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Ronald Reagan's Inaugural Address Rhetorical Devices

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On Tuesday, January 20, 1981, the special occasion of Ronald Reagan's inauguration, he gave his First Inaugural Address speech. Claiming that the government can not complete the job that they have been given to accomplish, he announces his plan for his term, and enforces it patriotically with powerful rhetoric. As the newly elected president, Ronald Reagan’s first speech to America, was full of patriotism as he told America his plan to lessen the government's power during his time in office. He effectively used rhetorical devices such as a synecdoche to optimistically show we are a whole made up of strong individuals. He also uses anaphora to repeat the main message to convey the seriousness of his message to establish a trust between him and his audience. Along with the rhetorical devices he gets his message across more effectively by using stylistic devices such as looking into his audience with acknowledgement throughout each sentence and lack of distractive gestures. All of the rhetorical work furthers his purpose to reveal his presidential intentions in office to the people of America and leaders in other countries.
Reagan breaks down who the United States is made up of by using a synecdoche to support the people, and encourage them that all …show more content…

While his posture is stationary it is not static, by looking and slightly turning to view the entire audience throughout the his speech, Reagan keeps his audience focused more on his words than over exaggerated movements to emphasize the points he is trying to make. Many speakers with written down speeches hold their papers and are not able to move their hands, but this becomes a pro for Reagan by keeping himself, and his audience, solely focused on him instead of on being overly animated with annoying gestures. By keeping his speech free of distractions, Reagan presents himself as an engaging and poised

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Katherine Suarez America in the 80’s Dr. Madera M Edwards September 24, 2017 The Regan Era During a time when the United States suffered a worsening of the domestic economy, marked by the high rate of unemployment and inflation. Ronald Reagan addressed the American people as a Messiah. He led a growing conservative population called “New Right.”

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The first rhetorical skill that Reagan uses is ethos. In the very first sentence he implies his status and authority by stating, “I'd planned to speak to you tonight to report on the state of the Union, but the events of earlier today have led me to change those plans.” By showing us his power as President of the United States (the

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Being personal is a good way to unify people. In this speech President Regan uses a rhetorical canon; which is style, effectively. President Reagan personalizes his speech by talking directly to the families of the fallen heroes. Personalizing the speech was a good choice because it is a more effective way of talking about the situation rather than just talking about the incident an informing what happened. Also his choice of using the words “us” and “we” triggers unity among the nation.

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Reagan used pronouns to include the audience throughout his speech. One example of Reagan’s speech being inclusive of the entire nation was when he said, “ We’ve grown used to the wonders in this century” (4). He is saying that as a whole country we are used to finding new wonders everyday. Reagan was very confident in NASA and wanted to continue to receive support, so he said, “We’ll continue our quest into space” (6). He believed that America could keep the space program going strong despite the recent tragic events.

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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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Overall, Reagan used the rhetorical device ethos to express his knowledge, and integrity in order to persuade the audience of knocking the Wall of Berlin down. Besides the rhetorical device ethos, Reagan also used logos to influence the readers of no longer having the Wall of Berlin. Reagan states, “And now the Soviets themselves may, in a limited way, be coming to understand the importance of freedom.” (2) The quote explains how the Soviets have started to progress their comprehension of the significance of freedom. Reagan proposed knocking down the Wall of Berlin, and how this would spread freedom; therefore, since the Soviets started to realize the significance of freedom, then it would only be logical to knock down the wall in order for the Soviets and others to fully comprehend the importance of freedom, rather than understand it in a limited way.

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The changing in the tone of his voice helped emphasize words of importance and helped keep the audience interested. I feel that the quality of President Reagan's voice was great because he changed his tone throughout the speech to emphasize topics and words of importance which also helped keep the audience listening. I think that Reagan used very little movement throughout his speech, but his did maintain eye contact and he ensured moving from looking to one side to the other to include the audience. I feel that the movement was appropriate for the speech because the president wanted the speech to inform and the movement helped include the whole audience.

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Although Ronald Reagan’s speech about the Challenger explosion was given during a time of great sorrow, the speech was successful for being a way to unite the country as one to deal with the loss as a whole, and to bear the weight of such a horrific tragedy together. With the Challenger disaster being the first one of the space program to have deaths in flight, the United States was completely shocked by the misfortune of the shuttle. Ronald Reagan’s speech on the disaster was a way to have the nation not blame the space program for the deaths of the astronauts, but a way to have the nation face the disaster with strength and push through the event with more courage than before and to continue exploration into space. Ronald Reagan begins his speech by addressing the nation and stating how he is exempting the State of the Union

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Margaret Thatcher, former prime minister of Great Britain, portrays her sorrow in the death of Ronald Reagan, and emphasizes the former president’s accomplishments. Thatcher utilizes cause and effect to show how Reagan prospered under immense pressure of the public. Thatcher projects her admiration for Reagan by using glittering diction. Lastly, she adds shift change to show the changing tone in her eulogy. Margaret Thatcher appeals to not only Americans but others who are grieving the loss of Reagan through the use of informal tone and Thatcher creates a sense of relief and praise for the deceased.

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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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Margaret Thatcher, the British Prime Minister at the time, gave a eulogy to the grieving American people in honor of the late Ronald Reagan on June 11th, 2004. In her speech, Thatcher used rhetorical techniques to show the strength and principles of Reagan and project those values onto the American people. To project the ideas of strength and firm ideals, Thatcher used repetition, elevated syntax and the tone of optimism and sincerity to convey her message. In the beginning of the speech, Thatcher used repetition to show what Reagan had accomplished in his lifetime.

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On January 20, 1981, Ronald Reagan gave his “First Inaugural Address” with the United States listening; some people were able to experience firsthand Ronald Reagan’s passion and views for our country, in Front of the Capitol Building, while others tuned in to listen on the momentous occasion. Ronald Reagan sets the stage for his presidency using logos through logical sentences that are meant to bring the audience a better perspective on his point of view. Diction was a key factor in showing Ronald Reagan’s strong sense of nationalism; he chose powerful, hopeful words and phrases that were intended to unify the people. He shows syntax through anaphora, repetition, and parallelism. By using these rhetorical devices, he states key phrases more than once to create an urgency and therefore grab listener’s attention.

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Former President of the United States, Ronald Reagan, in his address to the nation about the Challenger explosion, distinguishes the terrifying news of the explosion of the space shuttle. Reagan's purpose is to remember the lives lost in this painful accident and to ensure that space program will keep our faith with its future in space. He adopts a sorrowful tone in order to acknowledge all the courage and breakers that those seven astronauts expressed to his nation. Reagan opens his tribute to the Challenger astronauts by recognizing that this accident delayed his State of the Union address and by showing the pain of him and his wife’s grief. He appeal to the emotions of the listeners by expressing that “today is a day for mourning and remembering” (Reagan, 1986), that he and his wife are “pained to the core” (Reagan, 1986), and that we all know that this accident is “truly a national loss” (Reagan, 1986).

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Multiple presidents throughout history have presented their Inaugural speeches, but not all have been as influential as a speech presented with complete thought and various rhetorical devices. An inaugural speech or inaugural address is the first speech made by a President at a ceremony; this ceremony is called an Inauguration. In Ronald Reagan's inaugural speech, which was held on January 20th of 1981, he presents many Rhetorical Devices in which engage both to the audience's emotions and provide information throughout his whole speech. Ronald Reagan used many rhetorical devices and got his point across to the people which made his inaugural address nothing short of excellent. The first Rhetorical Device Ronald Reagan used in his Inaugural speech was the use of Pathos.

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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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