Rhetorical Analysis of Obama's Inaugural Address

Rhetorical analysis in Obama's inaugural address Presiden’s inaugural address,besides aiming to elucidate his politics and position, mainly aims to insipre and educate the public.Obama’s inaugural address” Renewing American’s Promise” once again displayed his incomparable eloquence and fluency. Appropriate employment of rhetoric can express thoughts and emotions accurately and create the desired emotional impact. First,the use of parallelism. In rhetoric, parallelism means giving two or more parts of the sentences a similar form so as to give the whole a definite pattern. Parallelism is a kind of expressive rhetorical devices, aiming to enhance language potential, improve the effect of expression. In his speech, Obama used this technique many times, so that the speech has a strong artistic appeal and endless charm.For example, “I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors.” “At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbearers, and true to our founding documents.” “For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life.” More than a few examples of parallelism of language use has increased consistency, strengthened the imposing manner of the article, at the same time also strengthened the rhythm and metrical sense of language.Paralleled sentences are structurally balanced，semantically compact，and phonetically harmonious. Second,the use of repetition. Repetition is the simple repeating of a word, within a sentence or a poetical line, with no particular placement of the words, in order to provide emphasis. This is such a common literary device that it is almost never even noted as a figure of speech.. “Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and