alvin sumbulsresponsetorhetoricalanalysis

7/30/2019 Alvin SumbulsResponsetoRhetoricalAnalysis

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Alvin Nella

Rhetorical Analysis

9/18/12

FOUR MORE YEARS

The Democratic National Convention (DNC) is a special time of year for the Democratic

Party. Its a time ofexcitement and acknowledgment for who is going to represent the

Democratic Party for the coming election. As the DNC took place, there were many key speakers

for the event. However, there was one key speaker who stood out from the rest, President Bill

Clinton. Clinton had an inspirational, yet factual speech about why President Barack Obama

should be re-elected for another term of presidency. There were many techniques which

President Clinton used to engage the audience in his speech. His styles of persuading were

exactly what the Democratic Delegates wanted to hear, and every word was to their interest.

First, President Clinton was one of the most successful presidents to have ever

represented the people of the United States of America. It was quite an honor for President

Obama to have a key note speaker with a great deal of respect by the American people. Although

he is already a well-known man, Clinton decides to talk about some things he did as governor

before taking office. I worked with President Reagan in his White House on the first round of

welfare reform and with President George H.W. Bush on national education goals (FOX 2-3).

President Clinton establishes his Ethos, or trustworthiness, from the beginning of his speech. He

wants the Delegates, as well as the American people watching on television, to know that he has

been in President Obamas situation before.


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Also, Clinton decided to woo the audiences emotions by proclaiming what the

Republican Party is negatively aiming towards. He says, They want to cut taxes for high-

income Americans even more than President Bush did (FOX 5). For any American, performing

an act worse than what President George W. Bush did is complete foolishness. The audiences

Pathos, or emotion level, boosted from this very statement, causing citizens around the nation to

question the Republican Party even more.

President Clinton used many versions of propaganda throughout his speech in order to

reach out to the Democratic Delegates. To do this, he used some of the devices explained in

How to Detect Propaganda fromExploring Language (13th Edition). He used devices such as

Glittering Generalities and Plain Folks (Goshgarian 429-30). Clinton used Glittering

Generalities to create hope within the Delegates. He spoke with virtue words about how

Obama would bring back justice to America and Americans would go back to work. He said,

Investments in education and infrastructure and scientific and technological research increase

growth (FOX 2). President Clinton says this to allow the Delegates to think that Obama will be

doing this for the next four years. The use of Clintons virtue words helped the Delegates to be

engaged in his speech, causing an eruption of applause.

Next, Plain Folks was another propaganda device that President Clinton used in order to

appear as if President Obama were one of the Delegates. The use of Plain Folks allows Obama to

be a regular working American, standing up for the rights of his fellow citizens. It was the key

device which caused the Delegates to believe that President Obama was being re-elected for each

of them. Clinton would state, Supporting our veterans when they came home, lowers the cost

of federal student loans, millions of seniors are receiving preventive care, a lot of that money

is spent to help people with disabilities (FOX 4-9). Within all of these statements, President


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Clinton reaches out to each member of his audience as if he was talking to them individually.

Allowing President Obama to appear as if he was situated in each individuals shoes, President

Clinton did a fine job scoring attention throughout his speech.

To follow up, President Clinton used a device which can never be proven wrong,

statistics. The Logos, or logic, of Clintons speech came with correcting the Republicans claim

that the United States is not better off than we were four years ago. He says, We were losing

750,000 jobs a month, The Recovery Act saved or created millions of jobs and cut taxes for 95

percent of the American people (FOX 5-6). With this kind of information, President Clinton

was able to fight for Obamas case. He was able to inform the American people how and why the

state of our nation is better than it was four years ago.

These devices that President Clinton used were clearly effective as all of the Delegates

were shouting out the words to Clintons speech before he even reached them. Although the

Republicans were right about some aspects, President Clinton made sure his speech would

disregard all of their statements. He was confident his speech would influence the Delegates and

the American people to vote for Obama. There was no better way than to end his speech by

saying, My fellow Americans, if that is what you want, if that is what you believe, you must re-

elect President Barack Obama (FOX 13). With the right usage of oratorical devices and

rhetorical ideas, President Clinton had constructed the most inspirational speech at the

Democratic National Convention.

Alvin, this rhetorical analysis has a lot of potential; by that I mean, you can (and should) revise

it, because with a little bit more organization and a stronger claim, this paper can be really

effective! [ ]

Some things to consider:


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You organize your thoughts pretty well, beginning with an intro, then moving into Clintons

appeal to ethos and pathos, his use of propaganda devices, and his appeal to logos. As you

revise this, Id like for you to think about how your discussion of the various propaganda

devices fit into the critical vocabulary weve been developing. Does his use of the glittering

generalities device appeal to his audiences emotions? Does it use logic? Once youve answered

the question Can this fall under the category of an appeal to ethos, pathos, or logos? you willimmediately recognize how to better link your paragraphs together and transition between

them.

Also, where do these paragraphs fit within your larger argument? What is your larger

argument? Your main argument seems to be that President Clinton had constructed the most

inspirational speech of the convention. Alright... so what? What I would like for you to think

about as you revise this is how you can make an argument by using your analysis of Clintons

use of devices and rhetorical appeals as support. This can be done by keeping your audience in

mind and writing for them. Why should your readers care that Clintons speech contains strong

logic and tons of statistics? You tell them what you want them to know now, why do you want

them to know it? What do they need to know in order for them to do what you want them to

do? (What do you want them to do?)

You can try to read this as the reader yourself (instead of the writer/student in college). If you

were reading this analysis as an article in the NY Times, what more would you want to know? In

any article I read, very early on Id like to know why the writer is bringing things up. Why are

you discussing Clintons use of certain propaganda devices? So what if he uses glittering

generalities? Why should that matter to the reader?

Perhaps you can delve into the reasoning behind Clintons choice of topics and words (the

economy; bring back justice; stand up for the rights of ordinary citizens etc.)? Or why hefocuses on himself a lot (and what that does rhetorically). View Clintons speech in a new light.

Pursue an angle that readers may not think about immediately.

You can always speak to me during my office hours or set up an appointment to go over your

work. Im happy to go over drafts or help with brainstorming. Let me know if you have any

questions or concerns.

Good luck!

Sumbul

Bibliography


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1. "Transcript of Bill Clinton's Speech at the DNC." Fox News. FOX News Network, 05Sept. 2012. Web. 20 Sept. 2012

.

2. Goshgarian, Gary.Exploring Language. Thirteenth ed. Upper Saddle River: Pearson,2012, 2010, 2007, 2004. Print.

alvin sumbulsresponsetorhetoricalanalysis

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