Speeches and Rhetoric

A speech is language crafted to be heard, and often to move a live audience to feeling or action. From political addresses to graduation speeches to eulogies, the spoken word has persuasive resources that writing on the page lacks: the rhythm of the voice, the pause, the build. The formal study of persuasive speaking is rhetoric, and its classical toolkit remains the most useful vocabulary for analyzing speeches today.

The rhetorical situation

Every speech responds to a situation: a speaker, an audience, an occasion, and a purpose. A wartime address, a concession speech, and a wedding toast each carry different expectations. Skilled speakers read the occasion and shape their words to the audience's mood, values, and hopes. When you analyze a speech, reconstruct this situation first, becaus