English 11 / Unit 7: Rhetorical Analysis
7.4 Analyzing a Speech
Notes
Analyze how choices create effects, not just what the speech says.
- Step 1: identify the rhetorical situation (speaker, audience, occasion, purpose).
- Step 2: mark the major strategies (appeals, devices, structure, shifts in tone).
- Step 3: explain how each strategy helps the speaker achieve the purpose.
- Look for shifts: a speech may move from praise to criticism, or from problem to solution.
- Worked example: In his 1775 speech, Patrick Henry asks, "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" The rhetorical question pushes the audience to accept that liberty is worth more than safety, and the "chains and slavery" imagery appeals to emotion.
Practice
Which sentence best analyzes rather than merely summarizes?
Analysis explains how a choice produces an effect.
A speaker begins by praising an audience's past achievements and then explains why they must now take bolder action. This shift mainly serves to:
Praise establishes goodwill and prepares for the call to action.
Before analyzing the devices in a speech, you should first:
The rhetorical situation guides interpretation.
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