Driving Home Persuasive Messages in Barack Obama’s Closing Argument “One Week”

Abstract

As Obama‟s speech entitled “One Week” signified the closing argument for all his presidential campaign speeches in the U.S. Presidential Election in 2008, Obama attempted to do his best to persuade the American voters to bring the important issues of his political agenda to the highest level of their consciousness. In that way the American voters were reminded of the important point of voting for him. For that purpose, to drive home his persuasive messages of unity and change, Obama delivered the speech making good use of some rhetorical devices. This paper is an attempt to explore and elucidate his outstanding use of those rhetorical devices such as sound bites for highlighting the messages, sound devices for appealing to his audience‟s ears about the messages being delivered, and the various means of message amplifications for magnifying powerfully the messages being delivered in his closing argument speech.