Imu Lin
Mr. Erickson
English Language and Composition
Feb. 20, 2015
The elements of success in speech
Delivered on a cold, snowy winter day, President John F Kennedy’s inaugural address was world-changing. Kennedy made the speech while the United States was in the mist of the cold war with the Soviet Union. His words, representing the strongest nation in the world, declared the necessity of genuine peace, freedom and cooperation among all countries, despite the long years of war the world just had to settle with. His address uses multiple techniques to persuade, entice the audiences, friend or foe. Some major elements of his speech are clever word choices, confidence, repetition and parallelism.
President Kennedy utilizes unique and clever phrases in his speech to connect to his audience. He strengthens the bonds of the citizens of the United States by saying “United we are…”, “Ask what you can do for the country”. He reduces the distance with foreigners that used to be his adversaries by mentioning the beauties of cooperation: “Together lets us explore the stars, conquer the deserts, eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths…” Kennedy even connects to the Catholic audiences (which does represent a lot of the population in the world), by mentioning “God’s blessing”, “God’s work”.
Although Kennedy is asking for cooperation, seeking for help and support, he repeatedly stresses that he is not weak; that the country under his hands of protection, is not weak. He envisions a better world, if friendship is attained to replace hatred; peaceful negotiations can achieve the same result as using the dark powers of war. He makes declarations such as: “there is little we cannot do”, “We dare not tempt them with weakness”. These sentences display Kennedy’s confidence in himself and his country, and he believes that nothing is impossible to accomplish.
Kennedy was repetitive, he repeats certain phases over
