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.