Analysis

In this section, we will briefly summarize the main points of our analysis. 

The main topic of Trump’s speech is the future of America, and he tries to describe a vision of both political unity and economic growth. He does not make many direct arguments for his case, but presents his vision and tries to make himself appear to be qualified for the job.

Trump is an unusual political speaker, because he is not an experienced politician. This is also reflected in his language, which has a distinct style that is very different from usual political speeches, containing fragmented sentences and seemingly random repetition. The structure he uses is also very vague, jumping between different topics. However, the beginning of the speech does contain examples of a more classical political style, such as rhetorical devices like parallelism and antithesis, as well as a diplomatic tone towards his political opponents.

The audience of this speech was extremely wide, as millions of people both within and outside the US watched Trump’s election victory. In the speech itself, Trump strives to address both his supporters and his political opponents, as well as those people who have previously felt left out in American society. 

The circumstances of the speech were highly unusual because Trump’s victory was unexpected, because the election was extremely divisive and because he was such an unusual presidential candidate to begin with. Because of these unusual circumstances, part of his intention is to convince the American people that he is fully qualified to be president despite his background and that he is going to unite the politically divided America.

You can find the full analysis on the following pages of the study guide. 

Further help

Do you want additional help with analysis of speeches? See our guide to speech analysis: