HOW TO ANALYSE SPEECHES
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A lot to look for in speeches
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Topic
Speaker
Audience
Circumstance
Structure
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Beginning – middle – end
Language
Formal or informal
 Vocabulary
 Imagery
 Short or long sentences
 Rhetorical, stylistic, literary devices
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Intention
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Inform, discuss, persuade, entertain, provoke etc.
ETHOS, LOGOS, PATHOS
 Three
modes of appeal
 How the speaker persuades to the
audience
 They do not exist alone
LOGOS
 Appeals
to logic and reason(logic comes
from logos)
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The speaker mainly uses logic and
argumentation to prove the point.
Describes facts and figures
ETHOS
Appeals to the speaker’s own character.
 The speaker tries to present him/herself as
trustworthy and qualified.
 People with a strong ethos do no have to use as
many arguments as people with a weaker ethos
 Trust= key (e.g. doctor)
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PATHOS
Appeals to emotions.
 The speaker relies on feelings to get the point
across.
 The speaker also tries to speak to the listener’s
feelings
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DIFFERENT ANALYTICAL DEVICES
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Alliteration
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The use of the same sounds, especially consonants, to make you
remember.
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Antithesis
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Using contrasts directly after one another
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Used for a variety of reasons. To ease tension, to relate to the
audience etc.
Hyperbole
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The repetition of a word or a sequence of words as in Martin Luther
King’s famous speech “I have a dream”
Humour and Irony
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An indirect reference to another text e.g. the bible
Anaphora
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It was the spring of hope and the winter of despair
Allusion
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”Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay
any price, bear any burden” – John F. Kennedy, 1961
Exaggerating words and phrases fx “over my dead body”
Oxymoron
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A paradoxical antithesis with only two words
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Falsely true, dark light
CONT.
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Listing
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Especially with three items, trying to build a climax.
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Metaphor
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Using an implied comparison
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Her love was like a red rose.
Rhetorical questions
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Asking questions which need not be answered or
suggesting answers.
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There are plenty of fish in the sea.
Simile/comparison: When two objects are compared to
each other:
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”The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth”.
Do we really want to put our kids at risk? No we do not!
Pauses
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Used to build tension or to let something sink in
THE RHETORICAL PENTAGON