A Comparative Study of Genre Analysis in Inaugural Addresses Delivered by Barack Obama and George Washington

Abstract

To find out some traits related to language change, this study has investigated, and compared and contrasted two inaugural addresses, Washington’s and Obama’s, in terms of: move structure, syntactical traits, and lexical traits. The first section, regarding move structure, is properly conducted by employing a proposed move-structure framework as to whether the two addresses’ writing order is similar. The second section, concerning syntactical traits, is comprised of two points: the length of sentence, and imperative and interrogative sentences. These two points are undertaken in order that the deliver’s allusive attention is clarified. The third section, which is about lexical traits, is composed of two points: big words, and the first person pronouns, both singular and plural ones. The two points are analyzed in depth so that the characteristic in word use of those different addresses is uncovered. The findings show that there are some discrepancies between these two inaugural speeches. The first discrepancy is that Obama’s address is organized in nine moves; in contrast to Washington’s, which is organized in six moves. The second discrepancy is that most sentences in Washington’s speech are written in long sentences, rather than short sentences which are mostly used in Obama’s; besides, in Washington’s speech, there are not any imperative and interrogative sentences, compared to the much use of imperative sentence in Obama’s. The third discrepancy is that Obama’s address is written with fewer big words, opposed to the regular use of big words in Washington’s; moreover, the former address is composed of much use in the first person plural pronoun ‘We.’