it is important

to choose the right meaning, because the more indirect discursive formation and the more

deniable phrases are used by the speaker, the more options are left for the hearer to understand

the uttered message and interpret it. Such indirectness causes substantial complexities when

analyzing such discourses; however, in order to comprehend the cohesion of discourse

formations correctly the indirectness must be taken into consideration (Skillington 503). It is

up to the analyst to judge to what extend the situation is obscured by the so-called coloring
which aims at presenting the truth in a different way depending on the event and the public for

whom the event is devoted to. And it should be remembered that there is always the danger of

conscious or unconscious bias. The attitudes tend to be crept in the discourse and it is up to

the analyst to pay careful attention to the language vehicles which are used to for these

attitudes in order not to be easily fooled (Crystal 191-192).

2.3.4.1 Some Features of Analysis of Political Discourse

This sub-chapter aims at introducing and explaining the basic methods and approaches

of political discourse analysis. It is evident that such a task is a hard one and this thesis cannot

explain thoroughly all aspects of political discourse analysis. It is thus more accurate to say

that the attention is devoted to some of the features of political discourse analysis.

Firstly, the tendency to map political speech is a domain of various disciplines which

may be characterized by many studies focusing on different constitutive elements and using a

variety of methods. It is, however, necessary to point out here that some of these studies and

methods bear little or even no relation to any linguistic theory. For instance, content analysis,

the goal of which is to map and count of themes in order to test hypotheses, is the branch of

analysis typical for sociology, social psychology, media studies or political science

(Handbook of Discourse Analysis 4: 43). As such, it has just little to do with linguistic theory;

however, it is related to pragmatics and the tendencies in political speeches.

A different level of power and its representation is one - and for our purpose very

important - aspect of political speeches. It is necessary to differentiate between two

approaches - the study of the power in discourse and the study of the power behind the

discourse. The first approach is characterized by a discourse where relations of power are

present; behind the face-to-face spoken discourse and the mass media discourse, this kind of
power is exemplified in cross-cultural discourse where its participants belong to different

ethnic and social Groupings. The second approach, the power behind the discourse,

investigates how orders of discourse - as the dimension of social order of societies with their

institutions are themselves influenced by relation of power (Fairclough 43).

Symbolically, in order to depict social change in the most traditional manner it is

necessary for discourse to speak a language which should be other than the rhetorical due to

the fact that its referential aspect is marked by broader cultural and political significance.

Deep analysis would reveal the power relations between competing actors who occupy a

common action space (Skillington 496).

It seems that between various types of discourse it is especially the political discourse

that posses a pragmatic dimension because it studies the sign system and codes in terms of

user relation as the significant focus of investigation. To say it, hopefully, more

understandably, the focus is aimed at what language is actually used by different users. Thus,

the investigation tries to find out user's consistent semantic and syntactic options in terms of

the interactional strategies of individuals, groups and classes. And it is especially this aspect

that differentiates the discourse analysis from traditional studies of syntax, semantics,

language change, and variation which do not concern with it (Handbook of Discourse

Analysis 4: 45).

2.3.4.2 Necessary Principles of Analysis of Political Discourse

The question what an analyst must practically do in order to make sense of a whole

discourse has still remained not satisfactorily explained; nevertheless, this knowledge or

ability belongs to key competences in a task which aims at bringing coherent interpretation of

discourse. The space for introduction in such a task is just here. The necessary presupposition
is that the analyst already knows the meanings of its constituent parts. Then, he must try to

work out how the parts of discourse are linked to each other. Consequently, he must also to

find out how this particular discourse fits in with his previous experience of the world. In

other words, he must be able to understand what approach to the world it represents or which

aspects of the world are mostly related to. He thus investigates the relationship between the

discourse and the world. The connection between text or discourse and world is also another

meaning of the world coherence which primarily searches for connections between the

sequential parts of a text (Fairclough 79).

Surely, to discover and, furthermore, to describe structure and coherence in any

discourse genre is not an easy task. It is helpful to bear in the mind that argumentation should

be viewed as a discourse genre in which the individual's efforts to persuade others about the

correctness of his opinions and consequently to undermine his rival's ones. This leads in the

permanent negotiation of meanings. Evidently, this is possible not only due to speaker's and

hearer's cooperation, but also competition (Handbook of Discourse Analysis 3: 35).

Another, as Fairclough points out, seemingly paradoxical situation lies in the fact that

not only the interpretation of a text but also its production on its own poses interpretative

characteristics. However, it is fairly logical because the speaker or, in other words, the

producer of the text brings his speech as his interpretation of the world. It just follows that the

interpretation of the speech is the listener`s interpretation of the speaker's interpretation. Thus,

either the production of the speech or its interpretation should be considered to be creative and

constructive interpretative processes (Fairclough 80-81).

 2.3.5 The Presence of Power, Ideology and Persuasion in Political

Speeches

In this sense, power may be considered as the human's ability to influence the

environment of another person and to some degree available to both parties; the weaker one

may consequently interrupt reciprocal relationship by withdrawal. Moreover, the use of words

by a politician may be compared to a process through which he attempts to gain and also

retain the sympathy and approval of his audience. Such speech aims at persuasion, i.e. to gain

the authority through its establishment rather than its exercise. Persuasion and formalization

can be then put at the two ends of a continuum (Borgstrom 313).

2.3.5.1 Ideological Argumentation and Persuasion

A very important aspect when presenting own power and in this sense representing

also particular ideology is the fact that this effort should be done rather indirectly and not so

openly because ideology is most effective when it is not so clear that to persuade others is a

goal of one of the ideologies. Such indirectness could be reached when ideological cues are

brought to the speech as background assumptions. They force, on one hand, the speaker to say

something in a particular way and, on the other, the listener to interpret what has been said in

a particular way. Obviously, presentation of ideological views is thus not among the

components of the speech and it is, to the great extent, up to the hearer to recognize it behind

the cues (Fairclough 86).

Generally, to end an argument means to persuade the others to accept a standpoint to

which they have been opposing or at least to reach a particular compromise of mutual points
of views; nevertheless, sometimes a confrontation ends up either without an evident winner

and looser or without any resolution. Instead, the opponents just reaffirm the correctness of

their arguments or even refocus their disagreements onto a new basis and reciprocal

agreement is not reached as well (Handbook of Discourse Analysis 3: 35). Whether such

communication should be remarked as unsuccessful or not is hard to answer.

However, if the speaker is able to influence the attitudes, knowledge or even to

undermine recipient's previous ideology, he is obviously able to control their future actions.

He may be considered to be a winner because the so-called mentally mediated control of

actions of people could be marked as the ultimate form of power. Such access is the feature of

various manipulations which are successful in their effort especially due to the fact that it

takes place without people's awareness that they are being manipulated to (Caldas-Coulthard

90).

From various approaches to definitions of power and arguments, it may be beneficial

to explain the difference between the so-called rhetorical and oppositional argument. Firstly,

it must be stressed out that this distinction cannot be guaranteed by serious empirical

investigation in each case, yet in most cases it is possible. A rhetorical argument may be

defined as a type of discourse in which a speaker uses an intact monologue in order to support

his disputable opinion. An oppositional argument, on the contrary, is a type of discourse

where participants (but it also may be even one participant) strive to support openly their

position; nevertheless, despite of this distinction both types usually consist of some of the

same principles of discourse organization and rely on some of the same crucial assumptions

(Handbook of Discourse Analysis 3: 38). Since political speeches in the majority of cases are

a matter of individual's monologues - not considering occasional demonstration of agreement

or disagreement (sometimes even prearranged by politician's supporters or opponents) - it

seems then that Political speeches may be defined as a discourse using rhetorical argument.
 2.3.5.2 Tolerance and Opposition to Persuasive Argumentation

In fact, some people generally tolerate all means of expression and nearly all points of

view; in spite of this, it does not embarrass to deliver a speech which would and should be

preferably forbidden by everyone (e.g. any kind of hate speech, speech promoting the violent

overthrow of the functional political system, speech advocating the racial intolerance or

approving the 9/11 attack on the United States etc.). The number of people who are willing to

tolerate such extreme opinions is, with a high degree of probability, extremely small. The

tolerance and intolerance of such speeches should be then measured and treated as continuous

and unidimensional. Naturally, the endpoints of psychological and political measurement

scales refer to individuals with various diverse views or, at least, individuals with various

degree of intensity. As an example may be listed the case of some of the Democrats pertaining

to the so-called "Yellow Dog" variety who are stronger than simply strong in their views.

Since the proportion of people in categories like political tolerance is expected to be small no

practical implications for analysis in this sense seems to be possible. The tolerance may not

thus be perceived as dychotomic category; instead, variation in this sense would be best

represented by a single unidimensional continuum because people differ in the degree of their

willingness to dispose of opposing opinions (Gibson 318-319).

The politician shows the power which he actually possesses and which he wants to

exhibit according to the particular situation and the audience before he is standing up. It is

significant that the nature of the political, economical and social hierarchies together with the

relations of elites influence the exhibited power. In other words, power exemplifies the form

of external boundaries for the discipline which is marked as cultural pragmatics. These

external boundaries parallel the internal ones which are exemplified by performance

background representation (Alexander 535).

 2.4 The Position of the US in Contemporary World

Finally, it would be beneficial to draw out briefly the role which recent United States

represent in world politics; only so it would be possible to better understand the motives that

lead the US president to use various persuasive techniques in his political speeches.

First of all, he is bound to the particular political culture. Understanding it means to

find a key to the "doctrinal content and ideological bases of the political system - its portrayal

of national interests, its discourse about national security, public perception of the national

leadership, and the arguments that fuel foreign policy (Martínez and Brena 48).

Historically, the US is based upon the deep conviction that actions that they make are

supported by various ideals. For instance, since the last Reagan administration in 1980 the

USA has tried to convince the rest of the world of the benefits and infallibility of liberal free

market ideology. Consequently, the best model of society is portrayed as: free markets’

competition in capital, services and goods, corporations which aims to maximize shareholder

value, stock markets for buying and selling corporate control and, especially, the

government's minimal intervention in the markets, i.e. only in cases of its obvious failure

(Wade 201-202).

Surely, although the US is among the world's political and economic leaders, it lost its

former position, national consensus and alliances that were typical after the World War II.

Moreover, it has even failed to maintain its military power that it holds at the time of Gulf

War at the beginning of the 1990swhen it had overcome the crisis of the 1980s and tried to

hold the leadership and control of the word order after the fall of the European socialist

systems and the Soviet Union. The terrorist attack of September 11, 2001 caused various

turbulences, conflicts and contradictions in the world's politics. The US had to readjust to the

new situation and, logically, this new role of the US has affected its international position and
behavior. To comment it briefly, the US consolidate a new ideological theory that, although it

was directed against a new kind of enemy, simply renewed the elements deeply rooted in the

US political culture - to legitimize domestic politics. Instead of communism a new enemy has

appeared - terrorism (Martínez and Brena 48). The US has been fighting against the terrorism

and, furthermore, has been trying to persuade the others to join in the effort to overthrow it.

Especially this aspect would be probably one of the most typical motives of persuasion in

political speech.

2.5 Summary

The theoretical part has described the aspects of pragmatics; it has also listed some of

the methods of discourse analysis. Beside this, the attention was especially devoted to the

descriptions of features that constitute political speeches.

It is evident that political speeches are a type of discourse which is characterized by

specific features. However, it has been found out that due to the pressure of media and its

effort to catch the attention of their consumers the traditional view of political speeches has

been changing and is now nearer to the everyday, colloquial speech. Political speeches should

therefore be not only interesting but also entertaining so as to be attractive to media holders

who have the privilege of what would be presented and how.

Such approach may also make political speeches to be more persuasive. Persuasion is

namely among the main purposes of political speeches. Through persuasion politicians

influence others and gain their attention or even win their sympathy. Mixing of the

entertaining and persuasive elements is among the main features of political speeches. How

this works in everyday practice tries to investigate the practical part of this thesis.
 3 PRACTICAL PART

As it has been proposed in the introduction, the practical part of this thesis tries to

compare political speeches that the contemporary president of the US Barrack Obama has

delivered during his presidency primary either for the domestic or foreign audience. The work

aims to find some common and different features that appear in the speeches, delivered in

these two types of context. The main purpose is to investigate whether the main aim of

political speeches, i.e. to persuade the audience, varies in these two types of speeches.

The hypothesis is that although the style of the domestic speeches tends towards more

familiarity and colloquialisms the overall devices that accompany such kind of the discourse

are more or less the same.

3.1 Corpus under Investigation

The corpus analyzed in this thesis consists of ten Barrack Obama's political speeches.

The first five of them are primarily devoted to the US domestic audience and affairs. The

other five, on the other side, are focused on foreign or even international affairs and therefore

it may be expected that also the audience is spreading beyond the borders of the United States.

The first of the speeches for the domestic audience is Barrack Obama's Victory Speech

which he delivered in Rally, Grand Park, Chicago, Illinois, on November 4, 2008. Although

he was not yet holding the office of the president of the United States, it will be interesting to

trace also the continuous development of the speeches as this may be considered as his first

official speech in presidency. The second speech in the corpus is dated as of January 10, 2009,

and it is Obama's Inaugural speech that he proclaimed in Capitol, Washington, D.C. The third
speech records Obama's Address to the joint session of the US Congress that took place on

February, 24, 2009. The last two speeches are the transcripts of Obama's State of the Union

addresses for the years 2010 and 2011, which were delivered on January 27, 2010, and

January, 25, 2011, respectively. Also these speeches were primarily devoted to the US

Congress; however, this does not mean that they were not addressed to the US citizens as

well. The reason these particular speeches were chosen is that it facilitates to trace back the

possible common features of this kind of official speeches. The speeches for the international

audience were selected with respect to the relative importance that particular countries play in

the US foreign policy and with the aim to choose countries from various continents. The

speeches are thus selected from Obama`s speeches for Canada, China, France, Russia and the

United Kingdom. The speech aimed at American-Russian relationships is, moreover,

extraordinary in the fact that the mutual arrangement of the presidents of these countries -

Barrack Obama and victor Medvedev - took place in neutral territory, concretely on Prague

Castle in Prague, Czech Republic during the act of signing new Start Treaty on April, 8, 2010.

The speech that is devoted to Canada is, furthermore, held in Toronto but it may be

considered as a foreign speech even for Canadians because it was delivered as the press

conference which presents the results of G20 meeting in Intercontinental hotel in Toronto,

Canada, on Sunday 27, June, 2010. Beside this, the speech for Frenchmen was proclaimed

during Obama's visit to France at Palaiz de la Musique et Des Congress in Strasbourg, on

April, 4, 2009 and deals also wit American-European broader relationships as a whole. The

speech for China took place during Obama’s visit of Beijing on May, 24, 2010 and the speech

for Britons at Westminster Hall, in London, United Kingdom, on May, 25, 2011.

Therefore, it is evident from what has been described here that the majority of the

speeches is primarily dedicated for some formal occasions and for the listeners who

correspond to them. On the other hand, this does not mean that also the broader audience
should not be taken into consideration. As speeches are often broadcasted by various media

and the transcripts of all of these particular speeches are easily available on the Internet, the

politicians usually remember well that they are speaking especially for this broader audience

and with this idea in the mind they are aspiring to improve their popularity. The work thus

tries to trace formal and informal features of these Barrack Obama's speeches.

Each speech is firstly scrutinized in terms of description of its main ideas and

characteristics one by one. Afterwards the speeches are investigated and compared in terms of

their persuasiveness. The final conclusion is summarized in chapter 4. Bibliography

information and links to transcripts of all speeches could be find in the bibliography section

under the heading primary sources.

3.2 Scrutiny of all speeches

Firstly, all speeches are described one by one, the attention is focused on the occasion

during which the speech was delivered, the event and the other contextual features that are

expected to be shared and also on general characteristics of the speech.

3.2.1 Obama's domestic speeches

Though the main purpose of this thesis is represented more or less by the following

chapter, the following sub-chapters introduce the individual speeches and describe them more

thoroughly.
 3.2.1.1 Victory Speech

Though it is not Barack Obama's first public speech, it may be considered as his first

real political speech. The promises that he declared might be considered as mandatory

because he had just won the US presidential election and his role as the presidential candidate

and the president-elected were different simply in this aspect of the liability of what he was

saying.

Someone might assume that the speech which was presented so near to the time when

Obama got to know that he had won the election would have been spontaneous and therefore

not well-arranged. Naturally, it is not the case of this speech. Not surprisingly, Obama must

have expected with his victory and thus the speech was carefully prepared before the election.

This suggests either the overall structure of the speech, in which the arguments are well-

formed and logically ordered, or simply the impression that fall on the listener or the reader.

The speech may be divided at least into four parts according to the topics. Firstly,

president Obama tries to thank all persons who had helped him to gain his victory. The whole

passage makes an impression of pomposity. Obama is concrete, lists all names and does not

limit himself to mere general acknowledgment for all. The concreteness may be also among

the characteristics of the next feature of the speech when Obama wants to list the essence of

the United States, who are their members and also for whom this country is one home. The

declarative sentence "...black, white, Latino American, gay, straight disabled and not disabled

- Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been a collection of red

sates and blue states; we are, and always will be, the United States of America" therefore

helps to strengthen the impression of mutual unity and solidarity.

The feeling of a greater authenticity is reached by president Obama's reminiscence on

106 years old Ann Nixon Cooper, whom he had allegedly met as she had been casting her
ballot, and the comparison of the significant changes that the United States has reached since

this time. Even here Obama endeavors to sound more concretely and thus he compares for

instance the fact that at the beginning of her life Ann Nixon Cooper was not allowed to vote

simply due to the two reasons: she is a woman and, moreover, a black; at the end of her life

these reasons play no role in defining whether she may or may not vote. It is evident that this

reminiscence has practically no relationship to Obama's future presidency (beside the fact that

he is the first black president in the US history), however, it facilitates to build a greater

feeling of solidarity and pride in the signification and key ideas of the United States - liberty

and democracy - which are also the main ideas of this speech.

And finally, at least for this introductory part of all speeches, Obama's victory speech

offers a clear sign of promise. Although his victory speech may be rather generally marked as

summative and declarative, he even wants to offer some kind of bounding message for the

future. The promises are, however, unlike the rest of the speech, rather general and not so

concrete, so the speech propounds suggestions like "there is new energy, to harness and new

jobs to be created, new schools to build, and threats to meet and alliances to meet". There is

stated a vague view of possible hindrances that would be necessary to overcome as well. This

passage and the passage with promises are, as it has been previously said, more general and

not so concrete. This enables Obama more free space for the future if his more concrete

promises would not have been fulfilled. In such an unclear concept, it is not so easy to decide

whether he does his job correctly or not.

3.2.1.2 Inaugural Speech

President Obama's inaugural speech of course may not be considered to be

spontaneous or that it would react immediately on some of the most actual events of those
days. It was delivered more than two months after Obama's victory in the US presidential

election so he had a sufficient time to elaborate his speech in order to sound persuasive and

decisive. The speech appears to be really more sophisticated and to posses features of

speeches for prominent occasions. And moreover, it is longer than the Obama's victory

speech. Also here Obama thanks at the beginning of the speech. If he was thanking his

predecessor in the office, George Walker Bush, with whose political party of Republicans

Obama's democrats are on the opposite edge of political spectrum and against whose politics

he had clearly and hardly stood up during the previous political campaign, it may not be

expected that these words of praise are meant seriously and heartily; nevertheless, thanking

the opponent is a traditional thing – it tries to suggest that after the elections the new President

represents the whole nation, not only his party.

The whole speech, beside this, seems to resemble an effort to encourage the listeners

in his American citizenship, or, in other words, to intensify their self-esteem of America and

its traditional values. Very important is also the reference to previous presidents, which places

Obama as one of the series of American leader. Quoting an ex-president means associating

the new president’s policy with the ideas of his predecessor. Obama lists some of the

hindrances that threaten America and which American citizens should overcome and

American government will try to fight against. And though the formulations like "the state of

the economy calls for action" or "we will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel

our cars and run our factories" sounds majestically and lofty, yet still also a bit unclearly and

feebly.

On the other hand, Obama wants to be viewed as a dauntless president and tries to

persuade his listeners to act boldly in case of necessity which he sees as the main feature of

American society and its traditions. The explicitness of persuasion thus seems to reach a high

degree of appearance.
 Even here, Obama reminds the audience to recall the past times and the changes that

have happened during that time. It may seem to be inappropriate because he himself has not

made anything special for to be meant, on the other hand, these recalls strengthen the sense of

mutuality and solidarity. Moreover, Obama becomes even a bit personal when he is

comparing the situation from 60 years ago when black people were not welcomed to serve in

the restaurant and the situation of that moment when he is standing in front of the American

nation as his first black president in the office.

Among the other characteristics of this speech may be named a relatively high

proportion of short sentences. Although the use of simple sentences and compound or

complex sentences is not the matter of interest of this thesis, it may be stated here that such

methods facilitates to build an effect of drama and the change in anticipation. This suggestion

gains more credibility if we take into the consideration the fact that the speech was delivered

in spoken form and therefore the change of the pitch of the voice may intensify the attention

of the audience. As the corpus of this thesis consists just of the transcripts of the speeches, this

feature, however, is not taken into consideration during the analysis and comparison.

3.2.1.3 Address to the Congress on February 24, 2009

This speech, originally marked as “Non-State of the Union Address”, is the first that

Obama delivered officially in his presidential office. It means it was at the time when he has

real responsibility for the actions he has made. On the other hand, the speech was proclaimed

only one month after Obama was officially inaugurated as US president. This gives him a

possibility to be truly critical because the critical words do not concern his own actual politics

yet. And it also gives him the opportunity to introduce his plans and to try to persuade the

others that fulfilling of this plan is the necessity for America.

 It would be beneficial to remind that the speech was primarily dedicated to the

members of the US congress. He began his address by: "Madame Speaker, Mr. Vice

President, Members of Congress, and the First Lady of the United States". This is

conventional opening of an address delivered in front of the Congress and it is probably also

the reason why such direct addressing is not a part of two previous speeches.

The most characteristic feature of this speech is its effort to portray the real state of

affairs in the US, its critics and unlike the two previous speeches the appearance of

factualness and concreteness; Beside the fact that the address serves as an evaluative annual

state of the union and that such statements were expected, it is also necessary to be aware

when the speech was dated, i.e. at the beginning of 2009 when the world, and especially The

United states, was affected by the consequences of financial crisis from 2008. The effort to

hide something or not showing everything in its true contours would not supposedly be

accepted by the audience either in the congress or everywhere where American people were

watching it.

Obama depicts the real situation in which the United States and its economy presently

occur. He also introduces the steps that he and his government have undertaken since his

presidential inauguration till the day of this speech in the US congress and the steps that it will

be necessary to do in the future as well. A considerable proportion of the speech therefore is

occupied by an apology and explanation of the so-called Recovery plan that Obama's

administration has actually approved and which goal is to offer a new incentive for the restart

of the US economy. The description is relatively thorough and makes an impression of

sincerity and genuine tendency to bring some improvements. There are not so much direct

appeals and persuasive urge (although even the expressions and suggestions like "so I ask this

Congress to join me in doing whatever proves necessary" are explicitly articulated), the

general tone of the speech lies especially in the tendency to indirect appeal by drawing out of
the state in which the US has appeared and explaining the key areas that need to be reformed.

So the reform of lending fund, housing plan or improvements of bank-s confidence are

analyzed. The appeals are thus rather indirect such as: “a failure to act would have worsened

our long-term deficit by assuring weak economic growth for years".

Obama's task is not easy because such plans as the help to banks which have

contributed not a little to the world's financial crisis by their bad financial politics would not

belong to the popular steps. However, Obama is fully aware of that and therefore he has not

the other possibilities than to confess it openly and sincerely.

Furthermore, even the part devoted to the changes which will be necessary just to do is

also rather more explanative than directly urging. The passages dealing with the contemporary

state of the US education system, health and social care and the reforms that should be made

is persuasive just indirectly. Still, it might work even though it should be still remembered

that the speech was primarily aimed at congressmen who are more familiarized with these

topics than "the ordinary laymen" and would expected rather the presentation of facts than an

attempt on emotions. This is the reason why the speech appears to be quite factual with

elaborated wording and longer compound or complex sentences.

3.2.1.4 State of the Union Address 2010

As the preceding one, this speech was also delivered to the common session of the US

Congress in Capitol. Yet the speeches differ from one another in a few aspects.

The first one is just the matter of the transcript; the record of the State of the Union of

2010 contains even the records of the audience's reactions such as an applause or laughter.

However, as the source is retrieved from the Internet sites which goal is to bring all Obama`s

speeches together and thus it may be expected that they are administered by his supporters, it
is not probably only the coincidence that the transcripts notes just the signs of approval and no

disapproval.

The second aspect of difference deals with the overall tone of the speech. To

understand it, it must be remembered that it was proclaimed at the time when Obama had

been just the first year in his office; he had thus made some steps that he needed to advocate;

moreover, it was also the election year to the Senate and therefore a greater publicity was an

important and desirable goal that he wanted to gain. The tone of the speech is thus more

entertaining and full of direct persuasion, urges, encouragements and it is also more amusing,

although the passages focusing on deep analysis of the contemporary situation and the

necessary changes and reforms in the future are quite extensive as well.

Obama is beginning the speech again with direct greeting, this time he does not forget

even to the audience that may watch him on TV. The state of the union`s addresses are

traditionally televised and this has affected their style – they tend to be less formal and more

entertaining. Persuading the whole nations seems to be of similar importance as providing

facts to convince the senate. On one hand, it is not something extraordinary that should be

stressed out, on the other hand, as it has been explained this influenced especially the fact that

it was before the election to the Senate and that Obama wanted to speak to all citizens more

than the year before. The speech then follows by shifting the attention again to the past and

stressing the glory and authority that United States deserves. This passage may seem to be

superfluous in terms of informative value; on the other side, to emphasize the tradition of such

evaluative speeches of the Union which appear not only in peace times but also during the

wars could raise the importance of this particular speech and everything what will be

presented in it.

Only then, the speech continues with the recapitulation of all significant steps that had

been made during previous year and after that with the steps that would be desirable to
implement to the recent US system. Yet the speech tries to offer concrete details it is beside

this full of clichés and declarative phrases, e.g.: "Again we are tested. And again, we must

answer history's call“. Except this, in some passages, Obama supports his suggestions by

repetition of such clichés, for instance, in: "Now let me repeat: We cut taxes. We cut taxes for

95 per cent of working families. (Applause.) We cut taxes for small businesses. We cut taxes

for first time homebuyers. We cut taxes for parents trying to care for their children. We cut

taxes for 8 million Americans paying for college. (Applause.) I thought I'd get some applause

on that one. (Laughter and applause.)" No doubt, such approach belongs to the key oral

performances that may gain more popularity not only in the masses of the supporters in the

hall (who drew it out) but also in the mass of the wider audience.

The pressure of hard times and the approaching Senate election contribute with a high

degree of probability not only to the effort to highlight the steps during the Democratic Party's

government, but also to openly promote the steps that will only become true in the future. The

speech thus posses features that resemble electioneering e.g.: "So tonight, I'm proposing that

we take $30 billion of the money Wall Street banks have repaid and use it to help community

banks give small businesses the credit they need to stay afloat . (Applause.) I'm also

proposing a new small business tax credit / one that will go over one million small businesses

who hire new workers or raise wages. (Applause.) While we're at it, let's also eliminate all

capital gains taxes on small business investment and provide a tax incentive for all large

businesses and all small businesses to invest in new plants and equipment. (Applause.)"

Again, the delivered statements are followed by conventional manifestation of agreement of

the audience in the hall. Together with the fact the promises are attractive and pleasing the

speech may be perceived as highly persuasive. On the other hand, it cannot be denied that

even though the speech may be considered as such, it also tries to bring together some

concrete facts and details and thus may be considered to be a bit informative as well.
 3.2.1.5 State of the Union 2011

The Analysis of this speech revealed some similarities and also differences as

compared to Obama's State of the Union from previous year. Both speeches are highly

motivated to urge people to do something as there are lots of examples of direct commands,

such in: "So, yes, the world has changed. The competition for jobs is real. But this shouldn't

discourage us. It should challenge us."

There are lots of encouraging and positive evaluation which purpose is to depict the

United States as the most powerful and mighty place on the Earth, e.g.: "We're the home for

to the world's best colleges and universities, where more students come to study than any

place on Earth." However, this passage may be seen just as rhetorical one as elsewhere in the

speech Obama criticizes the recent state of the education system in the United States: "Think

about it. Over the next 10 years, nearly half of all new jobs will require the education that

goes beyond a high school education. And yet, as many as a quarter of our students aren't

even finishing high school. The quality of our math and science education lags behind many

other nations. America has fallen to ninth in the proportion of young people with a college

degree." In a similar way, Obama has also expressed his anxiety in the State of the Union

from 2010; so it seems evident that the words about the strength of the United states in the

field of education are only one of the rhetorical devices how to evoke the listener's interest,

pride and consequently mutual solidarity, unity and willingness to do something for their

might nation.

The speech was delivered at the year when no elections in the United States are

planned, so the overall tone is not so "swollen" as in that of previous year. It might be just

guessed that this kind of electioneering will have to be part of the speech of 2012 when the

election campaign will be more or less slowly in the progress.

 It is a relatively major effort to bring real stories to the listeners that could be found

instead of the clear electioneering in this State of the Union, though some hints of open

agitation could be found here as well. The allusion to the concrete, real people who wrote him

or who did some of the extraordinary fact makes the speech to be more attractive and

entertaining and therefore it suits better for media with their passion for such stories. It also

emphasizes an impression that the president of the United States is reading all letters that

American citizens have sent him or simply that he is not indifferent to the ordinary problems

of the ordinary people. An example of such presentation may be exemplified by this passage:

"one mother of two, a woman named Kathy Proctor, had worked in the furniture industry

since she was 18 years old. And she told me she's earning her degree in biotechnology now, at

55 years old, not just because the furniture jobs are gone, but because she wants to inspire her

children to pursue their dreams, too. As Kathy said: "I hope it tells them to never give up"." It

could be guessed whether such person really lived or whether she had said what Obama

proclaimed; nevertheless, it could be acknowledged that it might have an effect of successful

persuasion.

It must be added here, that also this transcript of the speech is noted down with all

marks of consensus, i.e. applause or laughter, as in the previous speech. Both speeches,

furthermore, resemble in the effort to explain some steps that have been done and the steps

that should be undertaken just in the future. However, as some of the steps, for instance in the

field of reform of US education system, have not been fully realized it seems that both

passages dealing with this topic are repeated in both speeches.

 3.2.2 Obama's Foreign Speeches

First of all it is beneficial to realize one simple and clearly logical thing but one that

should be born in mind: although the audience of all domestic speeches may slightly differ, it

has a common feature that it was consisted of the members of one nation. The foreign

speeches have also the common feature that they are simply devoted to foreign audience;

however, this audience consisted of the members of various nations each time. The approach

to these audiences might be probably influenced by different relationships of the United States

to different nations; however, for the purpose of this thesis, it is crucial to remember that all

speeches should be considered to be international and with this regard they are analyzed.

3.2.2.1 Remarks by President Obama at Strasbourg Town Hall;

This speech was delivered in front of a broader audience at Strasbourg’s sport Arena.

It thus follows that not only the official representatives of France were presented, but also

especially the young students. The most characteristic feature of the speech is not so much the

effort to take a greater fancy by using more humorous hints but rather the relatively high

degree of sincerity and concreteness.

At the beginning, however, the typical greeting cannot be omitted and also

commemorations of mutual bounds are overhauled. In this case, not only the relationships

with France, but ass the event took place in Strasbourg, the residence of European Union's

institutions, the American-European contacts were taken into consideration. It must be noted

that this commemoration was not too long and it was not especially original with comparison

of such nearly obligatory diplomatic remarks at the beginning of the majority foreign
speeches. These references to the past serve as the support for the encouragement in the

future, e.g.: “At the crossroads where we stand today, this shared history gives us hope - but it

must not give us rest. This generation cannot stand still. We cannot be content merely to

celebrate the achievements of the 20th century, or enjoy the comforts of the 21st century; we

must learn from the past to build on it success. We must renew our institution, our alliances.

We must seek the solutions to the challenges of this young century."

As it has been denoted a few lines earlier, the speech is quite remarkable by its will to

admit that these deeply rooted relationship among the United States and the whole Europe is

not without shadows and as good as it should to be: "Instead of celebrating your dynamic

union and seeking to partner with you to meet common challenges, there have been times,

where America shows arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive. But in Europe, there is

an Anti-Americanism that is at once casual, but can also be insidious". Such openness and

sincerity is not used so often in diplomatic speeches, usually due to the fact that politicians do

not make worse yet more unstable and uncertain bounds; with this notion in the mid, Obama's

attempt to describe and explain some misunderstandings might be appreciated. It also seems

that this approach was positively accepted by the members of Strasbourg’s audience who

expressed his position by burst of applause. All reactions of the audience are recorded in this

transcript of the speech as well.

Further in the speech, Obama tried to explain the reason of unpopular steps that

American government had been enterprising, such as the war in Afghanistan. In this case, true

sincerity was accompanied with a bit of enhancement, as in: "As president, I can tell you

there's no decision more difficult, there's no duty more painful, than signing a letter to the

family of somebody who has died in war." Although it truly would not be easy to do such a

thing, it may be hardly expected that the president has a deeper feeling towards the man who

has died, especially when the text of universal letters of this kind was written before this man
died nevertheless, of course, such matter is highly sensitive and may differ according to

individual presidents how they express their personal regret. It is understandable that Obama

said this but it was rather a bit of overused soothing.

At the end, Obama offers some space for the audience to ask him questions. His effort

to be familiar when he gave the space for the questioner to put him a question may be

appreciated positively as well as his immediate reaction o the questions. He was even

sometimes quite concrete, providing proves which American government had taken in order

to solve particular situation that he was been asked on.

3.2.2.2 Remarks by President Obama at a New Start Treaty Signing

Ceremony and Press Conference

As it has been stated in chapter 3.1, this Obama's speech is extraordinary in that

although it deals especially with America-Russian relationships, it was delivered on the so-

called neutral territory, in Prague, in the Czech Republic. This might cause an impression that

the speech seems to be a bit more formal than if it had been delivered on territory of one of

these two concerned countries. On the other hand, the ceremony of signing a New Start Treaty

was a formal occasion on its own as possible hardships had been negotiated in private long

before the final signature was made publically and therefore the whole ceremony act was just

a formal public demonstration of consensus that had been reached to. It is necessary to add

here that the act was consisted not only of Barack Obama speech but also the speech of

Dmitrij Medvedev, or, to say it more accurately, both politicians were taking turns. The

analysis, however, deals just with president Obama`s words. Furthermore, also this transcript

notes down all kind of reactions that come from the audience, however, unlike the case of
domestic State of the Union speeches, these reactions seem to be more natural and not

pretended, though they are not so frequent.

As a greeting Obama chose simple "Good morning". Then he followed with the

necessary formalities, for instance, to thank their Czechs hosts or to highlight the beauties of

the Czech Republic, Prague and Prague castle. The most interesting thing in this part of the

speech is that Obama says that the USA and the Czech Republic are old friends and that it is

not his first visit to the Czech Republic – this creates ethos – he shows involvement with and

in-group belonging with the audience.

Afterwards, Obama thanked also to president Medvedev to his will to come to an

agreement to mutual treaty. As all debates dealing with the topic were finished and al

conditions pre-negotiated, also this part of the speech may be marked only as a rhetorical

device which purpose is to show that mutual relationship between these two countries are

without any mutual disagreement. Of course, this is not fully true but the purpose is to present

it as such.

The speech as a whole tries to highlight the importance of the treaty that was signed up

on that day and to persuade others that it was only possible and right thing for the future as

both nations will continue in their effort to reduce their arsenal. Obama used sometimes

rhetorical clichés as: "When nations and peoples allow themselves to be defined by their

differences, the gulf between them widens. When we fail to pursue peace, then it stays forever

beyond our grasp." In order to persuade others, Obama, moreover, cited the words of Arcady

Brish, who helped build Soviet Union's atom bombs, that Brish delivered at the age of 92

years after seeing the horrors of world war II and cold war: "we hope humanity will reach the

moment when there is no need for nuclear weapons, when there is peace and calm in the

world."
 The goal to get rid of the superfluous arsenal is among those ones that would be

probably accepted by the majority of the world's population. However, the situation was not

so clear because both sides that had signed this treaty keep some reserve. Obama explained

this as such: "And as I've repeatedly said, I'm sure Dmitrij feels it the same way with respect

to his country, we are going to preserve our nuclear deterrent so long as other countries have

nuclear weapons, and we are going to make sure that that stockpile is safe and secure and

effective." When compared with these words, the preceding ones seem to be just a bit turgid.

On the other hand, it may be evaluated that although the use of some clichés both politicians

try to explain their standpoints by logical argumentation.

Finally, a small space for journalist's questions was left. It is possible to compare the

expressions which Obama had prepared before the speech with these words which were the

reactions on actual questions. It must be acknowledged that even these questions were

logically answered; on the other hand, it seems that they were more or less not such

persuasive as the language which he used resemble the ordinary language in the responses

that were answered immediately.

3.2.2.3 Remarks at the Meeting with Future Chinese Leaders

First of all, it must be noted that the speech was primarily devoted to the students

gathered at Museum and Technology in China. That might be reason why Obama tried to use

also a bit o humor in his speech so as in: "I’d also like to thank to outstanding Ambassador

Jon Huntsman, who exemplifies the deep ties and respect between our nations. I don't know

what he said, but I hope it was good." This reaction to the Chinese speaker whom Obama did

not understand helped to improve mutual relationships and evoked an immediate laughter.
The reactions from the audience are not so frequent here as in domestic speeches, however,

they seem to be really sincere and not pretended.

Though addressed to the students, the speech possesses qualities of true diplomatic

speeches. At the beginning, necessary thanksgiving and stressing out of very good

relationships among the United States and China appeared. Obama went even further to the

history and explained the mutual relationships as deeply rooted as far as the origin of the

United States in 18th century. Such adorations of reciprocal intercourses belong to common

features of diplomatic speeches; on the other hand, as China has become an important

economic partner for the United States especially in the last decades, it could be seen an

enormous effort to persuade all that Obama's words are meant seriously and sincerely. And

although Obama admitted that the relationships among these two countries had not always

been without some kind of misapprehensions, he described them all the time as the

misapprehensions in the past and did not say anything about possible misapprehensions in

recent days. Thus, it may be invoked an impression they do not exist; nevertheless, it was the

purpose because it is not appropriate to talk about troubles when the goal is to strengthen

unity and bilateral cooperation.

Obama chose a truly diplomatic approach when he was talking about immense

advantages of the Internet and the possibilities it brings with regards to the immediate and free

access to information. He, for instance, said: "China is now the largest Internet user - which is

why we were so pleased to include the Internet as a part of today's event. This country has the

world's largest mobile network, and it is investing in the new forms of energy that can both

sustain growth and combat - and I'm glad to deepening the partnership between the United

States and China in this critical area tomorrow. But above all, I see the China's future in you -

young people whose talent and dedication and dreams will do so much to shape the 21st

century". These honorable words, however, did not comment on the fact that the Chinese
regime limits free access to some kind of information; taking it all, Obama is often criticized

for ignoring the Chinese approach to this problem in order not to endanger economic

cooperation between these two countries. The message in this critical sense might be thus

found just in the hint of the future of Chinese young people. He is not even more concrete

when he answered the question whether the Chinese people would be able to use Twitter

freely. Though Obama promoted clearly free access of information in every country, he

simultaneously added that "different countries have different traditions". Therefore, he was a

highly cautious in this way.

Also the rest of the speech was marked by the effort to stress mutual good

relationships among China and The United States. The questions that followed after the

speech were answered with no special will to be more open. Though Obama proved that he is

a skilful speaker even when he was asked to answer the questions and thus react immediately

and though he tried to flatter all the questioners he left a considerable space for diplomatic

approach and so did not respond as openly as might be probably expected.

3.2.2.4 Remarks by President Obama at G20 Press Conference in Toronto,

From the speech devoted primarily to the journalists, it may be expected to be more

entertaining and not so serious; nevertheless, nearly the contrary is rather true. As the speech

is dealing not only with American-Canadian relationships but with G20 groups such serious

tone is quite appropriate. It does not, however, mean that no humorous hints are presented or

that the speech would be boring. Though the reactions from the audience are very sporadic

during the speech itself the members of the audience have the opportunity to put the question.

Furthermore, after the obligatory introductory necessities such as to thank for the

hospitality of Canada, Obama is omitting to comment on mutual relationships in history and

directly continues by depicting the main points of the speech, i.e. to explain the results of G20

meeting: "The G20 is now the premier forum for international economic cooperation. We

represent East and West, North and South, advanced economies and those still emerging. Our

challenges are as diverse as our nations. But we together represent some of 85 per cent of the

global economy, and we have forged a coordinated response to the worst global economic

crisis in our time". It is evident from these previous lines that the main concerns of the speech

itself are economic crisis and the solutions that are necessary to stifle it in international

economy and politics.

Obama is trying to suggest concrete solutions to the discussed problems and if he is

talking about the steps that have been done he is quite willing to explain particularities, such

as in: “That's why I've set the goal of doubling our exports over the next five years - an

increase that would support millions of jobs in the United States. It's why I've launched a

national export initiative to help meet this goal. It's why I've focused earlier this week on

deepening our economic cooperation with Russia - which would benefit both of our countries

- including restarting our poultry exports, and accelerating our efforts to Russia's entry into

WTO". Truly, passages like this one does not bring nothing specifically extraordinary or

something that would be marked as worth pointing in the future. On the other hand, it is rather

agreeable to see at least the attempt to reveal a bit of concrete actions. To be fair it must be,

however, reminded that also the general clichés have been proclaimed, e.g.: "Indeed, that's the

purpose of these meetings. We can bridge our differences. We can coordinate our approaches.

And we can continue our relentless focus on durable growth that puts our people to work and

broadens prosperity for the world". Dispassionateness, however, surpasses vapid persuasion.

The questions that have been written by members of the conference just before the

speech itself are quite smart and require smart answers. Yet Obama proves to be a skilful

speaker and is reacting quite immediately, though sometimes he must reformulate his original
idea by repeating the part of the sentence that has been just delivered or by starting a

completely new sentence.

3.2.2.5 Remarks by the President to Parliament in London

Though dedicated to the members of British Parliament, the speech was not only

diplomatic but, quite surprisingly, with relatively high portion of humor, especially at the

beginning when Obama aspired to gain the attention of his listeners. Of course, it is not

possible to say that the speech would lose its official tone; nevertheless, such approach

facilitates to make a better atmosphere. After the necessary direct greeting of all listeners in

the hall, Obama then quite obviously for this kind of speeches referred to the old tradition of

bilateral relationships among the United States and the United Kingdom. As he said: "Of

course, all relationships have their ups and downs. Admittedly, ours got off on the wrong foot

with a small scrape about tea and taxes". This hint invoked a bit of amusement and laughter in

the hall. Also in this case, all reactions of the audiences were transcribed and seem to be not

pretended as well.

The whole speech is, however, just a demonstration of values that both countries

support and advocate. It is just logical that these values are common; the United States came

into being on the grounds rooted in their former British colony. Both countries influence

nowadays each other in the areas of human rights and the rights of individuals, liberty and

democracy. The linkage is of course facilitated by the use of English as a common language.

The differences in opinions appeared and caused various misunderstanding, however, Obama

listed just those from the history and is rather not too concrete: "The path has never been

perfect. But through the struggles of slaves and immigrants, women and ethnic minorities, and

persecuted religions, we have learned better than most that the longing for freedom and
human dignity is not English or American or Western - it is universal and it beats in every

heart. Perhaps that's why there are few nations that stand firmer, speak louder and fight harder

to defend democratic values around the world than the United States and the United

Kingdom."

From earlier admission of some mutual misunderstandings Obama again returned the

point to the values that unify these two countries. It is a bit pity that he was not more concrete

and seemed to have a fear to express some of contemporary themes to which both countries

differ in their opinions and apprehensions of situation.

The purpose of the speech was, indeed, not only to reaffirm that both countries create

a long-standing coalition of loyal allies but, moreover, to persuade themselves and especially

even other countries that their values and conception of international organization in the world

should be followed even by countries who honor and advocate different system of values. In

such cases, Obama rejected such different values and, speaking for the citizens of these

countries, even promoted this suggestion: "What we saw, what we are seeing in Tehran, in

Tunis, in Tahrir Square is a longing for the same freedom that we take for granted here at

home. It was a rejection of the notion that people in certain parts of the world don't want to be

free or need to have democracy imposed upon them. It was a rebuke to the worldview of al

Qaeda, which smothers the rights of individuals, and would thereby subject them to perpetual

poverty and violence". Surely, it is true that citizens of these countries might have such

dreams as to be free, all states, including the USA and the UK, promote in terms of the

international politics their own interests at the first place. It is evident that Obama's focus of

human rights conception is less appealing for instance in case of China on which the United

States is partially dependent.

The speech as a whole does not show something surprising, it is accompanied by

clichés such as:: "Let there be no doubt: The United States and United Kingdom stand
squarely on the side of those who long to be free. And now, we must show that we will back

up those words with deeds". Obama is admitting that the old alliance between the US and the

UK should be slightly reshaped, however, he is not too concrete besides the fact he stressed

the need for the support of the free market enterprise, i.e. again to promote one of the most

basic cores of the United States.

3.3 Comparison of the speeches

In previous chapters, all speeches were described and commented on by qualitative

approach. Such analysis, however, sometimes incline to be a bit subjective. This is the main

reason why, in the following chapters, all speeches are evaluated also by quantitative

approach. The aim is to find out, on the base of particular paragraphs, Obama's approach to

the domestic and foreign audience and to trace possible similarities or differences.

The focus is put on the main goal or intention of these paragraphs and whether the

stress is put on persuasion by presenting the facts from the past, description of recent situation

or the steps that have been done and have affected the time of the speech itself, promises for

the future or various proposals; moreover, the concern of analysis is also focused on

investigation of the usage of reference, inference or entailment in order to gain more interest

of the audience to act accordingly to Obama`s will. Entailment is a common feature of

political speeches because it facilitates highlighting of particular information; therefore, the

purpose is to compare whether Obama is also able to manage sometimes even without it. By

reference, it is understood speaking about concrete people, steps or actions and by inference,

on the other side, general hints to unnamed people or common traits or features of particular

group or nation, such as in the statement: “We have fought fiercely for our beliefs. And that’s

a good thing. That`s what a robust democracy demands. That`s what helps set us apart as a
nation“. There is no reference to concrete actions or people and thus the message of this

passage must be inferred or decode. The aim is therefore to Compare how the explicitness

differs in all Obama`s speeches as well.

The results are presented not only as the counts of the paragraphs, but, more

practically, especially to the fact that not all speeches have the same length, also in per cents.

All results are summarized in particular tables as well. The results in per cents are always

approximated to centesimal numbers.

3.3.1 Comparison of Obama’s domestic speeches

President Obama's victory speech contains all features that would be expected in such

speech: acknowledgements to everybody who helped him win his battle, projection of the

general past events that help to bound US citizens together, retelling of a concrete story,

general promises to the future and some general proposals. In other words, all examined

features could be found here. All results are summarized in tables 1-3.

More than four fifths of paragraphs, concretely 26 of total 30 and therefore 86.67 per

cent, contain entailment. As it has been stressed out the use of entailment belongs to the key

features of political speeches; and as Obama's presidential carrier was only starting at that

time, it could hardly surprise that he used it so frequently. He probably wanted to support his

arguments more emphatically.

A significant space in the speech is occupied by retelling of the story of 106 years old

Ann Nixon Cooper and listing of significant changes that the United States have gone through

this time. Above all, this influences especially the fact that the proportion of the paragraphs

with reference and inference is totally rated by 50 per cent, i.e. exactly 15 paragraphs with

reference to the rest 15 paragraphs with inference. Although the paragraphs in the passage
dealing with the story of Ann Nixon Cooper are marked as explicit and based on the past

event, it must be repeated here again what has been commented on in chapter 3.2.1: Obama

wanted to gain the sympathy of the audience by stressing of the steps that he personally could

not influence yet; the whole passage may thus also evoke the impression of generality.

Retelling of the story also raises the overall number of paragraphs dealing with the

past events. This thus reaches 11 paragraphs, i.e. 36.67 per cent. As the number of paragraphs

dedicated to the contemporary situation is 10 of 30, i.e. one third, it is quite surprising that

promises and proposals occur altogether in 10 paragraphs, i.e. again only in one third of

paragraphs.

Table 1: Themes in Obama’s Victory Speech

Prevailing theme Paragraph(s) Per cent

Past time 11 36.67%

Present time 9 30.00%

Promise 5 16.67%

Proposal 5 16.67%

Table 2: Entailment in Obama`s Victory Speech

Entailment Paragraph(s) Per cent

Yes 26 86.67%

No 4 13.13
 Table 3: Explicitness in Obama`s Victory Speech

Explicitness Paragraph]s] Percent

Reference 15 50.00%

Inference 15 50.00%

The occurrence of Entailment is the most characteristic feature of Obama's inaugural

speech as well. It appears also in 26 paragraphs; however, as inaugural speech consists of 31

paragraphs, entailment is represented in a slightly less per cents than in the previous case,

concretely in 83.87 per cent of paragraphs. Both speeches are from the beginning of Obama's

presidential career and therefore they may trace the very similar aims, such resemblance of

presence of entailment does not have to be perceived as something too much extraordinary.

Both speeches, however, differs more significantly in the proportion of their

paragraphs with inference and reference. Unlike equal proportion of these features in victory

speech, in his inaugural speech, on the contrary, Obama is speaking about general topics in 23

paragraphs, which means 74.19 per cent. This result may be considered to be more expected

in such kind of speech, and as he is not talking about one topic so long as in the case of Nixon

Cooper`s story in victory speech, it seems to be also more presumable because he has not yet

made such significant steps which he could have tried to show or explain.

The difference might be seen also in the proportion of topics. The most prominent

range of paragraphs is dealing with the present events. Obama is talking about them in 48.39

per cent of paragraphs. The rest 16 paragraphs thus make just a bit more than one half of the

whole speech and yet are divided among the remaining topics. The main attention dealing

with past events is represented in 8 paragraphs which is the same range as the number of

paragraphs dealing with promises and proposals together. In other words, it is 25.81 per cent

in each case.
 The results of features in Obama`s inaugural speech are summarized in the following

tables 4-6.

Table 4: Themes in Obama`s Inaugural Speech

Prevailing theme Paragraph(s) Per cent

Past time 8 25.81%

Present time 15 48.39%

Promise 3 9.68%

Proposal 5 16.13%

Table 5: Entailment in Obama`s Inaugural Speech

Entailment Paragraph(s) Per cent

Yes 26 83.87%

No 5 16.13%

Table 6: Explicitness in Obama`s Inaugural Speech

Explicitness Paragraph(s) Per cent

Reference 8 25.81%

Inference 23 74.19%

Barack Obama's address to the joint session of US congress represents rather a

different kind of speech. First of all, the speech is much longer than two previous ones;

nevertheless, the speech also differentiates in other aspects. Tables 7-9 bring together their

summary.
 The most characteristic feature of this speech is relatively high degree of concreteness.

Altogether 59 paragraphs refer to concrete entities, i.e. 64.84 per cent. The speech thus brings

much more information that could be marked as helpful in order to draw a clearer picture of

Barack Obama's intentions.

Also in this case, entailment is a feature that appears in the majority of paragraphs,

however, its occurrence is significantly lower than in two previous cases. Only 51.65 per cent

of paragraphs uses it, which means 47 of 91. This result supports the suggestion that the

whole speech is more informative and does not need just to focus on inexplicit hints.

As far as the topics are concerned, the number of paragraphs dealing with present

situation and paragraphs dealing with promises together with proposals is the same, i.e. 38. It

means 41.76 per cent in both cases. This result influences especially a higher occurrence of

promises in 29 paragraphs, i.e. 31.87 per cent of the whole speech.

Table 7: Themes in Obama`s Address to the Joint Session of Congress

Prevailing theme Paragraph(s) Per cent

Past time 15 16.48%

Present time 38 41.76%7

Promise 29 31.87%

Proposal 9 9.90%

Table 8: Entailment in Obama`s Address to the Joint Session of Congress

Entailment Paragraph(s) Per cent

Yes 47 51.65%

No 44 48.35%
 Table 9: Explicitness in Obama`s Address to the Joint Session of

Congress

Explicitness Paragraph(s) Per cent

Reference 59 64.84%

Inference 32 35.16%

In terms of the number of paragraphs, Barack Obama's state of the union 2010 address

is the longest speech not only among the domestic speeches, but in the whole corpus of

speeches. It consists of 105 paragraphs. Their overview is summarized in tables 10-12.

The raising tendency to refer to concrete entities is also among the characteristic

features of state of the union 2010 address. Explicitness appears in 60 paragraphs and that

means 57.14 per cent. Obama spent the first year in his office and thus might introduce more

concrete steps that he had made during this time. Moreover, also his promises have solider

background and clearer features. These facts thus may explain such high degree of explicit

references.

Unlike the address to the congress, the usage of entailment is again a component of the

significant amount of paragraphs. Entailment appears in 75 paragraphs, i.e. in 71.43 per cent.

Although this number is a bit lower than in the first two speeches, such high occurrence

confirms the suggestion that the use of entailment belongs to the key characteristics of

political speeches.

For the first time in this research, the promises together with proposals reach a high

degree of occurrence. Some kind of promise or proposal for the future occurs in 45

paragraphs; it means more than two fifths of them, concretely 42.85 per cent. Yet the highest

occurrence is again reached by speaking about the current situation itself, it dominates in 41

paragraphs, i.e. 39.05 per cent.

 Table 10: Themes in Obama`s State of the Union 2010

Prevailing theme Paragraph(s) Per cent

Past time 19 18.10%

Present time 41 39.05%

Promise 23 21.90%

Proposal 22 20.95%

Table 11: Entailment in Obama`s State of the Union 2010

Entailment Paragraph(s) Per cent

Yes 75 71.43%

No 30 28.57%

Table 12: Explicitness in Obama`s State of the Union 2010

Explicitness Paragraph(s) Per cent

Reference 60 57.14%

Inference 45 42.86%

Nearly coincident proportion of occurrence of paragraphs with reference and inference

might be traced in Barrack Obama's states of the union for the years 2010 and 2011. In the

later one, 61 paragraphs refer to concrete entities, and this means 58.65 per cent. The rest 43

of total 104 paragraphs try to strengthen the mutual unity by referring inexplicitly to people or

events and therefore, the hidden message has to be inferred by the audience. The resemblance

among the two states of the union addresses enforces the theory that such speeches are

relatively concrete and informative and not just merely persuasive.

 The similarity among these two states of the union addresses might be seen also in the

case of occurrence of entailment. State of the union 2011 address consists of 71 paragraphs

where entailment is represented. In other words, only 31.73 per cent of paragraphs manage

entirely without it.

A relatively high degree of proposals in this speech is quite surprising. In other words,

26 paragraphs, and this is directly one quarter of them, contains some kind of proposal. Yet

together with various promises, they reach just 49.04 per cent and therefore do not prevail in

the speech. Also in this case, referring to the current events is the most favorable theme, it

occurs in 41 paragraphs, i.e. 39.42 per cent. Tables 13-15 bring together summary.

Table 13: Themes in Obama`s State of the Union 2011

Prevailing theme Paragraph(s) Per cent

Past time 12 11.54%

Present time 41 39.42%

Promise 24 24.04%

Proposal 26 25.00%

Table 14: Entailment in Obama`s State of the Union 2011

Entailment Paragraph(s) Per cent

Yes 71 68.27%

No 33 31.73%
 Table 15: Explicitness in the State of the Union 2011

Explicitness Paragraph(s) Per cent

Reference 61 58.65%

Inference 43 41.35%

3.3.2 Comparison of Obama`s Foreign Speeches

As it has been pointed out, Obama`s foreign speeches come not only from various

countries but they were also intended for various events and audience. This is the reason why

not only Obama himself but also the others were speaking; nevertheless, the parts of the

transcripts of these other speakers were not taken into consideration. Therefore, the parts of

the transcript where, for instance, the speech of Victor Medvedev or the question of the

member of the audience is recorded, were not analyzed and included in total number of

analyzed paragraphs. Moreover, also Obama`s instructions for the audience or his greetings

were omitted from overall analysis as well.

Obama`s speech in Strasbourg’s Town Hall bring together results that confirm some

suggestions that are valid also for his domestic speeches; on the other hand, some features are

rather specific only for this speech. The results are summarized in tables 16-18.

Also for this speech, the most characteristic feature is the use of entailment in the

majority of paragraphs. Some pieces of information are stressed out by this language device in

54 paragraphs of total 84, which means 64.29 per cent. Yet the result indicates that its use

does not reach the score of some of Obama` domestic speeches.

The speech intends to be a relatively concrete and informative. In 49 paragraphs,

Obama is trying to provide and explain concrete facts that might not be clear or that should be
highlighted. The speech thus does not offer just plain hints to the past, simple proposals or

promises. Yet even inexplicit hints are represented and occur in the rest 41.67 per cent of

paragraphs. The explicitness is therefore distinctive for approximately three fifths of

paragraphs.

Although the speech is mainly concrete, it is also a quite persuasive. The majority of

paragraphs, concretely 45, try to promise or propose some Obama's future steps. Especially

proposals are quite frequent, they appear in 41.67 per cent of paragraphs. Yet, as it has been

previously pointed out, Obama efforts to introduce concrete problems which he want to solve.

The second most represented theme is pointing to the present situation. It occurs in 28

paragraphs, which also means one third of them in the whole speech. However, this fact is not

such surprising as these hints were frequent also in Obama's domestic speeches.

Table 16: Themes in Obama’s Speech in France

Prevailing theme Paragraph(s) Per cent

Past 11 13.10%

Present 28 33.33%

Promise 10 11.90%

Proposal 35 41.67%

Table 17: Entailment in Obama`s Speech in France

Entailment Paragraph(s) Per cent

Yes 54 64.29%

No 30 35.71%
 Table 18: Explicitness in Obama`s Speech in France

Explicitness Paragraph(s) Per cent

Reference 49 58.33%

Inference 35 41.67%

Barack Obama` speech at New Start Treaty meeting was significantly shorter than the

previous speech. It consists of just 43 paragraphs. Yet it is possible to trace some general

features. Their summary is compiled in tables 19-21.

First of all, this speech is characterized by yet more degree of explicitness than it was in previous
speech. Together, 30 paragraphs intend to bring concrete information or description of necessary steps.
In other words, it is more than two thirds of paragraphs, exactly 69.77 per cent. As it has been
mentioned in the description of this speech, all discussed problems and issues were negotiated and
agreed on prior to this final signing of the treaty so both politicians were not afraid to speak openly.
Conversely, the main purpose of this meeting was to acquaint with their aims also uninitiated laymen.
However, Obama`s purpose was not to talk about the past. Although the reference to present situation
is a component of the most of paragraphs, concretely 17, i.e. 39.53 per cent, also various proposals and
especially promises appear nearly in the half of the paragraphs. Together, they appear in 21, and
promises on their own in 14 paragraphs; therefore, the occurrence of promises reaches 32.56 per cent.
The speech is thus quite persuasive; yet this does not mean that these promises or proposals are just
unclear and not concrete. Conversely, the explicitness together with persuasiveness is a common
feature of both foreign speeches which have been so far analyzed.
In this speech, entailment occurs in 28 paragraphs, i.e. 65.12 per cent. Again, these numbers support
the hypothesis that entailment is a necessary component of political speeches.

Table 19: Themes in Obama`s Speech in the Czech Republic

Prevailing theme Paragraph(s) Per cent

Past 5 11.63%

Present 17 39.53%

Promise 14 32.56%

Proposal 7 16.28%
 Table 20: Entailment in Obama`s Speech in the Czech Republic

Entailment Paragraph(s) Per cent

Yes 28 65.12%

No 15 34.88%

Table 21: Reference in Obama`s Speech in the Czech Republic

Explicitness Paragraph(s) Per cent

Reference 30 69.77%

Inference 13 30.23%

Obama's speech for Chinese students is again a longer one, it consists of 72

paragraphs. Tables 22-24 bring together complete results of occurrence of particular features.

Unlike two previous speeches, this one belongs to those which message is not so clear

and precisely stated. Statements that just offer such inexplicit message appear in 42

paragraphs, which is 58.33 per cent. This result approves the validity of the description of this

speech in chapter 3.2.3. It means that Obama was rather cautious and he carefully chose what

to say and how.

Reference to present situation is also in this case the prevailing theme. Current topics

appear in 45 paragraphs, i.e. 62.50 per cent. On the contrary, promises occur only in 8

paragraphs. When speaking about the future, Obama rather prefers offering some kind of

proposal in this case. Proposals thus appear in 12 paragraphs, which is 16.67 per cent. Such

approach confirms the suggestion that Obama tried to be very cautious.

A high degree of inexplicit statements is supported also by more frequent use of

entailment. Obama uses it in 55 paragraphs, which is more than three quarters of them,

exactly 76.39 per cent of all paragraphs. The persuasiveness of this speech is therefore rather
based on highlighting of particular part of the statement. And it is mainly on the audience to

decode the message or to find what Obama had in the mind when he was speaking.

Table 22: Themes in Obama`s Speech in China

Prevailing theme Paragraph(s) Per cent

Past 9 12.50%

Present 45 62.50%

Promise 6 8.33%

Proposal 12 16.67%

Table 23: Entailment in Obama`s Speech in China

Entailment Paragraph(s) Per cent

Yes 55 76.39%

No 17 23.61%

Table 24: Explicitness in Obama`s Speech in China

Explicitness Paragraph(s) Per cent

Reference 30 41.67%

Inference 42 58.33%

Obama's speech in China seems to be rather a bit exceptional as the speech that he

delivered in Canada again resembles more the other foreign speeches that have been analyzed

so far. This resemblance is either in the explicitness or occurrence of entailment. Tables 25-27

summary all aspects of this speech.

 The speech is extraordinarily explicit as the reference to concrete events or steps has

reached the highest rate so far, i.e. 86.93 per cent. In other words, only 9 paragraphs of 69

contain the message that is not concrete and must be inferred. The speech thus offers a

considerable amount of information.

Again, this does not mean that Obama describes only the steps that he has made or

topics that deal only with present situation. Conversely the highest rate is reached by

paragraphs with proposals. They occur in 24 paragraphs, i.e. 34.78 per cent. Together with

another 13 paragraphs with promises, the hints to the future reach even the majority of the

paragraphs. Obama`s attention to present situation was focused on in 31.88 per cent of

paragraphs. The speech is therefore quite persuasive and simultaneously informative. These

features have prevailed in the majority of so far analyzed speeches.

A high proportion of explicitness is again accompanied by lower occurrence of

entailment. Although it again appears in the majority of paragraphs, it is just 56.52 per cent of

paragraphs, which is a bit less than in previous examples.

Table 25: Themes in Obama`s Speech in Canada

Prevailing theme Paragraph(s) Per cent

Past 10 14.49%

Present 22 31.88%

Promise 13 18.84%

Proposal 24 34.78%
 Table 26: Entailment in Obama`s Speech in Canada

Entailment Paragraph(s) Per cent

Yes 39 56.52%

No 30 43.48%

Table 27: Explicitness in Obama`s Speech in Canada

Explicitness Paragraph(s) Per cent

Reference 60 86.96%

Inference 9 13.07%

Finally, Obama`s speech in the United Kingdom would be analyzed. Generally, all

analyzed aspects reach rather average rates. The results are summarized in tables 28-30.

The speech is again quite explicit, Obama talks about concrete steps in 29 of 51 paragraphs.

Yet another 43.14 per cent of paragraphs consist of the statements where the message should be

inferred. Reference and inference are therefore quite balanced in this speech.

The use of entailment is also in this case the most characteristic feature of the speech. It occurs

in 39 paragraphs, i.e. 76.47 per cent of them. Yet its occurrence does not reach the highest rate of the

speeches that were analyzed. This results also particularly confirms the suggestion that the speeches

that are too explicit does not rely so much on entailment and vice versa.

The hints to the present situation occur in 19 paragraphs, i.e. 37.25 per cent. Thus, they are

again the most represented topic. On the other hand, promises and proposals appear together in 22

paragraphs. Therefore, the effort to persuade others about the future steps is also in this case the main

purpose of the speech. This result is influenced especially by various proposals which appear in 16

paragraphs, i.e. 31.37 per cent of them.

 Table 28: Themes in Obama`s Speeches in the United Kingdom

Prevailing theme Paragraph(s) Per cent

Past 10 19.61%

Present 19 37.25%

Promise 6 11.76%

Proposal 16 31.37%

Table 29: Entailment in Obama`s Speech in the United Kingdom

Entailment Paragraph(s) Per cent

Yes 39 76.47%

No 12 23.53%

Table 30: Explicitness in Obama`s Speech in The United Kingdom

Explicitness Paragraph(s) Per cent

Reference 29 56.86%

Inference 22 43.14%
 4 COMPARISON AND CONCLUSION

The theoretical part of this thesis brought together some theoretical concepts and

theories that are helpful in order to understand better all aspects of discourse analysis. The

first part of the practical part then tried to introduce and describe all speeches from the corpus.

These descriptions was afterwards followed by comparison of the prevalence of topics,

reference or inference and the using or omitting of the entailment. This conclusion therefore

summarize these final findings.

The most prevailing feature inn all of the analyzed speeches was a remarkable

occurrence of entailment. In all speeches, it appears in more than a half of their paragraphs.

Concretely, its occurrence oscillates among 86.67 per cent to 51.65 per cent paragraphs in

domestic speeches and among 76.47 per cent to 56.52 per cent of paragraphs in foreign

speeches. Entailment could be particularly characterized as a more typical feature of domestic

speeches; yet there are significant differences as, for instance, Obama's victory and inaugural

speeches are quite extraordinary in this sense and resemble a bit to an oath. Therefore, the use

of entailment might be influenced also by other factors, such as the explicitness of the

speeches. It might be particularly stated a rule: the more concrete the speech is, the less use of

entailment would occur in it and vice versa. Table 31 bring together complete summary.
 Table 31: Entailment in all Speeches

Speech Event Entailment No Entailment

Victory Speech 86.67% 13.33%

Inaugural Speech 83.87% 16.13%

Address to the Congress 51.65% 48.35%

State of the Union 2010 71.43% 28.57%

State of the Union 2011 68.27% 31.73%

Speech in France 64.29% 35.71%

Speech in the CZ Rep. 65.12% 34.88%

Speech in china 76.39% 23.61%

Speech in Canada 56.52% 43.48%

Speech in the UK 76.47% 23.53%

The speeches are a bit more distinctive in the case of their explicitness. Domestic

speeches are explicit from 25.81 per cent of paragraphs in inaugural speech to 64.84 per cent

of paragraphs in Obama's address to the US Congress in 2009. In other words, factualness is

prevailing feature in all speeches except inaugural speech, which is again a bit extraordinary.

Also foreign speeches vary significantly, as the most factual speech in Canada reaches 86.96

per cent of paragraphs with reference and the most inexplicit speech in China consists of just

41.67 per cent of paragraphs with reference to concrete events or people; the speech in China

is also the only from foreign ones where inference prevails over reference. Therefore, it might

be suggested that although the majority of all speeches was predominantly concrete, the

explicitness of speeches depends more on particular situation than on the fact whether it is

domestic or foreign speech. Table 32 brings together a summary.

 Table 32: Explicitness in all Speeches

Speech Event Reference Inference

Victory Speech 50.00% 50.00%

Inaugural Speech 25.81% 74.19%

Address to the Congress 64.84% 35.16%

State of the Union 2010 57.14% 42.86%

State of the Union 2011 58.65% 41.35%

Speech in France 58.33% 41.67%

Speech in the CZ Rep. 69.74% 30.23%

Speech in China 41.67% 58.33%

Speech in Canada 86.96% 13.04%

Speech in the UK 56.86% 43.14%

In the category of prevailing theme, it seems that the most preferred is speaking about

the present situation. Obama talks about it among 30 to 48.35 per cent of paragraphs in

domestic speeches and among 31.88 to 62.50 per cent paragraphs in foreign speeches. It is

quite surprising that the most significant difference in domestic speeches is among Obama`s

victory and inaugural speeches, i.e. speeches that might be expected to be quite similar. The

explanation is, however, quite simple: As it has been already pointed out the significant space

in Obama`s victory speech is dedicated to the story of Ann Nixon Cooper which also

influenced the amount of paragraphs dealing with the past events and explicitness of the

speech as well.

In the rubric of promises, differences between domestic and foreign speeches were not so

significant. Promises occur among 9.68 to 31.87 per cent in domestic speeches and among 8.33 to

32.56 per cent in foreign ones. It is thus evident that the results are more or less similar. Major
differences might be traced in the rubric of proposals, where their occurrence in domestic speeches

oscillates among 9.90 to 25 per cent, while in foreign ones it oscillates among 16.68 to 41.67 per cent.

Foreign speeches are thus aimed to more proposals than domestic ones. A complete summary is put

together in table 33.

Table 33: Themes in all Speeches

Speech Event Past Present Promise Proposal

Victory 36.67% 30.00% 16.67% 16.67%

Inauguration 25.81% 48.39% 9.68% 16.13%

Congress 2009 16.48% 41.78% 31.87% 9.90%

SU 2010 18.10% 39.05% 21.90% 20.95%

SU 2011 11.54% 39.42% 24.04% 25.00%

France 13.10% 33.33% 11.90% 41.67%

Czech Republic 11.63% 39.53% 32.56% 16.28%

China 12.50% 62.50% 8.33% 16.67%

Canada 14.49% 31.88% 18.84% 34.78%

United Kingdom 19.61% 37.25% 11.76% 31.37%

As the results have shown The main device of persuasion is entailment because it

prevails in all of the speeches. And although there are some differences between speeches it

seems that these differences are influenced predominantly by particular occasion or event than

purely by the fact whether the speech is domestic or foreign one. The analysis thus approved

the hypothesis which was stated at the beginning of the practical part of this thesis.
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