Abstract

Aristotle’s persuasion principle consists of ethos, logos and pathos, is a quite useful rhetorical strategy. Ethos concerns with character. Logos concerns with logic. Pathos concerns with emotion. President Obama is a great influential public speaker. His speech embodies Aristotle’s persuasion principle.
The study takes 2012 President Obama Presidential Nomination Acceptance Speech as a sample, focusing on the specific embodiments of three rhetorical appeals in his presidential nomination speech. The aim is to reveal the instructional significance of Aristotle’s persuasion principle in political speeches. This paper consists of four parts. Part one is an introduction which mainly talks about the history of Obama’s political speeches and rhetorical researches on Obama’s political speeches during the recent years. Part two is a brief introduction to political speech which mainly includes features of political speech and the importance of presidential nomination speech. Part three is about the application of Aristotle’s three appeals in Obama’s speech. Obama’s speech is analyzed from the perspectives of ethos, logos and pathos. Part four is the conclusion.

Key Words: Aristotle  Persuasion Principle  Barack Obama  presidential nomination acceptance speech
 
摘  要

亚里士多德说服原则由道德诉诸、理性诉诸、感情诉诸组成,是一种相当实用的修辞策略。道德诉诸关乎性格，理性诉诸关乎逻辑，感情诉诸则关乎情感。奥巴马总统是位极有影响力的演讲者，其演讲体现了亚里士多德的说服原则。
本研究以2012年奥巴马总统提名演讲为样本，集中讨论三种修辞诉诸在其提名演讲中的具体体现，旨在揭示亚里士多德说服原则对政治演讲的指导作用。本文由四部分组成，第一部分主要讲述奥巴马政治演讲历程及近年来对奥巴马政治演讲中的修辞研究现状。第二部分简要介绍政治演讲，主要包括政治演讲的特征和总统提名演讲的重要性。第三部分主要分析亚里士多德说服原则在奥巴马演讲中的运用，就道德诉诸、理性诉诸、感性诉诸对奥巴马演讲展开文本分析。第四部分为结论。

关键词: 亚里士多德  说服原则  贝拉克•奥巴马  总统提名演讲

1 Introduction
Like most of the original rhetorical elements, Aristotle’s persuasion principles were mainly used for public oratory in Greece. For their justified rights, people widely used the rhetorical methods to guarantee their rights. However, as political area was gradually evoked to an unequal game. Rhetorical methods were changed during the past hundreds of years. Especially in Middle Ages, the helpless people started shifting their rhetorical focus from soaring speech to quite writing.