Coordinating Ethos And Pathos To Maximize Persuasive Effects:a Rhetorical Analysis Of President Obama’s2010State Of The Union Address

From a certain perspective, the President of the United States can be seen from the perspectives of different disciplines among which western rhetoric tends to interpret this figure as a symbol built on various rhetorical devices. This figure projected different ethos in different rhetorical situations largely affects the audience’s identification.A great number of academic researches at home and abroad, from the perspective ranging from cognitive linguistics, stylistics, pragmatics, have been done on Obama’s State of the Union Address, yet few of them have been undertaken directly connected with Western Rhetoric. From a rhetorical perspective, this paper brings out the basic concepts and theories of rhetoric on ethos and pathos. It then focuses on how this great orator takes full advantage of rhetorical devices projecting his most effective ethos as well as predicting emotional needs of his audience to cleverly reverse the unfavorable situation into favorable one. Through analyzing Obama’s2010State of the Union Address, we find that the projection of ethos, to a large extent, can’t work without appealing to pathos; only if coordinate ethos and pathos can the speaker establish his authority, make his own words more persuasive and influencing, and ultimately maximize persuasive effects.