Edona Ramadani 0700484

John HEATH, M.A. M.Phil. Ph.D Language in Use 2 Summer Term 2011 President Obama's speech on death of Osama bin Laden

The text is a speech of President Obama's announcement that Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has been killed by U.S. Special Operation forces. In this speech Obama reminds the audience about the catastrophic damage for which Osama bin Laden was responsible, it details the actions that the United states took and the concluding remarks offer a forward-looking vision of unity and potential for achievement.

Most recipients would firstly recognize the consistent use of emotion throughout Obama's delivery of the message. His audiences emotions are mostly caught by vivid imagery: the phrase hijacked planes cutting through a cloudless September sky can be interpreted as a metaphor for evil powers invading an innocent nation; the phrase actions of heroic citizens saved even more heartbreak is probably used for raising patriotism and national pride. Moreover, President Obama uses other rhetorical devices to evoke emotional response in the audience, to make the speech more impressive and effective, and to put emphasis on his faith in the American family as well. For example, he makes use of anaphora: We offered our neighbors a hand, and we offered the wounded our blood and parallelism: no matter where we came from, what God we prayed to, or what race or ethnicity we were... to continue the spirit of national unity and to underline the national solidarity.

Furthermore, the concept of unitiy is also shown in the constant use of the personal pronouns we/our, as in We've worked, or We reaffirmed our ties to each other. The president's language can strategically frame his message as unifying the country, bridging political parties, and, most importantly, linking and identifying the president himself with the American people.

Edona Ramadani 0700484

John HEATH, M.A. M.Phil. Ph.D Language in Use 2 Summer Term 2011

Since the text is a speech and its audience is most likely to be the U.S. nation, it can be said that it has oral elements as sometimes there is a repetition of structures, in which many sentences start either with the pronouns I or we/our as in I was briefed, so we went etc. The language used is subjective and personal, and there are almost no instances of nominalisaton and passive voice, which makes the text more informal. The vocabulary used is common and easy to understand. However, the recipient will acknowledge the presence of formal elements, as throughout the text, the word choice is figurative and metaphorical. Furthermore, syntactically speaking, the text is shaped by many compound and complex sentences which make the text more formal.

In conlusion, with the speech on bin Laden's death, President Barack Obama announced one his greatest successes. Even though many people could judge Obama for instrumentalising bin Laden's death, it is still remarkable how the President treats delicate topics and how he manages to draw the audiences sympathy on his side by continuously appealing to the nation's unity.