Speech Analysis Essay on Oprah Winfrey's "Commencement" Class of 2008

Introduction

Learning is a continuous process that calls for a determination from individuals concerned. It improves the interactional level of a person as well as makes him or her useful in his or her future careers. Similarly, the nature of success that an individual possesses is a reiteration from their commitment to their studies in class. Notably, in Oprah's speech during the class of 2008 graduation at Sanford University address mild life experience that is useful for future developments. The primary intention of the statement was to give the class of 2008 hope after receiving their certificates. In her riveting speech, Oprah made her illustrations clear and easy to internalise by an emotionally personal level to attract the attention of her audience. She also uses several examples to make her speech easy to follow such as using herself as the centre of reference. Additionally, throughout the Oprah uses a bold and an aggressive tone, the inclusion of several individual quotes as well as an emotionally charged combination of pathos, to make her speech explicit, convincing, and attractive to her intended enthusiastic audience. The focus of this paper is to discuss the rhetorical analysis of Oprah Winfrey's expression to the class of 2018.

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Oprah's appeal to ethos is also subtle, letting illustrations and gentle tugs at her audience's conscience to establish her excellent character and authority. This is significant because she is a famous TV anchor and hosts several TV shows. However, Oprah made this a success by highlighting meaningful personal stories about her life, the way she struggled to make the right amount of cash at her early ages. "So I was 22 years old, making $ 22,000 a year and yet, it didn't feel right. It didn't feel right." The aim of using pathos in her speech was to create an explicit emotional connection through her feelings and ensured that the class of 2008 is enlightened after the certification.

Additionally, Oprah uses strong appeals to logos with several facts and statistics with the aim of making her riveting speech logical in a progression of ideas. Oprah also crafted her speech with an explicit organisational structure which is more interactive as a way of appealing to her audience and makes them feel more engaged throughout the speech process. For example, instead of using a formal statement which develops chronologically, she chooses a new technique with vocabularies as well as long and complex sentences. Oprah's speech utilised short sentences and quotes that move from one topic to the other. Each sentence highlights vital issues that are easy to understand without polluting the intended information.

Moreover, pathos is an excellent way to make the speech connect on a more personal level with the intended audience. Although this is very uncommon among the human race, the substitution of emotional information appeals to natural emotions. For example, she explains that it is often hard for television show anchors-people who spend most of their time behind screens to been accepted in the live arena. Towards the end of Oprah's speech, she used similar words and phrase to summarise the importance of education among people. Her use of similar opening expressions as a technique for rhetorical analysis made the audience feel more important after attaining their degree certificates.

Oprah's speech also uses various imageries to deploy firm and bold tone with the aim of make her clarification to make her explanations meaningful and easy to understand. However, it is clear that the before the speech, she had hosted several TV shows and gave numerous speeches to other agencies; this made it possible for the content to readily accepted and headed to among the class of 2008. Very early before her speech, Oprah had delivered a speech at Tenessa University on the importance of learning as opposed to other career developments among the young. The statement further affirmed and deduced that the best thing about learning is that no one can take it away from you.

Generally, by identifying and analysing specific strategies for rhetorical writing of academic speech, it is evident that there are numerous effective ways to produce an exemplary piece that appeals to the target audience, connects with their feelings and thoughts, and calls for reader's approval. For example, Oprah uses a prudent approach in addressing her speech, because humans are made in such a way that certain types of information, words, and feelings easily attract their attention. Additionally, Oprah Winfrey used bold tone, strong pathos technique, and a repetitive and intentionally blunt organisational structure to pass the message to the audience. Unfortunately, despite Oprah's persuasive speech, the good fortune she hoped for the class of 2008 was never for all of them. Finally, she maintained that a good future has begun and reveals a bold way to remain a focus for the future.

Overall, I believe Oprah's speech has a stern and perfect argument on the topic which is being addressed. She addressed the topic amicably using numerous personal reiterations and supportive illustrations which are very complex, although easy to follow and understand. The use of logos, pathos and ethos appeals make the speech more appealing to audiences' whole sense.

Works Cited

Winfrey, Oprah. Stanford, "Commencement", 2008. Address

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