Speech Analysis:

“Does The Community Care”

The given text is a speech written by Princess Diana of Wales, which highlights the wrongdoings
of society and the lack of corporation between individuals and society giving rise to stigmatized
problems like the labelling of people. The primary audience of this speech is every member of
society, and the secondary audience are people impacted by societal flaws like inequality in
resources, labelling, and more. The speech's purpose is to spark a notion of a socially enhanced
society where collaboration plays a key role in the development of individuals' mental and
physical health, a utopian idea. This essay will focus on the techniques used by the speaker to
make the audience feel a change in the responsibilities they need to tend to in society which in
the speakers perspective creates a good notion of a utopian society.
In the given text, the speaker begins by saying “For many people of our society,” The use of this
statement in the very beginning develops a connect between the speaker and the audience, which
means that this is a direct hook, that grabs the attention of the audience, while establishing the
degree of importance of this speech. This way, the reflective and serious mindset of the reader is
triggered.

As the speech progressed, the speaker mentions a tricolon “Not one of the people I’ve met has
hurt, was rude to me or treated me as I was mad!” This is a statement that uses pathos, where the
speaker addresses the fact that none of the people, she met treated her as mad woman, was rude
or hurt he, serving as a wakeup call statement that proves that fact that people have incorrect
judgement about these people and hence refuse to cooperate. Furthermore, the tricolon has a
heavy impact with emotional baggage since it is easy to remember, but because of the imposition
of the message that people have wrong judgements about each other, there is a certain guilt that
is felt by the reader.

Deeper into the speech, that guilt built by the above-mentioned statement is further exploited
when the speaker mentions “But again the wheel of ignorance, fear, prejudice spins to
condemn.” This acts like alcohol on wound, the feelings of guilt that were once exploited in the
audience, is dug into even deeper. The use of diction such as ignorance, prejudice and fear
invalidate the opinions of the audience, making them feel weaker. Associating this with the
action of condemnation uses the social responsibility theory, where people assume that many
other people can help an individual, why do I have to be the one to help. This statement uses the
idea that people should have a certain degree of responsibility to help others become more
mature. The idea of mentioning that they fear the people who have needed help serves as a
reference to the fact they bear the responsibilities of their own actions. Earlier, when the speaker
mentioned most of the people put into longstay instituitions need not even be there if we could
help them. This indirectly implies that because we did not help them, they have done something
we fear might affect us and so now we hate them, which has in turn resulted to a sense of guilt
upon the realization that people have done something wrong and have changed the true nature of
an innocent and sane person to an alleged monster who we call the damned or the sinner, or the
insane.

To conclude, the given text is made very effective since it uses techniques that focused on the
emotions built up internally of the reader. The devices act like something that add more fire to
gasoline. It exploits the negative emotions like guilt, fear, shame, and irresponsibility in the
audience to make them feel a heavier obligation to be more prosocial in society which in turn,
triggers the reflective mood of the audience making them question their purpose in life and the
responsibility they have evaded in society leading to urges that make them think more about
what they could do better in society. Indirectly, this reffered by the speaker, as she mentions the
coorperation in society has to be better and the resources have to be shared which is left as a
lingering expectation of a superior person in their subconscious mind eventually sparking a
revolt by the audience in the wrongdoings of people, thereby making it effective as a speech on
social responsibilities that could possibly create a utopian society where prosocial behavior is
promoted more openly.