Language Techniques In Barack Obama's Speech

How did the Author use language techniques and stylistic features to meet the expectation of the intended audience?

On December 15th 2013 United States President Barack Obama delivered a speech at former South African President Nelson Mandela’s memorial service. Obama’s speech was delivered with respect and compassion. He used a range of language techniques such as emotive language and appealing to the audience’s sense of sympathy. Obama used a vast range of stylistic features, which include inclusive language and pauses. These techniques were used to engage the audience in the speech, and to emphasise the points he was trying to get across.

President Obama used emotive language in his memorial service speech. Emotive language consists of words that he used to engage the audience and to also give them a strong message. An example of emotive language in Obama’s memorial speech is “Madiba showed us the power of action; of taking risks on behalf of our ideal.

Inclusive language is wording that aims to ensure that all members of society are treated with equal respect and that no individual or group is overlooked or denigrated. An example of inclusive language in the memorial speech is demonstrated when President Obama stated, “He was not a bust made of marble; he was a man of flesh and blood – a son a husband, a father and a friend. And that’s why we learned so much from him, and that’s why we can learn from him still. For nothing he achieved was inevitable. In the arc of his life, we see a man who earned his place in history through struggle and shrewdness, and persistence and faith. He tells us what is possible not just in the pages of the history books, but in our own lives as well.” The example stated that people need to have faith like Madiba did because life sometimes may be a struggle. This example shows inclusive language because Obama shows equal respect on the individual, whom is Nelson