Satoshi Yamamoto

Ms. Jessi.M.Willson

Language and Literature year 4

10th August 2018

Analysing a Speech

The speech that I am going to analyze is the third speech titled ‘Student Council Speech’.

The speaker of the speech is a student from Jefferson Anderson High School named Stephanie

Keebler who wants to be the student council president of the school. The goal and the primary

message delivering through the speech is to persuade students of the ‘Jefferson Anderson High

School’ to vote for Stephanie Keebler herself as the president of the student council. As other

elections are, the choice of giving a chance to perform as the student council president is with the

audience/students. The speaker is delivering the speech to the audience to convince them to give

the chance to perform as student council president to the speaker.The speaker successfully

delivers the object to the audience through her honest commitments and giving logical reason for

why should the speaker be the student council president that the speaker have made.

The speeches are needed for the speaker but perhaps the most important part of the

speech is the audience. The speech was made in the place where all the students, teachers and

other school members were together because it was the speech about why should people vote for

the speaker as the student council member. The speech for student council president made for

persuading as much school members as the speaker can; therefore it has to be performed front of

all the school members so it should have been happened at the school hall or the place where the

most people can fit. The key demographic features of the audience is as I mentioned, the school
members most likely the students. The student members are usually large number of people so

perhaps around 500 to 800.

The opening of the speech was remarkable enough to impress the audiences. It started

with the sentence ‘Good afternoon, students and staff members!’ which is very fresh and

lively towards the audience. Also after the short sentence of the speech opening, the speaker

clarified her name which can be the action of willingness to be open for the audience. The

speech opening was clearly establishing the intent of the presentation by telling the audience

about the goal of being in the position of the student body president. However, the sentence

that said ‘I'll keep this quick as I'm sure you are ready to get out of here.’ is containing the

humour and the memorable meaning of thinking in the listener’s position and considering the

boredom of the audience.

To analyze the body of the speech, I could describe as the very straightforward speech

that connects to the goal of the speech. There was a point that the speaker mentioned that

seemed like a disadvantage for the person who is trying out for the student body president. But

the speaker was wise enough to turned the point to the advantage. The point was about that the

speaker was not have been the school from her freshman year but she managed to turn it as the

new students new and creative ideas that can change the school to the better place. The

speaker has used couple of the modes of persuasion and anaphora in the speech to convince

people to vote for the speaker. The speaker has used ethos and pathos from modes of

persuasion. The ethos that have been used in the speech is when the speaker says ‘You matter.

Your opinion matters. Don't choose someone who will make all of the decisions for you.’.

This sentence is telling the audience that they are important and worthy to have their rights to

speak for themselves and for their decisions. Also in the sentence ‘Choose someone who cares
about what you want.’, clearly is using ethos to persuade the audience to vote for the speaker

as the speaker is the one person who cares about the audience’s opinion. For the use of pathos

in the speech the sentence used is ‘I promise to always get your opinions before making any

decisions. You should have a say in the actions that will affect you.’ which is giving the trust

to the audience that the speaker promises to the people to listen and speak for them. Also in

the sentence ‘ I promise to listen and speak for you.’ and ‘I may not be the most well-known

person running for student council president, but I promise to listen to each and every one of

you.’, pathos had been used and as well as allusion is used in those sentences. To list the

anaphoras used in the speech, those can be ‘Are you tired of doing the same old things year

after year? Are you ready to do something different?’ as the ‘are’s are repeating, ‘Did anyone

ever ask you what you wanted to do for a fundraiser? Did anyone ever ask you what you

wanted to buy with the money we raised? Who makes these decisions?’ for due to using ‘did’

for many times, I promise to always get your opinions before making any decisions. You

should have a say in the actions that will affect you. ‘Every single one of you can come to me

with your ideas, and I promise to listen and speak for you. I may not be the most well-known

person running for student council president, but I promise to listen to each and every one of

you. ‘ as it is repeating the ‘I promise’ in the sentences, ‘You matter. Your opinion matters.’ is

clearly showing the use of anaphora as it uses ‘you’ several times, ‘Don't choose someone

who will make all of the decisions for you. Don't vote for the person who will pick whatever

their friends want them to choose.’ is containing ‘don’t at the beginning of both sentences and

for last ‘Choose someone who wants to be your spokesperson. Choose someone who cares

about what you want. Choose me, Stephanie Keebler, for your student council president.’ the

speech is using anaphora to give impact and to be decent ending so it repeated ‘Choose’ in the
sentences to impress the audience. As those literary devices are used in the speeches it would

have be confusing for some people to understand the use of it, but as the speech needs the high

quality of connection between the speaker and the audience, so it is well arranged in

understandable and recognisable way with the remarkable conclusion

The conclusion of the speech was very well and the good combination of the literary

devices used and the beauty of simplicity. The whole paragraph of conclusion was mostly

structured with anaphora and modes of persuasion. The conclusion was built with the

understanding of the audience’s pain of being not able to give ideas to the student body by

using ethos to convince people and used anaphora to make the conclusion and the main idea to

be the most recognisable and memorable out of the all the paragraphs. The speech also

contained the call-to-action for the audience to show which was voting for the speaker.

Basically, the speaker was using all that literary devices to make the audience vote for the

speaker which was exchanges of the good changes that the speaker will bring to the audience.

The speech was to persuade the audience to make the speaker to the president of the student

body and bring the action from the audience which is the final goal of the speech.

To describe the delivery skills and the techniques used in the speech it can be divided

to three big contents of humour, language and intangibility. The humour that was used in the

speech is shown in the speech opening paragraph. The sentence is ‘I'll keep this quick as I'm

sure you are ready to get out of here.’. The humour used in the sentence is appropriate for the

students and is the good choice of using it as the sentence can turn the atmosphere of the place

fresh and live. Also it is giving the good impression of the speaker to the audience as it it the

sentence that sounds like the speaker understands the audience well. It was very relevant to the

speech as it is better to show the audience that the speaker can understand the audience by
heart for persuading group of people. The language used was perfectly suitable for the

audience as the audience were the people with various age groups. There was no single

inappropriate language such as swear words or insulting words, the choice of the vocabularies

were carefully choose to make it sound easy and simple. As the speaker promise at the

beginning of the speech, The speech did not feel long neither boring but simply arranged with

only necessary information. The literary devices used such as ethos, pathos and anaphora kept

the speech entertained so it cannot be boring at all. To say about the intangibility, the speech is

very convincing for me and probably for the audience. It made me feel like I was being cared

and has importance in giving the idea to the people and felt like the speaker can really fix the

problems of the school. The speech even made me feel like the disadvantages of the speaker

can be the advantages and the speaker will actually listen to the audiences in giving ideas to

the student body members. I would like to listen to the speech again because it gives me self

confidence and importance to the ideas and opinions that I have.

To sum up the speech, it is a persuading speech with actually can convince the

audience for the speaker’s goal and it is very appropriate to the audience who are the

highschoolers of Jefferson Anderson High School. It contained several literary devices such as

ethos, pathos and anaphora witch helped making the speech more interesting. It was an

amazing speech from a student and I do appreciate the work that even convinced me as the

critic of the speech.