Retorisk analyse af Obamas tale om klimaforandringer

Barack Obama was the 44th US President and the first African American to hold this office. He began his career as a civil rights lawyer and later became a member of the US Senate, representing the state of Illinois. He is one of the presidents with the highest approval rate among the population after two terms in office. On the 25th of June 2013, Obama held a speech about climate change at Georgetown University. His audience where student from the university, teachers and press. The speech was directly addressing the people sitting in his audience, but the key audience of the speech is represented by the American people, and the young generation. The circumstances surrounding climate change, and how big of an issue it is for everybody. He discusses climate change and America’s responsibility to present and future generations to reform and become more sustainable. The language used in Barack Obama's speech can be characterized as somehow formal, but not overly complicated. He uses understandable words.

Barack Obama's speech from 2013 begins with him, reminding the audience of several references to American history. He appeals to his statement by using facts and logical arguments to support his views. This is particularly noticeable when he gives concrete examples of facts that Americans are proud of and when he gives evidence of what America as a country has achieved. In this part of the speech, “On Christmas Eve, 1968, the astronauts of Apollo 8 did a live broadcast from lunar orbit. So Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, William Anders—the first humans to orbit the moon described what they saw, and they read Scripture from the Book of Genesis to the rest of us back here. And later that night, they took a photo that would change the way we see and think about our world”, he talks proudly about American accomplishment; he wants to inspire the audience to focus on those positive aspects that characterize them as Americans. He uses logos to enforce that. Logos is an argument used to convince or persuade the audience by employing reason or logic, and Obama uses that a lot, throughout his speech.