Stylistic hallmarks of Obama's (2009) and Al-Maliki's (2006) inaugural addresses

Abstract

In inaugural addresses, presidents (e.g. Obama and Al-Maliki) intend to convey their intentions and plans and to announce their new political strategies in order to convince the public to accept and support them. To attain such purposes, they have often recourse to shrewd selection of linguistic elements and manipulation of rhetorical devices. Thus, this paper aims to investigate the stylistic hallmarks utilized in Obama's and Al-Maliki's Inaugural Addresses, focusing on the roles realized by these hallmarks in delivering the intended messages. Obama's (2009) and Al-Maliki's (2006) Inaugural Addresses have been selected to be the data of the study. For the data analysis, a qualitative method involving the identification of the most prominent stylistic features is followed. The paper concludes that both Obama and Al-Maliki resort to different stylistic features and devices with relatively different degrees. This slight diversity of this use seems to be due to the nature of the two languages and to the different goals sought by the two speakers. Moreover, metaphor, repetition, parallelism and metonymy are the more dominant devices in Obama's Address than in Al-Malik's. Simile is only observed in Obama's address.