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Arab Academy for Science, Technology, and Maritime Transport College of Language and
Communication (CLC)

Assignment Two

Course Title: Professional Discourse Studies/fall 2020-2021

Lecturer’s Name: Dr. Rehab Hassan

Topic: Analyzing President Barak Obama`s Victory Speech 2012 using the Appraisal Theory

Presented by: Amira Abo Sedaa

Registration No. : 20125063

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“Politics is a struggle for power in order to put certain political, ideological and social ideas into
practice” (Woods 2006). Political speeches are cautiously written and possibly be the work of diverse
writers aside from the speaker. Both speaker and hearer will have a perspective based on their political
beliefs. As a form of social practice, political speeches commonly have underlying goals to deliver to
various types of audiences. Therefore, language plays a fundamental role in forming political discourses,
as each political action is set, accompanied, affected, and played by language.

Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) acknowledges the social representations, persuasive actions,
implicit meanings, and ideological assumptions established through interactions and texts. Following
Halliday’s Systemic Functional Grammar theory (SFL), Martin and White introduced the appraisal theory
that includes attitude, engagement, and graduation resources. Attitude is the core system used to source
feelings, emotional responses with participants, and processes. Engagement is concerned with positioning
the speaker’s voice to acknowledge or ignore certain facts. Graduation is the strength of attitude,
modifying attitude resources by ways of force and focus.

In 2012, Barack Obama was re-elected as USA President, In a victory speech in Chicago, he thanked
his supporters, and shared his plan for the 2012 -2016 presidential term. With the use of The Appraisal
Theory, one can analyze the language Obama used during his speech to examine how he appeared to
reflect his ideology and representation in his political discourse and what methods and lexis he used to
show a sense of inclusion of the Americans in his speech.

Obama made clever use of the dimensions and features of the political discourse. He showed his strong
personality in all of his speeches as a charismatic and credible president. Analyzing his speech results that
nominalization, metaphorical expressions, parallelism, intensification, and modality have dominated in
his speech.

Primarily, President Barak Obama is very selective when it comes to certainty, his statements show
high values of obligation (e.g., must begin, have to fix, can work) and probability. Obligations and
probability show power in political speeches, they give the speaker authority over the audience, and the
speaker takes the responsibility for the action being conducted. Besides, intensification is a ubiquitous
strategy that can be clearly recognized in the president`s speech (e.g., the strongest military on earth, best
troops, very first time). The reason behind using intensifications rapidly is to reveal what he wants the
audience to believe and what goals he wants to achieve. It is also worth noting that Obama intentionally
repeats some words (e.g., I`ve seen, moves forward) to call the audience's attention, involve them,
highlight the topic, add balance, and enhances his speech. We can also notice that his language is easy and
reduced expression forms are commonly used to present involvement and shorten the distance between
him and the audience

Attitudinal resources are the fundamental system of the Appraisal Theory. They are composed of affect,
judgment, and appreciation. Obama`s Victory Speech has a large number of attitudinal resources. To
illustrate, each one of those resources is going to be analyzed separately.
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The attitudinal resources / Affect

Type Example
Adjectives happy / grateful / compassionate / frustrating / prouder

Verbs honor / hope / care / love / admire / believe / dream

Metaphors meet the challenges / freeing ourselves from foreign oil / hear the determination/
hear the deep patriotism / moves forward./ lies ahead

Affect is concerned with positive and negative emotional responses and dispositions. It can be achieved
through affective adjectives, affective verbs. Obama expressed gratitude toward the American public for
their participation in the election using positive affective adjectives to show how enthusiastic he was about
winning. He also strengthened his speech by using powerful affective verbs as Obama appeals to appear
trustworthy, skilful, compassionate, and knowledgeable. Meanwhile, Obama used metaphorical
expressions to state facts or show his plans implicitly.

The attitudinal resources / Judgment

Type Examples
Verbs triumphed /lifted up / picked up / carry / done / put in / pounded / turned out /
pursue /discover / change /disagree / matter / solve / work / fought / died /
determine
Attributes Strong / Smart / Great / the best / incredible / important/ not small / difficult / hard
/ powerful / exceptional
Nominal Depression /patriotism / arguments / legacy / freedom / dignity / doctor or a
scientist/ engineer /entrepreneur/ diplomat / president/liberty/ confidence / bond /
leaders / Democracy / wealth/ nation / culture / obligations / responsibility / family
/ workers / friends / belief
Adverbs Fiercely / deeply / strongly /publicly/ necessarily

Judgment is used to evaluate one’s behavior or character based on the social norm. Obama`s speech
contains a high use of attributes, nominals, and verbs. Since Obama likes having authority over his
audiences, attributes were commonly used to compliment and praise American citizens to make them rely
more on him. He also used verbs to remind his audience of his achievements and implicitly commit himself
to his statements by saying what he is doing and what he will do. In political discourse, nominalization has
ideological functions, therefore, Obama used them excessively to express actions and events as things or
concepts. He mentioned every life aspect that may concern any citizen and implicitly promised them a
brighter future.
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Engagement in the Appraisal theory is concerned with positioning the speaker’s voice to acknowledge
or ignore certain facts. It is concerned with modals of possibility (e.g., can sometimes, could be, probably,
not always). Those Modals reflect the speaker`s credibility based on the statement expressed, that why
Obama reduced their use in his speech as he is keen on his image and appeals to appear reliable. On the
other hand, Obama used reality phrases in his speech several times (e.g., I’ve seen, we believe, seem
small, we are and forever will be, I believe we can build, I believe we can seize) to inform his audience
that he is hopeful about America’s future and the public`s ability to collaborate to make the American
nation better as well as gain confidence toward his government.

It is worth mentioning that Obama made his proclamations clear and direct (e.g., I`ll Say, tell, speak
to the crowd, argue about) as he was discussing major issues facing the United States back then and it is
essential to sound powerful while discussing such a matter to maintain the image he is presenting during
his speech. Furthermore, Engagement attributions are meticulously chosen (e.g., you made your voice,
you made a difference, I congratulated him and Paul and Ryan, you people reminded us, we made
together, a vision we share). Obama depended on arousing his audience by crediting them for his success.
In this way, the audience`s confidence is massively built and the distance between Obama and his
audience is successfully shortened.

Engagement attributions the speech

Attribution Agent
you made your voice ( Americans)
you made a difference. ( Americans)
I congratulated him and Paul Ryan (Obama)
you people reminded us ( Americans)
we made together ( Obama and Americans )
vision we share ( Obama and Americans )

At this point, analyzing Obama`s attitude as the last element in the Appraisal Theory will make the
speech more comprehensible. Graduation is the strength of an attitude. Obama`s thoughts and ideas were
strongly expressed in his statements (e.g., care so strongly, deeply held beliefs) to show his confidence in
his people and his eagerness to convey the idea of American unity. Obama’s inspirational victory speech
left an instant impact on the crowd of supporters who knew they were making history and were willing to
be part of it.

The analysis presented leads me to conclude that the underlying goals of political speeches can be
exposed by CDA. President Barak Obama is an impressive politician who mastered the political discourse
with confidence. The application of the Appraisal Theory revealed attitudinal resources that he used to
show how passionate he is and the deep admire and love he had for his people and country that pushed
him rapidly to maintain the image of the strong leader who is presidential in his speeches. He
complimented and praised American citizens to build their trust in themselves and him. The use of
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engagement reflected Obama`s credibility and reliability which helped him deliver a sense of involvement
to his audience. Obama wanted each citizen to be seen as an active community member, whose role in
developing the country is major. Obama showed all the strengths he has in his speech by consistently
having a high degree of graduation. He knew how to reach his people and make them feel united and that
what made him exceptional.