An Analysis On Obama’s Mid-term Election Speeches:a Perspective Of Perelman’s Audience Theory

The western rhetoric theorists believe that the purchase of power can be achieved by proper application of rhetoric, thus rhetoric is closely related to politics. In the political speeches, as a kind of means to gain political power, the significance and importance of rhetoric is mostly performed in the presidency election campaign speeches.As the current president of the United States, we know that one of the reasons for Obama to win the2008American presidency election was due to his outstanding speeches and his eloquence. The diversified uses of rhetoric skills help him gain the reputation of an excellent speaker and also a trustful and believable politician. However two years later, as the American mid-term election is going on, the polls show that Obama government’s policy and achievement is not so satisfied by the American people compared to what he had said in the2008campaign speeches. So this thesis aims to analyze Obama’s mid-term election speeches from the western rhetoric perspective, especially from Chaim Perelman’s audience theory, to see what kind of rhetoric skills and how he is going to use the rhetoric skills to persuade the American people to vote for him again.In this thesis, the author will first of all make a general review on the previous research of audience theory during the development of western rhetoric, and briefly discuss the relationship between rhetoric and politics. And then, under the theory framework of Perelman’s audience theory, the author will specifically study Obama’s mid-term election speeches, probing what kind of rhetoric method that Obama have used and how he used it to persuade the American people. According to Perelman’s audience theory, the author studies the speech mainly from three aspects:1. Audience investigation;2. Presence construction;3. Communication and persuasion. Under the framework, the author will analyze the texts from multiple angles, such as the purpose and method for audience investigation, the application of rhetoric skills and techniques in the speech, the construction of the speech and the organization of the language, cultural recognition etc, to study and research the function of rhetoric to political speech.According to the study, we find out Obama is an excellent speaker and outstanding politician who is good at use multiple rhetoric skills to persuade others, which shows us the great power of rhetoric in the process of gaining political power. Through applying Perelman’s audience theory, the author makes a qualitative study on Obama’s mid-term election speech. The author has conducted a totally new perspective which is audience theory of western rhetoric to do the study. Through the study and research of the cases, the research methodology and results can be drawn as reference for political speech and its practices.