Style of language

The general style in lines 119-135 of Anand Giridharadas’ 2015 TED talk about America mirrors the talk as a whole. These lines make up the end of it; it is when the speaker is trying to deliver his message and convince his audience. Like we see it in the rest of the talk, the tone is heartfelt and sincere; this matches the use of pathos which is prominent here as well.

The level of formality in these lines is relatively high. For instance, the vocabulary includes phrases like “fascism” (l. 119), “moral challenge” (l. 120), and “immerse ourselves” (l. 126). However, the speaker also uses more informal wording such as “slicker” (l. 122) and we see two examples of contractions: “isn’t” (l. 121) and “won’t” (l. 122). Generally, the talk is fairly inconsistent when it c...