On Obama’s Back-to-school Speeches:A Perspective Of Neo-Aristotelian Rhetorical Criticism

Dennis Glover, an academic historian of oratory and a professional speechwriter, has remarked that Obama is an oratorical genius, and he has almost single-handedly created a resurgence of interest in oratory. And Liang Wendao, a senior and qualified commentator, once commented in Southern Weekly "the victory of Obama is actually the triumph of rhetoric." In recent years various researches on Obama’s speeches have been done. Based on the careful arrangement and analysis of the related researches on Obama’s speeches, the writer finds that those previous researches mainly focused on his political speeches, like the campaign speeches and his inaugural addresses, from the perspectives of linguistic or translation or rhetoric. However, few researches have covered Obama’s non-political speeches, like the back-to-school speeches.This thesis aims to analyze Obama’s non-political speeches-the back-to-school speeches from the western rhetoric perspective, to be specific, the Neo-Aristotelian rhetorical criticism to explore the characteristics of Obama’s non-political speech and his rhetorical skills and summarize his persuasive strategies when speaking to the young students, trying to supply some reference for the teachers when talking to young students and to promote the harmonious relationship between teachers and students.With the qualitative research method, the thesis has reviewed the western rhetorical criticism. And under the theoretical framework of Neo-Aristotelian rhetorical criticism, the thesis has made a concrete analysis of Obama’s three back-to-school speeches (delivered in 2009,2010, and 2011) to study how Obama has persuaded and encouraged young students to work hard and take reasonability.According to the Neo-Aristotelian rhetorical criticism model, the study is mainly conducted from the following three aspects:the reconstruction of the rhetorical situation of the back-to-school speeches, which includes the analysis of the speaker, the audience, and the speaking occasion; the analysis of the five canons of rhetoric, namely the invention, the arrangement, the style, the memory and the delivery; and the assessment of effectiveness of the speeches.This study finds that Obama will adjust his rhetorical strategies according to the target audience. When addressing to young students who have the characteristics of the gradually-strengthened self-consciousness but often in confusion and uncertain terms, Obama has appealed to the three persuasive strategies, namely, the logos, pathos and ethos, but he has used more ethical appeals. He has adopted the colloquial style, using a daily-talk speed, shorter sentences, and more rhetorical devices of emphasis, and received a rather good effect of persuasion.The study results tell us that speakers and even teachers can learn from Obama and apply his persuasive strategies into their persuasion or encouragement so as to get a better effect and a more harmonious relationship with the audience or the students.