Because I’m a geek, I’ve decided to post a (very brief, almost surface level) analysis of the first part of Obama’s speech. A lot of people throughout history have been roused and motivated by speeches – the time of World War II springs to mind: with Hitler but especially Churchill. Many people find these speeches rousing, and yes, it’s partly to do with the atmosphere and the crowd and the significance and staging of such events. But it also heavily relies on language, and many people who are roused by speeches often don’t take the time to look at what it is about them that’s so moving.

I’ve chosen the first section of the speech because, at a glance, it’s by far the best and it really expresses how people can be moved by words. One of the key things that links that links the past to the present to the future is the great oratory skills of the world’s leaders, and I love the fact that America has reclaimed this.

Speech source

‘My fellow citizens:

I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and co-operation he has shown throughout this transition.’

‘My’ – this pronoun shows his dominance, yet this is mellowed out with ‘fellow citizens’, suggesting he is putting himself on the same level as the people – not better than them, but part of them, which implies a sharing of the same views and opinions.

The next sentence is a tripartite, i.e. three components, often widely used in rhetoric as it’s particularly persuasive. Look at where the sentence is broken up at ‘humbled’, ‘grateful’ and ‘mindful’ which achieves this. This sentence also contains a lot of pronouns – ‘I’, ‘us’, ‘you’, ‘our’, in that order. This is particularly subtle as it equates Obama, you and the people of America as all being part of the same thing and as having the same goals. The interchanging ‘I’ (Obama) to ‘us’ (shared) to ‘you’ (individual) to ‘our’ (Obama + shared + individual) is a great way to weave acceptance and interlink the different aspects of society.

‘Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms.’

This is where the imagery kicks in – the water imagery is cool and flowing when describing positive eras, and the weather imagery (though still loosely linked to water by the suggestion of rain and storms) linked to less favourable times. This is Obama suggesting that the start of his presidency isn’t going to be easy and he’s in a tough situation. It’s a pretty inventive and non-offensive way of saying ‘Give me a chance, I’ve not inherited this country at a particularly great time for it’. ‘Rising’ and ’still’, ‘gathering’ and ‘raging’ are all lovely active verbs connoting America’s different stages.

‘At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because we, the people, have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbearers, and true to our founding documents.’

‘We, the people’ – again as before, equating himself with the people. ‘Our’ is repeated twice, to the same effect as previously. Again there is a lot of trying to get citizens to look on him favourably, saying that the people are responsible for the continuation of America’s ideals, rather than those in ‘high office’ – this could also be interpreted as a subtle dig at certain previous leaders/parties (!)

‘So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Americans.’

This links past and present/future nicely, which gives Obama the opportunity to then go into the current situation in his next section. The first, short sentence is pretty snappy as a stand alone, yet it works really well with the beginning of the following: ‘So it has been. So it must be’, which is an effective repetition of the sentence structure. This concludes the end of this section in a way that’s typical of Obama – the climax yet obviously completed opening argument gives the audience a pause in which to go crazy, and appreciate the kind of shiveriness from the kind of speaker than can not only speak well, but also has a great speech linguistically.

After this the speech isn’t quite so effective in terms of technique, but then it doesn’t need to be as the opening has done the job of capturing the audience. And to be fair, it is his first presidential speech so we can look forward to a lot more where that came from

If you’re familiar with my blog, you’ll know that I don’t usually do the whole nostalgic, look-back-at-the-year survey and/or entry. I’m not really sure why, maybe because I’m more of a forward thinker generally. But this year I’ve been reading a lot of short ‘old year’ entries and decided I might as well. So here’s a general recap of my year; not in any particular order, just things that were particularly memorable to me.

1. Graduating

Finishing uni was a big thing for me, because I had such mixed feelings about it and the people around me all the way through. I did come close to dropping out at one point, but I’m glad I got through it with honours.

2. First full time job

I was completely unemployed for a grand total of two weeks before landing a placement over the summer and then my current job. It’s not fantastically well paid, but it’s good experience and it’s something I enjoy doing, being a web copywriter (most of the time anyway). It’s opened up a lot of new stuff for me as regards e-business – always useful. It has been a bit of an emotional roller coaster with people (friends) being made redundant and not knowing what’s going to happen next. It would make a great TV drama without any editing whatsoever. Things have settled down for the moment, but with the rumour mill suggesting more jobs are going in the near future (though thankfully not from our old team), I imagine the atmosphere will continue to change.

3. Pete

My old A level English teacher died of cancer, which was very upsetting. He was an extremely talented man who also worked on editing scripts for TV programmes like Peter Kay and Two Pints of Lager. He’ll be sorely missed, comedy genius that he was, and excellent teacher – everyone liked him and he kept us all in stitches. He got offered his own TV show and wasn’t able to take it up, which is also upsetting. Pete was definitely a loss to the world, even if only a small percentage knew it.

4. Moving

I moved 160 miles away to the south west, and I think this was the hardest challenge of 2008 for me. I didn’t know anyone here at all; my nearest friend was almost 100 hundred miles away. Luckily I’ve made good friends with the people I work with and we are all quite close. Surprising at first, but then not so much when we spend so much time together! We moved into a new office over Christmas so hopefully I’ll make as good friends with the people in the new team we’ve merged with.

5. Anniversary

25th October saw one year with Joe, and we celebrated in London. If there is one main person in my life who is there for me, to calm me down and share happiness and support me through bad times, it’s him. I’m so lucky, I can’t even begin to describe how he makes me feel. There is very little about our relationship that isn’t completely perfect, and I feel blessed.

6. My birthday

Turning 22 was a big deal for me, only because it was the first birthday of my life without my family physically around me. But they were there in spirit and it made Christmas extra special.

7. The credit crunch

This alone was the main thing affecting my actions this year. In July I had university offers until my dad mentioned his business wasn’t doing too well. At that point I pushed the module descriptions out of sight and offered to get a job. It wasn’t a hard decision to make in itself as I’m always willing to put my life on hold for my family and the people who matter to me. But it was harder to follow through, especially moving so far away. However, I’m now completely financially independent, which is a massive change for me. Not only that, but I’m giving my dad money (something I never thought could happen in a million years), and my house in Nottingham is all rented out so there’s a little money from that each month. It has meant a lot of sacrifices for everyone in the family, and my dad is now working constantly from about 11am until 2 or 3am. Even my sister had a Christmas job.

8. Christmas

Despite the fact that money was tight, I saw it as my duty to make Christmas as good as possible, as did we all. The presents this year were much more thoughtful on everyone’s part, and I spent about £1000 on presents, a combination of saving since November and money made online.

9. Weight

This is a pretty big thing for me and I’ve been up and down by about a stone all year. This is terrible for consistency, and I’m finding it hard to lose the last few pounds when I’m in the office all day and it’s freezing cold outside. However, I’ve started going back to my old habits of buying healthy food. I’ve also taken up very amateurish yoga, which is very relaxing. I’m not allowing myself change for the vending machien at work either. I really want to join the gym because I miss it and I went yesterday and it looks fantastic, but at £37 a month I can’t justify the cost at the moment unfortunately.

10. Italy

The only holiday I went on was to Siena, and that was fab. Loved hanging out with Tom and Hannah, and it was great just to get away for a bit in the sun. As Tom was doing his part of his year abroad there, accommodation was free and the flights were about £30 each as far as I can remember. Spent way more than that there though! (Wow, so many ts…)

Hmmm, so that was a whistle stop tour of my year really. Here’s to 2009!