Obama's State of the Union

Obama's State of the Union address was very well crafted from a rhetorical standpoint. He used a wide array of techniques ranging from appealing to his audience and occasion. He also used logos, pathos, and ethos to his advantage.

Throughout his address, I noticed a lot of repetitive patterns. Obama would say something, them it would invoke a response in his audience--prolonged periods of clapping. Usually he would bring up a fact or statistic about our nation's improved conditions, or even used humor to invoke a response in his audience.

Although, the audience on screen does not completely represent the entire audience that he was giving the address to. Many groups in the audience did represent larger groups in our nation, such as Republicans, Democrats, upper and lower classes. Obama uses this audience to create an occasion and use pathos to appeal to a particular audience. He uses a working-class mother as an example of the economy's improvement to show how well off she is now. This sort of example will correlate to many other Americans just like her.

Obama later transitions to the things that are bugging him about the current state of our nation. He makes references to a few failures within our nation, such as the government shutdown and college education. He uses these things to address how he hopes to see our nation in the future, and lays out a plan to execute his ambitions.

Obama crafts his words in a way that most can understand. He refrains from using terms that many would have a hard time understanding, and his diction allows him to speak to a wide range of people. He does however throw in a few terms like "middle-class economics". But overall, this appeal helps him reach his entire audience.

Obama makes a lot of strong points in his address, but his use of pathos and ethos, strong diction, occasion and other speaking techniques, allow him to captivate his audience and prove to them his argument.