III. Practical Part

8. Levels of Analysis

The following pages are dedicated to the practical part of this thesis and will make use of the earlier described theory. Specifically, lexical, grammatical, stylistic, discourse and pragmatic levels will be analyzed in all six speeches and then compared and contrasted. Based on the findings, means of persuasion will be identified to either prove or disapprove the hypothesis, which is that means of persuasion change and evolve over time.

9. Lexical Level

The choice of vocabulary is more than important in a political speech. Though delivered orally, inaugural speeches are always well prepared in advance to carefully promote a president’s ideas and plans in order to solicit public approval as well as political support. Chief topics, choice of vocabulary, frequently used words, complex words and formal and informal language will be evaluated and compared. The following Table 1 provides a general overview of the most basic data in connection with the speeches, their sentence length, word count and average words per sentence. Further analysis will be provided in the following sections of this level analysis.

Table 1: Word statistics

	Jackson	Lincoln	McKinley	Roosevelt	Nixon	Clinton
words in text	1194	708	2259	1898	1907	2245
distinct words	476	339	809	687	509	715
sentences	30	26	100	96	72	112
average (in words)	40	27	22	19	26	20

1. Chief Topics

As with any speech, the purpose of speaking inevitably brings about a certain set of topics that are shared. Second inaugural speeches tend to share the following topics: thanking the public for re-election, evaluation of the past term, assessment of the present situation at home and abroad, outlining new policies, ideas and plans for the future. Following is a table outlining the main ideas in all six speeches.

Table 2: Chief topics

Jackson	Lincoln	McKinley	Roosevelt	Nixon	Clinton
Thanking for re-election	The only concern: The Civil War	Financial crisis averted	Disastrous crisis	New era starting	Preservation of old ideals
Celebrating world peace	Slavery as cause of war	There was war but now we have peace	We will find a solution while maintaining democracy	Healthy relationships with other counties	American century
Preservation of the Union	Both North and South are guilty	We are reunited	Grave situation in the country	Responsibility: at home as well as abroad	The racial divide as challenge
Preservation of the rights of states	God shall decide future destiny	Republic must survive	I know we can succeed	Government works together with individuals	Time for new government for new century
Sacrifices to be made		Relations with Cuba, Philippines	We must be patient and work as one		Bright plans and dreams

Though the noted topics do share some similarities, they are rather different, confirming that the choice of language is conditioned by all sorts of circumstances and elements. As Horvath claims, “not only the language use is affected by its groundedness within certain frame of cultural or social practice, but also the use of language influences and shapes the social and cultural context it finds itself in” (46). Since all the above topics are grounded within their frame of cultural, social and historical appropriateness, they cannot very well be compared. What can be more easily compared, however, are the most frequent words used as well as complex words, which are the topics of the following sections.

2. The Most Frequent Vocabulary

Given that topic analysis did not yield much substantial differentiation or objective comparison, it is important to delve deeper into the texts and focus on a more detailed feature - the choice of specific words. However, as the numbers in Table 3 indicate, though all words are evenly politically charged, they cannot be equally tracked with respect to their frequency of use. While words like government or people are somewhat equally employed by all speakers (Lincoln being the exception), other words such as union, citizen, liberty or war have an irregular appearance. For example Lincoln uses war since his speech takes place during the Civil War and is therefore the primary focus of his speech. Similarly, war has entered McKinley’s vocabulary, as America had just won the Spanish American War. Furthermore, it is surprising that for example Nixon does not use words like liberty, union or citizen, while Clinton (only thirty years later) uses all of them, citizen being used 10 times. The only traceable pattern is the use of America / American, which steadily increases, showing possibly both a growing importance of nationalism in the audience as well as the use of nationalism as a persuasive tool by politicians. This particular finding will be discussed later in detail, in the Pragmatic section. Seeing no other pattern in frequently used words, the following section will focus on topic words.

Table 3: Most frequently used words

	Jackson	Lincoln	McKinley	Roosevelt	Nixon	Clinton
GOVERNMENT	13	1	14	16	10	10
PEOPLE	9	0	12	11	6	11
LIBERTY	4	0	5	1	0	2
CITIZENS	3	0	2	2	1	10
UNION	9	4	0	0	0	4
AMERICAN / AMERICA	2	1	7	5	23	31
WAR	0	12	7	1	3	1

3. Topic Words

Topic words are a group of selected words that tend to dominate a certain part or the entire discourse, and therefore denote the main meaning. These words can be synonyms, hyponyms, antonyms or otherwise related words or combinations of words that allow the speaker to focus on a subject while avoiding unwanted repetition. Combined within a paragraph or an entire speech, together they send a clear message about what is the speaker’s focus. The following is a table summarizing the topic words of each speaker.

Table 4: Topic words

Jackson	Preservation, rights, importance, attention, powers, solicitude, governing maxim, sacred duty, responsibility, obligation
Lincoln	Union, war, nation, survive, perish, God, offenses, scourge,
McKinley	surplus, deficit, expenses, revenues, money, reckless ventures, profligacy, expenditures, waste, extravagances, congress
Roosevelt	Happiness, problem, morals, solve, new, government, people, power, great, challenge,
Nixon	Let us, we shall, abroad, at home, help, responsibility, government, better, commitment,
Clinton	America, choice, once again, American work, together, apart, new, dream, nation,

Upon reading these topic words, a pattern stands out, pointing towards the chief topics of each speech. And as with the chief topics, which were highly individual for each speech and its occasion, the topic words also do not show any specific correlation.

4. Complex Words

Complex words are generally polysyllabic words of foreign-origin, such as Greek, Latin or French and are an inherent part of formal, political speeches. Also highly specialized words from spheres of law, economics, religion, military, etc., seldom appearing in everyday speech, are considered as complex. Table 5 and Chart 1 show an interesting statistic of a steady decrease of the usage of complex words with time. This is particularly striking given that the audience was uniform for all speeches, i.e. the general public. That said, language in the 1800s was not primarily used as a communication tool but was rather an object of art, often full of poetic devices, rhetoric and figures of speech.

Jackson’s speech from 1833 contains 43 complex words: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and even conjunctions, often of Latin and Greek origin. Continuing with Lincoln’s 27 words where we must remember that his speech is only one third of the length of other speeches. It is virtually loaded with rich political and religious language, including a Bible quotation, all of which will be discussed in detail in the grammar and stylistic sections. McKinley used 35 complex words, using often finance-related terms, usually nouns and adjectives. Similarly, Roosevelt used 30 complex words, also mostly nouns and adjectives. Nixon’s count is the lowest, only 27 and Clinton’s is 31 complex words. It is important to notice though, that judging from today’s point of general English, Jackson’s complex words, such as approbation, encroach or indignantly are far more removed from everyday vocabulary compared to Clinton’s turmoil, pretense or thrive. As such it would be interesting to present Jackson’s speech to today’s audience and evaluate the audience’s response.

Table 5: Complex words

Jackson (43)	suffrages , solicitude, solemnities, preparatory, approbation, unadjusted, enlightened, conformity, allude, submission, ordained, imbibed, thereby, annihilation, anarchy, in proportion, encroaches upon, impair, detract, consolidate, arresting, admonished, palladium, anxiety, discountenancing, indignantly, dawning, enfeeble, exactions, deluge, philanthropist, forbearance, extricate, inculcate, exert, posterity, expenditures, requisite, foster, brethren,
Lincoln (27)	engrosses, prediction, ventured, anxiously, impending, avert, perish , deprecated, peculiar, perpetuate, insurgents, astounding, invokes, wringing, woe, cometh, providence, discern, therein, ascribe to, fervently, scourge, unrequited, toil, malice,
McKinley (35)	surplus, deficit, revenues, ventures, profligacy, expenditures, extravagances, disbursement, requisites, impending, peril, arbitration, hereafter, discharge, imposed upon, ascertaining, decrees, forebodings, becloud, wrought, intrenched, disheartened, exalted, falter, impotency, commonwealth, abiding, enfranchisement, entity, ratification, archipelago, auxiliary, earnestness, sovereignty
Roosevelt (30)	anxiety, pursuit, pledged, profaned, stagnation, covenant, baffled, bewildered, epidemics, fatalistic, belied, instinct, yielding, intricacies, impotent, autocratic, subordination, shattered, erect, heedless, imperative, persistence, hitherto, subsistence, superfluous, opportunism, trustees, abreast, re-consecrate, ambition,
Nixon (27)	bleak, threshold, retreat, isolation, stagnation, flimsy, interlude, vigorously, impose, presume, indispensable, profound, noblest endeavor, determination, condescending, paternalism, erode, solemn, dignity, privileged, abundance, aggression, steadfastness, beacon, sustained, striving
Clinton (31)	conviction, abolished, scourge, turmoil, unrivaled, dignity, harness, enterprise, unleash, exhilarated, indispensable, thriving, endure, preeminent, embrace, curse, prejudice, cloaked, pretense, plague, cripple, succumb, lurk, adversaries, igniting, thrive, fortifies, prophet, quest, redeem, acrimony

For the sake of objective research, the number of complex words in Jackson’s speech was increased by 40% and in Lincoln’s speech by 60% so that all speeches would have the same base of approximately 2000 words. Below is Chart 1 showing the steady decrease of complex words starting with Jackson’s 60 complex words per speech and ending with Clinton’s 31 words.

Chart 1: Complex words decrease between 1833-1997

5. Summary

Considering all the above noted findings, the semantic choice of words remains highly specific with regard to political, social, cultural and also personal constraints. Each speaker chose words that would best convey his message and ideas and also fit his personality. Lincoln was known to be a very religious man and so his speech contains many more religious references than for example Roosevelt, who used hardly any. That said, the most frequent vocabulary is politically charged (government, people, support), accompanied by words from religious, economic, legal or social environments. The only clear parallel was found between the number of complex words used and the year of the delivery, suggesting an overall simplification of language between the years 1833-1997. It can be asserted that contemporary political speeches use language predominantly for communication with public and use simpler words,; as opposed to speeches from the 19^th century where language was an art, so called figurative language (Griffin).

10. Grammatical Level

1. Types and Length of Sentence

Table 1 indicates that the average number of words per sentence varies from Jackson’s long sentences of 40 words, through Lincoln with 27 words, McKinley with 22, Roosevelt with 19, Nixon with 26 and Clinton with 20 words. Indeed, each speaker uses sentences of various length, from Jackson’s extreme of 80 words to McKinley’s extreme of 2 or 3 words.

Constantly bearing in mind that in entering into society "individuals must give up a share of liberty to preserve the rest," it will be my desire so to discharge my duties as to foster with our brethren in all parts of the country a spirit of liberal concession and compromise, and, by reconciling our fellow-citizens to those partial sacrifices which they must unavoidably make for the preservation of a greater good, to recommend our invaluable Government and Union to the confidence and affections of the American people.

Andrew Jackson

They triumphed. We are reunited. Sectionalism has disappeared.

McKinley

As for coordinators and subordinators, we can see from Table 6 that their choice varies without any apparent connection or pattern.

Table 6: Coordinators and subordinators

	Jackson	Lincoln	McKinley	Roosevelt	Nixon	Clinton
AND	53	(72) 24	97	53	50	94
OR	6	(6) 2	4	5	4	5
FOR (as conjunction)	2	(9) 3	5	4	0	2
WHICH	14	(27) 9	16	5	12	0
THAT	12	(36) 12	13	33	33	27
UPON	5	(3) 1	12	6	0	3
BUT	3	(15) 5	5	7	15	11
WHO/WHOM	0	(6) 2	8	9	4	7
IF	0	(6) 2	3	2	3	0
AS (as conjunction)	3	(15) 5	10	2	9	3
BECAUSE	0	(3) 1	1	1	5	1

2. Sentence Structure

1. Jackson’s Sentence Structure

Jackson’s shortest sentence is 10 words: The eyes of all nations are fixed on our Republic. This short sentence is however surrounded by generally long, complex sentences with many clauses, stretching over the length of an entire paragraph. Jackson uses mostly subordinate clauses and many appositive phrases, as well as purpose clauses:

The will of the American people, expressed through their unsolicited suffrages, calls me before you to pass through the solemnities preparatory to taking upon myself the duties of President of the United States for another term.

There are frequent pre and post-modifications of noun phrases:

The foreign policy adopted by our Government soon after the formation of our present Constitution, and very generally pursued by successive Administrations, has been crowned…

And numerously used are also various finite –ed or –ing clauses:

Solemnly impressed with these considerations, my countrymen will ever find me…

…watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety, discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion,…

Further, Jackson often employs various inversion techniques, passive voice and other discontinuities, but surprisingly only one existential sentence.

2. Lincoln’s Sentence Structure

Lincoln’s grammar is somewhat equally complex, however he uses many more short sentences (the average number of words per sentence is 27) with coordinate structure, some even verbless:

His aid against the other.

That said he is also very fond of long appositions and relative clauses:

Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest, which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented.

Lincoln’s most frequent sentence structure, however, is beginning a sentence with the indefinite pronouns all, either, neither, both, and he eloquently uses them for repetition and contrast:

All dreaded it, all sought to avert it

Neither party expected … Neither anticipated… Each looked for an easier triumph… Both read the same Bible…

He also uses fronting with inversion (subject operator or verb):

Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray… …let us judge not..

Interestingly, he also uses existential sentences seldom, only two times.

3. McKinley’s Sentence Structure

The average number of words in McKinley’s speech is only 22 words, but his sentences are generally long. The lower word count per sentence can be explained by his use of several short sentences in a row, which could be considered as soundbites:

The path of progress is seldom smooth. New things are often found hard to do. Our fathers found them so. We find them so. They are inconvenient. They cost us something.

This method not only lowers the average of the word count, but most importantly catches the hearer’s attention. That said, McKinley’s speech often lacks complex and eloquent structures as seen in the speeches of Jackson or Lincoln. He uses equally coordinate as well as subordinate sentences and extends their length by the use of pre and post modification. Although his subordinate sentences do consist of a variety of relative, purpose, result, cause, concession or appositive clauses, they are short of other grammatical structures, such as fronting, inversion or postponement.

The American people, intrenched in freedom at home, take their love for it with them wherever they go, and they reject as mistaken and unworthy the doctrine that we lose our own liberties by securing the enduring foundations of liberty to others.

The majority of all sentences begin with a pronoun, i.e. we, I or with the determiner the being followed by a noun phrase. Also, McKinley uses existential sentences five times.

4. Roosevelt’s Sentence Structure

The average number of words in Roosevelt’s speech is 19, which is the lowest count of all the speeches. Indeed, Roosevelt uses a conversation style-like writing which requires the sentences to be shorter and more comprehensible. As a result, he uses simple coordination with the coordinator and as well as complex coordination. All of his sentences are usually horizontally and vertically complex, i.e. pre and post modifiers as well as subordinate clauses are present.

A century and a half ago they established the Federal Government in order to promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to the American people.

Roosevelt does not employ many fronting or inversion techniques and often begins sentences with pronouns or noun phrases, following the general SVO, SVOA, SVOC structure, which is extended by appositive phrases or finite clauses:

In this process evil things formerly accepted will not be so easily condoned.

Roosevelt’s speech contains only three existential clauses and only several examples of fronting or inversion.

5. Nixon’s Sentence Structure

As with any speech, the grammar in Nixon’s speech is closely tied with its stylistic formation. He introduces a topic with several longer, complex sentences in a paragraph and then continues with almost a point-by-point structure that contains often only one, longer subordinate sentence, which also acts as a paragraph. As seen in the example below, his average sentence length, 27 words, is caused by the frequent use of dashes or semi-colons:

We have the chance today to do more than ever before in our history to make life better in America—to ensure better education, better health, better housing, better transportation, a cleaner environment—to restore respect for law, to make our communities more livable—and to insure the God-given right of every American to full and equal opportunity

Because the range of our needs is so great…

Just as building a structure of peace abroad has…

Abroad, the shift from old policies to new…

And at home, the shift from old policies to new will…

Nixon likes to begin a sentence with a pronoun, often we, or let us phrase, demonstrating that stylistics, rather than grammar, is the focus of the speech. There are no other notable grammatical structures that appear in the speech, and there are only three existential sentences.

6. Clinton’s Sentence Structure

Clinton’s word count is low, only 20 words per sentence, and it can be said that the complexity of Clinton’s speech is driven by stylistic features, such as repetition, exclamations, vocatives or rhetorical questions, rather than an interesting grammatical structure. Sentences are short and comprehensible, with simple coordinate structures. Longer sentences are often divided by semi-colons for better understanding, and few pre or post-modifiers are used. Instead, structures are vertically focused, i.e. finite clauses or subordinate sentences, often relative or purpose:

Along the way, Americans produced a great middle class and security in old age; built unrivaled centers of learning and opened public schools to all; split the atom and explored the heavens; invented the computer and the microchip; and deepened the wellspring of justice by making a revolution in civil rights for African Americans and all minorities, and extending the circle of citizenship, opportunity and dignity to women.

As with Nixon, Clinton’s speech is more interesting stylistically than grammatically, and no particular grammatical features are worth noting.