STYLO-RHETORICAL ANALYSIS OF DISCOURSE MARKERS IN BARACK OBAMA’S 2009 INAUGURAL SPEECH

Abstract

It is no gain saying to state that Discourse Marker is an important component of a speech system which plays vital roles in the generation and understanding of a discourse meanings. Its roles in discourse communication is understood to be mainly pragmatic and dynamic. This study is poised to investigating how Barack Obama in his 2009 inaugural speech as the newly sworn in president of America enshrined the strength of Discourse Markers as rhetorical instrument in the speech. The study deploys the classification pattern of Schiffrin (1987)’s Coherent Theoretical Framework of Discourse Marker for the analytical study of the stylo-rhetorical motifs of the text. The study observes that Barack Obama as an oratory speaker, carefully selected his choices and both pragmatically and dynamically chose his Discourse Markers not only to enhance coherence and fluency of the text but to also foster his persuasive intents. The study however concludes that the instrument of Discourse Markers if carefully synchronised will always constitute a potent devices to enhance textual coherence, fluency, and to aid clear understanding of author’s attitudes or emotion. It pontificates the instrument for comprehending the message of a text and could be more useful to enhance the core objectives of any kind of discourse communication.