OBAMA'S SPEECH ANALYSIS
The oral argumentative text is the transcription of Barack Obama's speech after his second election to president of the United States.

 It is an acceptance speech, that is an oral text where the speaker explains his reasons for accepting a role that he has been assigned to, in this case by an election. Contemporarily, he tries to convince those who do not approve his assignment to accept him.
Since the text is oral, it presents simple sentences (with the structure subject-verb-object), with few connectors and concrete examples. Repetitions, both of words and concepts, are very frequent. This structure is also employed to make the audience understand and remember more easily what is being said. Besides, the speaker pays particular attention not to contradict himself.
Before the real speech, there is an introductory part where the president thanks his voters and declares to accept his charge. Therefore, the argument starts at line 19.
Right from the start, Obama is aware of the importance of the election and of the different opinions his audience can have. Indeed, the concept is repeated three times (l. 19-21), in three different sentences. The relevance of the choice is underlined by the repetition of "choice between two".
The speech proceeds stating the main objective of Obama's policy (the thesis of his argument), that is "to restore the values that built the largest middle class and the strongest economy in the world". This means that any promise he will make later are directed to this objective. Here the use of the superlative underlines the level of greatness America can reach, and seems to underline a comparison between them and the present situation. Furthermore, the use of the pronoun "ours" implies that the president's intentions and the people's ones are the same; therefore it creates a unity between speaker and listeners.
After that, he gives some examples of defenders of the values he is referring to, which are drawn from his personal experience. He quotes directly his grandfather and his grandmother to make the speech more credible.
Afterwards, he explains what values should be restored (specification): they are the regain of unity of the nation, the defense of freedom of any people, equality and the revaluation of one's merit. To persuade people of this, he mentions America's greatest successes and qualities derived from the former values: the triumph over fascism and economical depression on 1929, the most liable products in the world, the well-being and personal satisfaction of all social classes, the possibility of improve one's life and the promise that hard work will be rewarded. The highness of the values is underlined by several repetitions (nation, everyone, fair), by the use of the superlative and through two metaphors (from the corner office to the factory floor and from Main Street to Wall Street to Washington). The latter are employed also to underpin their universality.
In the next lines, Obama explains the reasons why he ran for president in 2008 (argumentation). He says that he saw the old values starting to become corrupted: hard work wasn't rightly rewarded, jobs were moving away to overseas, debts were increasing. The situation collapsed in the Great Recession. The gravity of the situation is rendered through concrete examples (put gas in the car or food on the table, make the mortgage or pay tuition), which describe it and its effects on everyday's life objectively. Moreover, quoting his direct vision of the problem makes the speech more relevant.
After that, Obama comments the electoral strategy of the republicans (antithesis). According to him, they haven't proposed a concrete and efficient plan to resolve the difficulties, but they have only criticized what they think is wrong with America (argumentation 1 to refute the antithesis). It seems that they do not want to make their plan public. In the president's opinion, this is because they have not got a new and effective solution. To support this, he makes an ironic example, where he says that the only measures they are able to take are tax cuts.
In the next paragraphs Obama continues comparing the possible effects of the republican plan on the real needs of America (argumentation 2 to refute the antithesis). According to him, the republican intentions (tax breaks for millionaires, removing of financial aid, rolling back regulations on Wall Street) would not help America, which needs to pay down the deficit, to compete with China in science and technology and to expand its economy. Here too the examples on which Obama makes his argumentations are concrete and can really happen in this moment; they aim at describing the real consequences for common people. Also the language through which they are expressed renders theirs concreteness. The repetition of "we don't believe" highlights the uselessness of republicans' measures.
The paragraph ends with an encouragement of improving America's situation and continuing the strategy started four years ago. The repetition of "we" both underpins Obama's determination and compares him to a common citizen.