Franklin D. Roosevelt, the president of the United States at the time, stated in the beginning of his speech that December 7th, 1941, is a day that will go down in infamy. On December 7th, 1941, the Japanese air force came and bombed U.S. territory. Many of the countries were fighting in World War II at the time, and the United States had claimed neutrality, staying out of the war. However, the Japanese attack on the U.S. caused President Roosevelt to write a proposal speech for Congress to declare war with Japan the next day. The purpose of this speech was to inform the United States about the effects of the Japanese attacks and the next steps that the government were going to take. The purpose of the speech was also to motivate the U.S. that …show more content…
He added important changes that involved repetition, word choice, and verbal techniques, which created long pauses allowing him to speak clearly and slowly and speaking slowly. The word choice and repetition improved Roosevelt’s speech structure and made it more influencing by adding detail and enhancement to his introduction, body, and conclusion. An example of words and phrases he chose to add were powerful and showed a sense of inspiration, such as “the American people, in their righteous might, will win through absolute victory” and “With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph”. Another important change he added was saying “the American island of Oahu” rather than just saying Oahu. He made this change to put emphasis that the land being attacked was their own, which would provide more interest to the Americans. Roosevelt decided to change his speech by adding a paragraph repeating the phrase, “Last night” and continued to list the places the Japan attacked. This demonstrated the fact that Japan was trying to invade territory and gain power unfairly, signifying the that U.S. had to step in and prevent this invasion. His verbal techniques had an effect on the audience. He included long pauses after an important part of his speech and spoke slowly to let the audience comprehend the