Analyzing John Kerry's Speech

John Kerry speech, “Fighting a Comprehensive War on Terrorism”, may be seen as an art of his campaign for the forthcoming elections in the country. Apart from arguing on his point of view regarding war on terrorism by Bush Administration, one can see good use of speech techniques displayed throughout the text to convey his message to the audience. Kerry uses all sorts of speech techniques like “name calling”, “appeal to fear”, “faulty cause and effect”, and “glory by association”, to portray his own version of President Bush’s image in front of audience and supported his ideas with persuasiveness.

While analyzing his speech from the point of view of many language techniques, we can see that he could not refrain himself from using “name calling”, a device consisting of labeling people or ideas with bad names. For instance, he calls President Bush a “War President” by saying: “Day in and day out, George W. Bush reminds us that he is a war President…” Onward, he calls Bush and his close associates “hawks”, in the words of “...What George Bush and his armchair hawks have never understood is that our military is ab

Throughout the speech it is hard not to notice Kerry make use of “appeal to fear”, a technique used to convince the audience by implicitly threatening them and using emotions rather then reasons to persuade. Kerry displays this technique toward the end of his speech by saying, “And our safety at home may someday be endangered as Iraq becomes a training ground for the next generation of terrorists.” Further on he says,” If I am President, we will embark on a historic effort to create alternative fuels and the vehicles of the future-to make this country energy independent of Mildest oil within ten years. So our sons and daughters will never have to fight and die for it”. Kerry’s statements make the audience afraid of the future with the way things are going in today’s world. These statements frighten people about what will happen to them and their home if the “next generation of terrorists” is not stopped in time. And of course, Kerry didn’t forget to mention “our sons and daughters”, which arose horrible thoughts in most parent’s, and made them afraid of their children “dying for oil”. That fear of their children dying and their homes getting destroyed, makes the audience look at Kerry as a new hope for a better tomorrow.

out more than moving pins on a map or buying expensive new weapons systems.” Kerry’s “name calling” of Bush and his associates right away makes us look at them in a different way. Since “war” is associated with something scary and horrible, giving Bush a name of a “war Preside

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