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Rhetorical Analysis Of Ronald Reagan's Inaugural Address

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Ronald Reagan has already been elected as president of the United States. On march 8, 1983, he decided to call a group of evangelists for a speech in Orlando, Florida. Mr. Reagan opens up by thanking the spiritual people for their prayers and uses an anecdote to appeal to his audience as so to connect them. Reagan’s speech talks to present concerns in America during the 80’s. Most of these concerns, the President believes, can be fixed or mediated with a Christian belief system in which America was founded upon. President Reagan ties back to Abe Lincoln and the times he decided to pray because he was overwhelmed with his job as president in the early years of the United States. Reagan uses a quote from Lincoln as evidence that his anecdote …show more content…

Reagan uses jokes, poems, and sayings from great writers, and Biblical references to support relate the audience of evangelists with his new argument that religion should have a place in the American peoples’ hearts. the presidents joke was about two men getting to Heaven and receiving their eternal home. One man was a holy man who spent his whole life studying God’s teachings and the other was a politician. The two men and the angel came upon the the first house, which was the holy man’s, that was, “... a single room with a bed and a chair…” After dropping the man off, they move on to the politician’s house; a …show more content…

The impact made on the audience of the President is phenomenal and motivates all to not only recognize other philosophies of today’s world and understand peoples wish to stray from tradition, but to also fight for certain rights that were given to us by our founding fathers long ago. It encourages those to take root in their religious faith so they are better able to help our nation

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Reagan’s speech starts off by talking about how we need to ask ourselves if we still know the freedoms that were intended for us by the Founding Fathers. Next,

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His inclusion of analogies and emotional appeals, combined with his strong sense of authority, brings his arguments into focus and gives them a punch. His power in delivering this speech quite possibly kept America looking towards the stars and propelled them into the next age of space exploration. President Reagan’s speech serves as a touching conclusion to a tragic event. Despite the terrible catastrophe, Reagan’s four-minute speech provided closure on the one-minute tragedy whose impact will be felt for

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Tragedies, they will happen without a hint of awareness but they cannot be stopped or answered for. When they do occur it leads people to shock and grief. However tragedies brings forth something that gives people unity, hope, and direction. This something is called a leader and throughout history many people have embodied this quality. There are many instances where people have stood up an embodied this quality.

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Analyzing Challenger’s Address Delivered on January 28, 1986, Ronald Reagan’s speech addressing the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster was a plausible proof of the possibility to communicate various ideas during a tough situation effectively and efficiently. In a speech that lasted less than five minutes, Ronald Reagan managed to express his thoughts verbally and attempt to persuade his audience through an eulogy, a speech characterized by its epideictic occassion, that had been infused with a deliberative content that did not conflict with the core of the speech. Before one can analyze the details of Ronald Reagan’s speech, understanding the purpose behind the creation of the speech might be useful for understanding the context of the speech as a whole. Based on the speech how it relates to common speech purposes

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The speech conducted by former President Ronald Reagan titled “Evil Empire” was to address the National Association of Evangelicals. The speeches main topic is to focus on the evil that is among us. Former President Reagan conducted this speech at the time Congress was debating on a resolution for nuclear freeze. The speech’s main point is to inform and give hope to Christians to make sure America stays a free and great country.

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Abe Lincoln, in his second inaugural address, uses language with which the audience can connect and relate. Through inclusive pronouns, parallel sentence structure, pathos, and metaphors, Lincoln does not simply list off what the war has entailed or recommend a certain path the people must take. Lincoln instead consoles the nation as if it was a dear old friend whom is in dire need of advice. The first rhetorical strategy Lincoln used was inclusive pronouns such as “we”, “us”, and “all”. Additionally, the president began the address with the inviting words “Fellow Countrymen”.

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Although, the people he quoted may not be religious as he is making them out to be, he uses their quotes to his advantage. “The American experiment in democracy rest on this insight. Its discovery was the great triumph of our Founding Fathers” [9]. Then he quotes William Penn, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and Alexis de Tocqueville. In all of the quotes, they use words, such as “God”, “morality”, and “religion”, therefore Reagan was able to quote them and use this to better his speech.

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Without religion we have no morality, without morality we are beings of evil. “The Evil Empire” speech by Ronald Reagan, is verbal dissent of the Soviet Union and his supports for abolishment of abortion. Reagan’s speech was held in 1983 at the Convention of the National Association of Evangelicals, seemingly a tactical decision to have a crowd susceptible to a religious appeal. Using word choice and repetition, Reagan rallies the public’s support with arguments of morality using religion, a pathos and ethos appeal. Reagan begins his speech with a religious joke, though seemingly just an ice breaker, this is how Reagan beings his pathos and ethos appeal.

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In his emotionally inspiring speech, “Shuttle Challenger Address,” Ronald Reagan expresses his deepest condolences to the people most affected by the Challenger accident. He advances his speech with a gentle yet strong willed facade in order to inspire the future generations of astronauts to not let this tragedy affect their future endeavors. Raegen then briefly puts his presidential status aside in order to further express the depth of his pain, not only at a presidential level, but as an American citizen concerned for the well being of his country. Raegen applies different types of rhetorical devices in order to emotionally appeal to the people most affected by the accident, while at the same time encourage the general public to not let this

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Reagan sets America on a higher level than any other country when he says, “Freedom and the dignity of the individual have been more available and assured here than in any other place on earth.” He then goes on to add, “We will again be the exemplar of freedom and a beacon of hope for those who do not now have freedom.” These hopeful words such as freedom and dignity set America apart from the rest of the world. Ronald Reagan is tactfully creating a sense of nationalism and unification in his audience, giving them a sense of pride. People want to preserve and remake America in this way, because believing that we have more freedom and more opportunities than others, makes us

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He brings us together in this sorrowful time in order to remember those who died because “We mourn seven heroes” (Reagan, 1986) and “We mourn their loss as a nation together” (Reagan, 1986). The President’s loss of emotions creates an assuring tone that

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In Reagan's address, he uses rhetorical questions to challenge the minds of the people listening by saying, "But if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else?" The quote states that people at the time could not take care of themselves and in return, they could not take care of other people. This adds a little insult towards the people and shows how past leaders have put a top order over everyone because they were too feeble-minded to manage themselves. This opens the minds of the audience by catching their attention as he proceeds speaking throughout the address. Reagan sleekly pops this question in his writing and makes the use of practicing a rhetorical question

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There’s only an up or down: man’s old --old aged dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order, or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism.” This shows his ethics and the passion he has when he presents his speech. Reagan stated,”Today, 37 cents out of every dollar earned in the country is the tax collector’s share,” He also included,”We’ve raised our debt limit three times in the last twelve months, and now our national debt is one and a half times bigger than all the combined debts of all the nations of the world.” Reagan shows us that he knows about the numbers and logistics of our nation which is logos. Since he knows specific numbers, more people will listen to what he is trying to

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