Persuasion Tropes in Inspirational and Motivating Speeches: A Stylistic Study

Abstract

Persuasion is a complicated procedure and there are certain people who are regarded to be gifted to persuade someone or some people. Ordinary speech can not be used to persuade someone. This paper has tackled the use of symbolism and irony by public figure like actors or T.V. shows presenters to persuade people to do the right things. Five speeches have been selected to be the data of the study. It has been found that all the four speakers use symbolism very often due its great effect on people when they need persuade them, where the use of irony was very rare because irony always involve comic meaning, and this will not help the speakers to persuade anybody. A table has been designed to show the frequency of the symbolism and irony in those four speeches.

Keywords

• Stylistics
• persuasion
• symbolism
• irony
• motivation
• personal