Obama's acceptance speech

Paragraphs 2, 3 and 4

The repetition of "choice" (lines 1, 2, 3) is due the oral form of the text and underlines the importance of the voters' decision. At line 4 Obama refers to the values that made the wealth of the USA and provides personal examples to be more credible. At line 8 he draws the attention on the policy based on independence and mutual aid that made the USA one of the wealthier countries in the world. The importance of the goals reached by the nation in history is underlined by the repetition of "nation" at lines 9 and 10, while the concept of the synergy of the population is emphasized at line 10 ("everyone shared in the pride and success"). He wants to refer to all the social classes as the reader can understand by "from the corner office to the factory floor"(line 10). At line 11 he provides personal examples again; the passive form "were given" underlines the changes between two different periods. At line 12 he goes more in deep explaining what the social context was like when America was one of the best nations in the world.

The repetition of "everyone" (lines 13 and 14) underlines the equality of all the social classes as well as "from Main Street to Wall Street to Washington, DC" (lines 14 and 15).

The more he explains the great past times, the more he emphasizes the difference between the old and the present time and creates an expectancy in the Audience: everyone thinks that Obama wants to restore that values.  The Audience's expectancy is confirmed in the following line, where "slipping" (line 16) underlines how fast the values were fading out. In the following lines Obama refers to the difficulties that grew up by 2008 and creates an antithesis with the previous lines enlarging the Audience's expectancy.  The verbs "struggled", "racking up" (line 19), "collapsed" (line 21) and the concrete use of the language ("put gas in the car or food on the table") emphasize the difficulties. At lines 27, 28, 29 and 30 Obama uses irony to get rid of his opponent's opinion and way of resolving the problems.  The repetition of "I don't believe" (lines 32, 33 and 35) adds emphasis to his convictions. At line 35 he refers to China in order to be more persuasive creating a real context of the problems and an "enemy" that represents a threat for everyone. The words "rolling back" (line 15) and "going back" (line 37) underline the importance of "moving forward" (line 38) in order to progress.