POTUS

1. POTUS Goal: ANALYSE AND APPLY LANGUAGE FEATURES USED IN PRESIDENTIAL ORATORY

2. American rhetoric • Browse this website and Presidential speeches. • www.americanrhetoric.com

3. Structural Features • Conscious balancing. • Sentence types (simple, compound, complex). • Statements: imperatives and questions. • Antithesis. • Juxtaposition. • Parallel and triple construction. • Formulaic listing. • Repetition: motif or slogan.

4. Nixon: When the strongest nation in the world can be tied down for four years in a war in Vietnam with no end in sight, when the richest nation in the world can't manage it's own economy, when the nation with the greatest tradition of the rule of law is plagued by unprecedented lawlessness, when a nation that has been known for a century for equality of opportunity is torn by unprecedented racial violence, when the President of the United States cannot travel abroad or to any major city at home without fear of a hostile demonstration, then it is time for new leadership for the United States of America. As we look at America, we see cities enveloped in smoke and flame, millions of Americans crying out in anguish. Did we come all the way for this? Did American boys die in Normandy and Valley Forge for this? I pledge to you that the current wave of violence will not be the wave of the future. Now let us begin by committing ourselves to the truth, to find the truth, to speak the truth, and to live the truth.

5. Language Features • Simile, metaphor, hyperbole, personification. • Vocab choice (diction). • Parts of speech (noun, verb...) • Sound patterns (alliteration, assonance, consonance, sibilance, rhyme...) • Euphony (sounds good). • Connotations. • Emotive words. • Deliberate use of pronouns. • Symbolism • Formal salutations. • Allusions to history, the Bible, popular culture.

6. My fellow citizens:  Today we celebrate the mystery of American renewal.   1   This ceremony is held in the depth of winter. But, by the words we speak and the faces we show the world, we force the spring.2   A spring reborn in the world's oldest democracy, that brings forth the vision and courage to reinvent America.3   When our founders boldly declared America's independence to the world and our purposes to the Almighty, they knew that America, to endure, would have to change.4   Not change for change's sake, but change to preserve America's ideals—life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. Though we march to the music of our time, our mission is timeless.5   Each generation of Americans must define what it means to be an American. Bill Clinton Inaugural Address.

7. Building Rapport • Salutation • Personal anecdote • Humour • Varying the register (level of formality) • Appeals and allusions to history, national pride and religion • Deliberate use of pronouns • Non verbal features (eye contact, gesture, pause)

8. George W. Bush • First Inaugural Address • Saturday, January 20, 2001 President Clinton, distinguished guests and my fellow citizens, the peaceful transfer of authority is rare in history, yet common in our country. With a simple oath, we affirm old traditions and make new beginnings.   1   As I begin, I thank President Clinton for his service to our nation.2   And I thank Vice President Gore for a contest conducted with spirit and ended with grace.3   I am honored and humbled to stand here, where so many of America’s leaders have come before me, and so many will follow.4   We have a place, all of us, in a long story—a story we continue, but whose end we will not see. It is the story of a new world that became a friend and liberator of the old, a story of a slave-holding society that became a servant of freedom, the story of a power that went into the world to protect but not possess, to defend but not to conquer.5   It is the American story—a story of flawed and fallible people, united across the generations by grand and enduring ideals.

9. Pronoun use

10. And tonight, I think about all that she's seen throughout her century in America -- the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we can't, and the people who pressed on with that American creed: Yes we can. • At a time when women's voices were silenced and their hopes dismissed, she lived to see them stand up and speak out and reach for the ballot. Yes we can. • When there was despair in the dust bowl and depression across the land, she saw a nation conquer fear itself with a New Deal, new jobs, a new sense of common purpose. Yes we can. • When the bombs fell on our harbor and tyranny threatened the world, she was there to witness a generation rise to greatness and a democracy was saved. Yes we can. • She was there for the buses in Montgomery, the hoses in Birmingham, a bridge in Selma, and a preacher from Atlanta who told a people that "We Shall Overcome." Yes we can. • A man touched down on the moon, a wall came down in Berlin, a world was connected by our own science and imagination.And this year, in this election, she touched her finger to a screen, and cast her vote, because after 106 years in America, through the best of times and the darkest of hours, she knows how America can change. Yes we can.

11. Verb use • Present tense: immediacy and fast pace. • Continuous tenses (eg have been working). Highlights duration of action. • Past tense: sense of finality. • Future tense: certainty or uncertainty, promises and determination.

12. Good evening. Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts. The victims were in airplanes or in their offices: secretaries, business men and women, military and federal workers, moms and dads, friends and neighbors. Thousands of lives were suddenly ended by evil, despicable acts of terror. The pictures of airplanes flying into buildings, fires burning, huge -- huge structures collapsing have filled us with disbelief, terrible sadness, and a quiet, unyielding anger. These acts of mass murder were intended to frighten our nation into chaos and retreat. But they have failed. Our country is strong.

13. Decision Time You will address the class as the 35th POTUS. You may choose the type of address you wish to give:

14. State of the Union • January each year. • Delivered at Congress: the State of the Union Address. • Outlines policy, challenges, the direction for the country.

15. Inaugural Address • Be frank and honest about the realities of the economy and wars • Address the sagging morale and lack of confidence • Appear strong • Offer an olive branch to the world • Make a call-to-action for personal contributions (along the lines of “Ask not what your country can do…”)

16. Also: • Memorial speeches. • Speeches to international hosts. • Speeches on war, disaster. • Speeches in response to an issue. • Keynote speeches. • ... • What type are you going to mimic?