Abstract

This paper is intended to discuss the rhetorical features in President Barack Obama’s speech “Address to the People of Berlin”, in particular, his power of persuasion. To reach this goal, the logical induction method was employed. It is concluded that Obama weaves the three Aristotelian rhetorical appeals throughout this speech. With the emotional appeal, Obama establishes a good relationship with the audience, and produces affectional resonance. With the ethical appeal, Obama shows his good character and personal charisma. With the logical appeal, Obama gets the trust of the audience and wins their support. Therefore, Obama makes a great success by applying Aristotelian rhetorical appeals.

Key  Words: Barack Obama  address to the people of Berlin  Aristotle  three means of persuasion

摘 要

本文旨在分析巴拉克奥巴马总统的演讲“致柏林人民”中的修辞特征，着重点住说服能力。通过逻辑归纳法，发现奥巴马全文运用了亚里士多德的三个修辞诉诸原理来达到其演讲目的。通过情感诉诸，奥巴马与听众建立了情感上的共鸣，从而形成了良好的关系。通过伦理诉诸，奥巴马展现了其个人魅力，成功地在听众面前塑造了一个良好的形象。通过逻辑诉诸，奥巴马赢得了听众们的信任，同时也获得了更多的支持。总之，通过运用亚里士多德的三诉诸，奥巴马在这次演讲中取得了巨大的成功。

关键词：巴拉克•奥巴马 柏林演讲 亚里士多德 三诉诸

1 Introduction
This paper intends to analyze Barack Obama’s speech “Address to the people of Berlin” based on Aristotelian rhetorical appeals: pathos, ethos and logos, which are described by Aristotle as follows,
Of the modes of persuasion furnished by the spoken word there are three kinds. The first kind depends on the personal character of the speaker; the second on putting the audience into a certain frame of mind; the third on the proof, or apparent proof, provided by the words of the speech itself.
George Campbell states that rhetoric is that art or talent by which discourse is adapted to its end. The four ends of discourse are to enlighten the understanding, please the imagination, move the passion, and influence the will. He believes that Aristotle’s syllogistic method is faulty because of four reasons: firstly, it is supplied as a way of discovery or at the outside it is a method to present ideas; secondly, as a method of presentation or even in mathematics, it is not efficient or does not work since its formal rules do not guarantee validity; thirdly, even if it is only used as a method of reasoning, a syllogism is not very useful because it leads one to discover what is obvious from the first premise, because the syllogism will most likely assume the point in question; fourthly, even if they will sometimes guard the mind against an oversight, syllogisms often also mislead and are hardly the most effective check against carelessness.