At Least I Know Three Words In Greek....

           We’ve been talking a lot about the appeals to ethos, logos, and pathos, so I figured it’d be appropriate to use this post as a further discussion of each. All three approaches can be used in writing, speeches, or anything else where rhetoric is involved. The commonality between them lies in their effectiveness. Ethos, logos, and pathos all lend themselves to making the writing or speech more credible, useful, and relevant. In general, they all help the reader or listener get a more substantive and enjoyable experience by allowing the writing or speech to successfully permit the implied or underlying message to become readily appreciated by the audience. If we rewind back to January of 2009, one of the most important days in history came alive. Yes—the first African American president was sworn into office as the 44^th President of the United States. Again, that was back in 2009. Since then, I’ve become more familiar with ethos, logos, and pathos, so I decided to look at Obama’s inaugural speech to see its various appeals to each, if any. Now, obviously, we recognize Obama as a brilliant rhetor so I expected to see each appeal conveyed effectively throughout his speech. I was right—in the first two minutes of the speech, all three appeals were already distinguished. Let’s take a look at the first two minutes:

            The first thing I enjoyed about this speech was his opening sentence with “my fellow citizens”; this automatically sets the distance between Obama and his audience in a way that suggests that we are “one”. As the speech continues, Obama emphasizes certain words that suggest honorific language as an appeal to pathos. He states he is “humbled by the task before us”, “grateful for the trust you’ve bestowed”, and other words such as “mindful”, “cooperation”, “prosperity”, and “peace”. These words allow the audience to embody and feel these values as an emotional output. In contrast, Obama uses pejorative words such as “crisis”, “violence”, and “hatred” when talking about the war. These words allow for strong emotional responses that effectively communicate toward the audience. Obama can use this emotional appeal to get the American audience to grasp, “hey, this is something bad and maybe it’s about time we end this war,” whether you are a Democrat or Republican listening to the speech.

            In addition to a strong sense of pathos, Obama also uses some logos to get the audience to understand and listen to what he has to say. Obama uses reason when he says that the “economy is badly weakened”, “lives have been lost”, “homes have been shattered”,  “health care is too costly”, and that “the way we use energy threatens our planet”. These facts allow the audience to fathom Obama’s underlying logic that, yes, something needs to be changed (and that the change will come with Obama!). He also states that these are all “indicators of prices subject to data and statistics”. The use of facts and statistics are a main component of logos, and Obama effectively conveys them.

            Any person analyzing an Obama speech would have a difficult time excluding his appeal to ethos. I think this is one of Obama’s strongest abilities and is, in my opinion, the reason he is considered to be such an intelligent rhetor. As discussed in class, ethos is composed of competence, likeability, integrity, and confidence. Obama’s likeability is hard to ignore; I especially get a sense of his amicable personality when he uses the second person, such as: “I say to you”, to allow the audience to get a sense of a closer and more personal relationship to him. Obama’s integrity and honesty is evident when he states that the “challenges we face are real” and that they are “serious” and “cannot be solved in a short amount of time.” However, while recognizing this, Obama comes back with competence and confidence during his final sentence from this clip when stating: “know this America—they will be met!”. Obama is capable of taking on these challenges, and is assured that he can overcome them.