Speeches and RhetoricIn this booklet is a selection of famous speeches.

For each speech there are 4 steps:

- background knowledge- reading / watching- understanding- analysis

CONTENTS:

Nelson Mandela:

‘An ideal for which I am prepared to die’, 1964

Emmeline Pankhurst:

‘We are here in our effort to become law makers’, 1908

Barack Obama:

‘Yes we can’, 2008

Malala Yousef:

‘Education is the only solution’, 2013

Watch: These videos explain the concept of ethos, logos and pathos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3klMM9BkW5o&t=146s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2dEuMFR8kw

1

Rhetorical Features:

anadiplosis using the last word of the preceding clause to start the next clause:

Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.

anaphora repetition of words or phrases at the beginning of successive clauses or sentences

antithesis two opposite ideas put together to create a contrast

emotive language

emotive language seeks to create a strong emotional reaction in the listener

epistrophe repetition of words or phrases at the ends of successive clauses or sentences

metaphor describing something in a way that is not literally true

the heat of injustice

parallel /

parallelism

in rhetoric, phrases are parallel if they follow a noticeably similar structure:

One small step for man; one giant leap for mankind

pronouns words that stand in for nouns or proper nouns, such as: I, you, him, her, they, them, we, it

skilled rhetoric makes careful use of pronouns to include or exclude certain groups

rhetorical question

a rhetorical question implies an answer; it doesn’t need to be stated explicitly

statistic a number used as part of argument, normally because it seems very high or very low

tricolon three parallel clauses, phrases or words that come without interruption

I came, I saw, I conquered

Key terms:rhetoric: the art of persuasive speaking or writing

ethos: ideas that give the speaker credibility and authority. They show why this person is worth listening to and can be trusted

pathos: ideas that are aimed at appealing to people’s emotions. Anything that is happy, funny, sad or scary is part of pathos.

logos: this relates to reason, logic and facts. Using statistics or information to convince your audience is logos.

2

Speech 1: Nelson Mandela – ‘An ideal for which I am prepared to die.’

Pretoria, South Africa April 20, 1964

Background Knowledge

Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in prison for activism against apartheid – the system of racial segregation in South Africa. Under apartheid, white people and black people (referred to as “Africans” in the speech below) lived separate, highly unequal lives.

After his release from prison in 1990, Mandela became South Africa’s first black President.

Watch: https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zjkj382/articles/zj3p8xs

Read: https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/25262272

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apartheid

You can use the internet to find the answers to these questions.

When was Nelson Mandela born?

When did he die?

Over what time period was apartheid in effect in South Africa, and when did it end?

What different languages are spoken in South Africa?

3

Read / Watch: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/apr/23/nelsonmandela

4

Our fight is against real, and not imaginary, hardships or, to use the language of the state prosecutor, "so-called hardships".

South Africa is the richest country in Africa, and could be one of the richest countries in the world. But it is a land of extremes and remarkable contrasts. The whites enjoy what may well be the highest standard of living in the world, while Africans live in poverty and misery. Poverty goes hand in hand with malnutrition and disease. The incidence of malnutrition and deficiency diseases is very high among Africans. The incidence of infant mortality is one of the highest in the world.

The lack of human dignity experienced by Africans in a direct result of the policy of white supremacy. White supremacy implies black inferiority. Legislation designed to preserve white supremacy entrenches this notion.

I have dedicated my life to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the idea of a democratic and free society in which all persons will live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal for which I hope to live for and to see realised. But my Lord, if it needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.

The “state prosecutor” is representing the government in Nelson Mandela’s trial.

“Malnutrition” and “deficiency diseases” are illnesses caused by a poor diet and limited access to food and healthcare.

Under apartheid, black South Africans were moved into unsafe and overcrowded “townships” on the outskirts of major cities.

Understanding

How would you describe the tone and the mood of Mandela’s speech?

What was the most surprising or upsetting part to you?

What do you think is the main message of his speech?

What is one of the “extreme contrasts” that Mandela describes?

“White supremacy implies black inferiority.”

In your own words, what does this mean?

What does the word “entrench” mean?

5

Analysis

Write down any pairs of opposite ideas that you can find in the speech.

real imaginary

In the final paragraph, Mandela uses the anaphora of “I have”. What effect do you think this has?

Find 3 examples of emotive language in the speech and write them down.

Use your judgement:

In the final paragraph, Mandela uses three verbs: dedicated, fought and cherished.

What different sides of his character do you think these verbs are intended to show?

6

Speech 2: Emmeline Pankhurst – ‘We are here in our efforts to become law-makers.’

London 24 October 1908

Background Knowledge

Use the internet to find the answers to these questions, including reading the material here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zy2ycdm/revision/1

and here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zxdxj6f/revision/1

What did the “suffragettes” campaign for?

In what year did women gain the right to vote in Britain?

What were some consequences faced by suffragettes?

Overall, what do you know about the place of women in British society around 1900?

7

Read / Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpMhp2yJDPc

Emmeline Pankhurst (1858–1928) was a famous British suffragette. Rejecting the more respectable methods of other women fighting for the vote, she believed that direct, very public action would attain greater notice on the part of the public and the government. Once the visibility of the cause was heightened, suffragettes would be able to achieve voting rights with greater ease. However, in flaunting gender norms of the day, she was casting aside deeply held Victorian notions, most notably that women were delicate, proper creatures who belonged solely in the home. Pankhurst was public and loud in her quest, and many women felt she was more a hindrance than a help. British women, along with many other European women, won the vote in 1918 in the wake of the Great War.

Pankhurst gave this speech in court, when she was on trial in 1908 for encouraging people to riot.

Ever since my girlhood, a period of about 30 years, I have belonged to organizations to secure for women that political power which I have felt was essential to bringing about those reforms which women need. We have tried to be womanly, we have tried to use feminine influence, and we have seen that it is of no use.

We have presented larger petitions than were ever presented for any other reform; we have succeeded in holding greater public meetings than men have ever had for any reform. We have faced hostile mobs at street corners, because we were told that we could not have that representation for our taxes which men have won unless we converted the whole of the country to our side. Because we have done this, we have been misrepresented, we have been ridiculed, we have had contempt poured upon us. The ignorant mob at the street corner has been incited to offer us violence, which we have faced unarmed and unprotected by the safeguards which Cabinet Ministers have. We know that we need the protection of the vote even more than men have needed it.

If you decide against us today, to prison we must go, because we feel that we should be going back to the hopeless condition this movement was in three years ago if we consented to be bound over (forced by law) to keep the peace which we have never broken. And so, sir, if you decide to bind us over, whether it is for three or six months, we shall submit to the treatment, the degrading treatment, that we have submitted to before. Although the Government admitted that we are political offenders, and, therefore, ought to be treated as political offenders are invariably treated, we shall be treated as pickpockets and drunkards.

We are driven to do this, we are determined to go on with agitation, because we feel in honour bound. Just as it was the duty of your forefathers, it is our duty to make this world a better place for women than it is today.

This is the only way we can get that power which every citizen should have of deciding how the taxes she contributes to should be spent, and how the laws she has to obey should be made, and until we get that power we shall be here—we are here today, and we shall come here over and over again. We are here not because we are lawbreakers; we are here in our efforts to become law-makers.

How long does Pankhurst say she has been campaigning

8

for women’s right to vote?

What negative effects does Pankhurst say she has experienced from her campaigning?

What do you think Pankhurst means by saying that suffragettes have been treated “like pickpockets and drunkards” instead of “like political offenders”?

What, according to Pankhurst, was the “duty of your forefathers”?

Write your own impressions of Pankhurst’s speech her. How would you compare it to the other speeches you have read?

Understanding

9

Analysis

1. In the first paragraph, what do you think Pankhurst means by “We have tried to be womanly”?

2. Read this tricolon from the second paragraph: “We have been misrepresented, we have been ridiculed, we have had contempt poured upon us.” What do the underlined words show you about Pankhurst’s political struggle?

3. Read this tricolon from the fourth paragraph: “We are driven to do this, we are determined to go on with agitation, because we feel in honour bound”. What do the underlined phrases tell you about Pankhurst’s emotions regarding her campaign?

10

4. Look at the list of rhetorical features on Page 2. Which one is used in the final sentence?“We are here not because we are lawbreakers; we are here in our efforts to become law-makers.”

5. According to what Pankhurst says in the last sentence, what change will there be in the position of women if her campaign is successful?

11

Speech 3: Barack Obama – ‘Yes we can’

Chicago November 4, 2008

Background Knowledge

Barack Hussein Obama, 44th president of the United States of America, was often criticised for his high rhetorical style. Rhetoric that is too obviously rhetoric is open to accusations that it is self-indulgent, theatrical and insincere, but Obama’s rhetoric isn’t just to persuade voters to support him, it is to conjure up a golden age of American politics.

The fact that Obama, a mixed-race man with a Kenyan father and a Muslim middle name became president is something that has come to be taken for granted, but to call his election remarkable is something of an understatement.

One of the ways he appealed to American voters was to hark back to the rhetorical tradition of Abram Lincoln and Martin Luther King – America’s founding hero and the martyred figurehead of the civil rights struggle.

One of his best known and best written speeches is the one he gave on his election in 2008. On a drizzly night, standing in Chicago’s Grant Park, he gave his audience the full firework display of his oratorical power, thick with anaphora and tricolon.

Barack Obama’s life: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-IgxSn21jU

A video from 2015 looking at life for black people today in America: https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/32976667

What were some of the jobs Obama had before he became president?

What are some of the issues facing black people today in America?

12

Read / Watch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEo7lzfpdCU

(this transcript is edited from the original speech)

13

The speech opens with anaphora “who still” repeated three to form a rising tricolon from doubting the American dream’ to wondering about the founders of the nation to questioning democracy.

Obama then returns to the personal. By describing himself as an unlikely candidate he seems humble. By saying that the campaign began not in Washington DC but in ordinary people’s homes and the small donations these people were able to make he makes himself sound like a man of the people.

If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.

It's the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen, by people who waited three hours and four hours, many for the first time in their lives, because they believed that this time must be different, that their voices could be that difference.

It's the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled. Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been just a collection of individuals or a collection of red states and blue states. We are, and always will be, the United States of America.

It's the answer that led those who've been told for so long by so many to be cynical and fearful and doubtful about what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.

It's been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this date in this election at this defining moment change has come to America.

I was never the likeliest candidate for this office. We didn't start with much money or many endorsements. Our campaign was not hatched in the halls of Washington. It began in the backyards of Des Moines and the living rooms of Concord and the front porches of Charleston. It was built by working men and women who dug into what little savings they had to give $5 and $10 and $20 to the cause.

It grew strength from the young people who rejected the myth of their generation's apathy who left their homes and their families for jobs that offered little pay and less sleep.

It drew strength from the not-so-young people who braved the bitter cold and scorching heat to knock on doors of perfect strangers, and from the millions of Americans who volunteered and organized and proved that more than two centuries later a government of the people, by the people, and for the people has not perished from the Earth.

This is your victory.

Here, Obama begins a second use of anaphora: “it’s the answer”. First, he zooms in on the experience of individual voters and their sense of optimism, patiently queueing for hours in the street for the right to cast their vote.Next, he links these individuals to a shared experience of being American which makes his election seem like the result of a huge national movement.Finally, he links these experiences to “the arc of history” to make a statement about the universal nature of hope.

The tricolon at the end of this paragraph “volunteered and organized and proved” leads to a direct quotation from Lincoln’s Gettysburg remarks.

Use of ‘we’ to include his audience and to build ethos.

14

This election had many firsts and many stories that will be told for generations. But one that's on my mind tonight is about a woman who cast her ballot in Atlanta. She's a lot like the millions of others who stood in line to make their voice heard in this election, except for one thing: Ann Nixon Cooper is 106 years old.

She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldn't vote for two reasons — because she was a woman and because of the color of her skin.

And tonight, I think about all that she's seen throughout her century in America — the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we can't and the people who pressed on with that American creed: Yes, we can.

At a time when women's voices were silenced and their hopes dismissed, she lived to see them stand up and speak out and reach for the ballot. Yes, we can.

When there was despair in the Dust Bowl and depression across the land, she saw a nation conquer fear itself with a New Deal, new jobs and a new sense of common purpose. Yes, we can.

When the bombs fell on our harbour and tyranny threatened the world, she was there to witness a generation rise to greatness and a democracy was saved. Yes, we can.

She was there for the buses in Montgomery, the hoses in Birmingham, a bridge in Selma and a preacher from Atlanta who told a people that "We Shall Overcome." Yes, we can.

A man touched down on the moon, a wall came down in Berlin, a world was connected by our own science and imagination. And this year, in this election, she touched her finger to a screen and cast her vote, because after 106 years in America, through the best of times and the darkest of hours, she knows how America can change. Yes, we can.

America, we have come so far. We have seen so much. But there is so much more to do. So tonight, let us ask ourselves: If our children should live to see the next century; if my daughters should be so lucky to live as long as Ann Nixon Cooper, what change will they see? What progress will we have made?

This is our chance to answer that call. This is our moment. This is our time — to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American Dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth that out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope, and where we are met with cynicism, and doubt, and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can.

Thank you, God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America.

Understanding

You need to research the answers to these questions. Read the second page of Obama’s speech.

What historical events is Obama referring to, and when did they happen?

“The Dust Bowl”

1930sA period of severe dust storms and drought that damaged agricultural land and industry in central parts of America.

“The Depression”

“The New Deal”

“Bombs fells on our harbour”

“Tyranny threatened the world”

“The buses in Montgomery”

“A bridge in Selma”

“A man touched down on the moon”“A wall came down in Berlin”

15

Analysis

Read the second page of Obama’s speech. Find as many rhetorical devices as you can and label them. Give at least ten examples on this page (you can have the same technique more than once).

bicolon “many firsts and many stories”

Speech 4: Malala Yourself, ‘Education is the only solution.’16

New York City July 12, 2013

Background knowledge:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/46865195

Choose 5 significant points in Malala’s life and summarise them:

17

Read / Watch: https://theirworld.org/explainers/malala-yousafzais-speech-at-the-youth-takeover-of-the-united-nations

There are hundreds of Human rights activists and social workers who are not only speaking for human rights, but who are struggling to achieve their goals of education, peace and equality. Thousands of people have been killed by the terrorists and millions have been injured. I am just one of them.

So here I stand...    one girl among many.

I speak – not for myself, but for all girls and boys.

I raise up my voice – not so that I can shout, but so that those without a voice can be heard.

Those who have fought for their rights:

Their right to live in peace.

Their right to be treated with dignity.

Their right to equality of opportunity.

Their right to be educated.

Dear Friends, on the 9th of October 2012, the Taliban shot me on the left side of my forehead. They shot my friends too. They thought that the bullets would silence us. But they failed. And then, out of that silence came, thousands of voices. The terrorists thought that they would change our aims and stop our ambitions but nothing changed in my life except this: Weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, power and courage was born.  I am the same Malala. My ambitions are the same. My hopes are the same. My dreams are the same.

Dear sisters and brothers, I am not against anyone. Neither am I here to speak in terms of personal revenge against the Taliban or any other terrorists group. I am here to speak up for the right of education of every child. I want education for the sons and the daughters of all the extremists especially the Taliban.

I do not even hate the Talib who shot me. Even if there is a gun in my hand and he stands in front of me. I would not shoot him. This is the compassion that I have learnt from Muhammad-the prophet of mercy, Jesus Christ and Lord Buddha. This is the legacy of change that I have inherited from Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and Muhammad Ali Jinnah. This is the philosophy of non-violence that I have learnt from Gandhi Jee, Bacha Khan and Mother Teresa. And this is the forgiveness that I have learnt from my mother and father. This is what my soul is telling me, be peaceful and love everyone.

18

Dear sisters and brothers, we realise the importance of light when we see darkness. We realise the importance of our voice when we are silenced. In the same way, when we were in Swat, the north of Pakistan, we realised the importance of pens and books when we saw the guns.

The wise saying, “The pen is mightier than sword” was true. The extremists are afraid of books and pens. The power of education frightens them. They are afraid of women. The power of the voice of women frightens them. And that is why they killed 14 innocent medical students in the recent attack in Quetta. And that is why they killed many female teachers and polio workers in Khyber Pukhtoon Khwa and FATA. That is why they are blasting schools every day.  Because they were and they are afraid of change, afraid of the equality that we will bring into our society.

I remember that there was a boy in our school who was asked by a journalist, “Why are the Taliban against education?” He answered very simply. By pointing to his book he said, “A Talib doesn't know what is written inside this book.” They think that God is a tiny, little conservative being who would send girls to the hell just because of going to school. The terrorists are misusing the name of Islam and Pashtun society for their own personal benefits. Pakistan is peace-loving democratic country. Pashtuns want education for their daughters and sons. And Islam is a religion of peace, humanity and brotherhood. Islam says that it is not only each child's right to get education, rather it is their duty and responsibility.

Honourable Secretary General, peace is necessary for education. In many parts of the world especially Pakistan and Afghanistan; terrorism, wars and conflicts stop children to go to their schools. We are really tired of these wars. Women and children are suffering in many parts of the world in many ways. In India, innocent and poor children are victims of child labour. Many schools have been destroyed in Nigeria. People in Afghanistan have been affected by the hurdles of extremism for decades. Young girls have to do domestic child labour and are forced to get married at early age. Poverty, ignorance, injustice, racism and the deprivation of basic rights are the main problems faced by both men and women.

Dear fellows, today I am focusing on women's rights and girls' education because they are suffering the most. There was a time when women social activists asked men to stand up for their rights. But, this time, we will do it by ourselves. I am not telling men to step away from speaking for women's rights rather I am focusing on women to be independent to fight for themselves.

Dear sisters and brothers, now it's time to speak up. 

Analysis

19

Look again at the section of Malala’s speech inside the box .

Explore how Malala uses rhetorical techniques to present her message about peace and education.

20