Fritinancy

Why Obama's Speech Worked

Roy Peter Clark analyzes the rhetorical effectiveness of Barack Obama's speech on race in America:

Much has been said about the power and brilliance of Barack Obama's March 18 speech on race, even by some of his detractors. The focus has been on the orator's willingness to say things in public about race that are rarely spoken at all, even in private, and his expressed desire to move the country to a new and better place. There has also been attention to the immediate purpose of the speech, which was to reassure white voters that they had nothing to fear from the congregant of a fiery African-American pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. 

Amid all the commentary, I have yet to see an X-Ray reading of the text that would make visible the rhetorical strategies that the orator and authors used so effectively. When received in the ear, these effects breeze through us like a harmonious song. When inspected with the eye, these moves become more apparent, like reading a piece of sheet music for a difficult song and finally recognizing the chord changes.

Clark examines "four related rhetorical strategies" that account for the speech's success:

1.  The power of allusion and its patriotic associations.

2.  The oratorical resonance of parallel constructions.

3.  The "two-ness" of the texture, to use [the black scholar and journalist W.E.B.] DuBois's useful term.

4.  His ability to include himself as a character in a narrative about race.

Regardless of what you think of Obama the candidate, you can learn a lot from his oratory and from Clark's thoughtful parsing. And regardless of whether you write speeches, annual reports, or novels, your writing will be stronger if you write to be heard as well as read.

Here's a link to the text of Obama's speech, accompanied by a video of his delivery.

P.S. Roy Peter Clark  is one of my favorite virtual mentors. His book, Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer, is indispensable (and fun to read!).

Thanks Awfully

Just in time for Sunday's 79th Annual Academy Awards show, National Public Radio presents its first annual Oscar contest winners. Listeners were asked to write a speech for a best-acting nominee in character. So we have Meryl Streep accepting as Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada (winner in the Best Devil-May-Care Attitude category), Judi Dench as Barbara Covett in Notes on a Scandal (Least Diplomatic), Mark Wahlberg as Dignan in Departed (Best Clean "Departed" Speech--and the lengths to which it goes to be clean are truly prodigious), and Jennifer Hudson singing her acceptance as Effie in Dreamgirls. (Be sure to listen to winning speechwriter Cleola Ratliff belting it out.)

And then there's Helen Mirren as QE2, winner in the Most Diplomatic category, as channeled so very regally by Kim Stanford of York, PA:

To those of you who selected me, your Queen, as the recipient of this honour, I offer my gratitude. I should never have expected to be so honoured in my lifetime. Indeed, it is an honour that I could have easily forgone. I would have preferred that my performance during that disastrous week be forgotten, but to my surprise, someone believed a film should be made about it.

If only a certain person had not been so impetuous, none of this would have been necessary. Still, what's done is done and we must move on. I would like to dedicate this award to my family, my Corgis, my devoted servants, and, of course, you, my people. Without your concern, your sound bites on the telly, your holding up a mirror to myself, none of this would have been possible. Thank you. I will keep this with my most treasured possessions.

And the Award-Acceptance Award Goes to...

There's nothing like hearing your favorite film or television actor attempt to improvise an award-acceptance speech to make you appreciate the scriptwriter's art. On screen, all actors are stunningly articulate (except when they're charmingly inarticulate); on the awards podium, nearly all of them are boring, banal, and repetitive. (Exceptions: Meryl Streep and most traditionally schooled British actors.) This year, writes Caryn James in today's New York Times, the problem is even more ... well, dramatic: in the three awards shows televised so far this season, the same four actors have won in their respective acting categories and have given more or less the same bad acceptance speech every time. James writes:

As the awards season lumbers toward the Oscars, you can almost envision what might happen when the Academy Awards are finally given out on Feb. 25. Forest Whitaker will fumble for words and mumble; Eddie Murphy will robotically deliver his list of industry thanks; Jennifer Hudson will work in a hokey use of the word “dream”; and Helen Mirren will pay tribute to the actual queen.

Whoa! Cut! If you've ever thought, "I could write a better acceptance speech than that," here's your opportunity. Enter National Public Radio's first Oscar Speech contest and show 'em how it ought to be done. The rules are simple: Write a 200-word speech in character (and in good taste) for any of the nominees for Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, or Best Supporting Actress. Deadline: 11:59 p.m. PST, February 17, 2007. As is the quaint custom in public-radio land, there will be no prizes, but the winners (as judged by NPR's digital media staff) will record their speeches over the phone; the best ones will be posted online. Here's a sample to get you motivated; the speaker (as if you needed to be told), is Sacha Baron Cohen in character as Borat:

Jagshemash! Wa wa oi oi. I kiss all of you. Especially you. (Points to sister.) She is No. 3 prostitute in all of Kazakhstan? Only four people in Kazakhstan watch ceremony right now, and 18 stand on top of roof with foil taped to groin to get signal. But this is glorious day for people of Kazakhstan. Only two from my country does America honor in this respect — I, Borat, and the how-you-say audio engineer from the 1987 silent film "Kazakh Potassium Company Employee Training Guide Part Eleven."

What the Presidents Said

You could do worse this Election Day than spend some time with this presidential tag cloud, a weighted visual representation of the frequency of certain keywords, or "tags," uttered in U.S. presidents' speeches (State of the Union, inaugural, and others). The larger the word, the more frequently it was used. Use the slider above the president's name to navigate back through time.

I was interested in one particular word: "god." In recent years, U.S. chief executives have referred so frequently and publicly to a supreme being that they sometimes sound like circuit preachers. But it wasn't always so. In an 1815 speech about the "sphere of religion," Thomas Jefferson never once used the word "god." Indeed, the first presidential mention of "god" I found was in Abraham Lincoln's 1862 "Plea for Compensated Emancipation," and it appears in the smallest type size. (Disclaimer: reviewing each speech's tag cloud requires exquisite mouse control; I may have missed one or two speeches. But it's pretty clear that Washington, Adams, and Jefferson saw little need to bring the deity into their public oratory.) Andrew Johnson and Ulysses S. Grant referred occasionally to a "god," but then the supreme being took a leave of absence for several decades, not to reappear until Woodrow Wilson's 1917 War Message. The Twenties and Thirties were relatively godless, presidential-speechwise, until FDR. And ever since Ronald Reagan, mentioning "god" has been obligatory for presidents and presidential candidates (not to mention senators, county supervisors, and dogcatchers). Indeed, Michael Kinsley observed a few years ago, "the national sign-off" has become "God bless you, and God bless America" (in Kinsley's shorthand, "GBY/GBA.")

Don't forget to vote.

Via BoingBoing.