Tuesday 13 January 2009

Assignment on Rhetoric - Dolly, M, II BA English

Choose any one famous speech of Dr.Abdul Kalam that interests you and analyse its structure from a rhetorical perspective and comment on its historical significance.

Submitted by: Dolly, M, II BA English

Kalam's Indian Vision - 2020

"I have three visions for India. In 3000 years of our history, people from all over the world have come and invaded us, captured our lands, conquered our minds. From Alexander onwards, The Greeks, the Turks, the Moguls, the Portuguese, the British, the French, the Dutch, all of them came and looted us, took over what was ours. Yet we have not done this to any other nation. We have not conquered anyone. We have not grabbed their land, their culture, their history and Tried to enforce our way of life on them. Why? Because we respect the freedom of others...
... ... ...

"ASK WHAT WE CAN DO FOR INDIA AND DO WHAT HAS TO BE DONE TO MAKE INDIA WHAT AMERICA AND OTHER WESTERN COUNTRIES ARE TODAY"
Lets do what India needs from us.
Thank youAbdul Kalaam


Rhetoric is all about listening, speaking, reading and writing, where the oratory part is not given importance in the educational institutes, which is a drawback in the upgrowth of children. Rhetoric in a broad sense means 'to convince'. We can see this quality in most of the best orators like Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Barack Obama, Abdul Kalam.

To talk about the speech from a rhetorical perspective, I've taken the famous speech of Dr.A.P.J.Abdul Kalam. Its known with a title "Kalam's Indian Vision 2020." This speech is known to be one of the most inspirational speech given by Abdul Kalam to the people of India.

The speech is started by directly approaching the main point. The main idea of the whole speech is given in the first sentence itself.

"I have three visions for India."

The three main canvas of Rhetoric;
* Logos - using logic thus to appeal to the reason.
* Ethos - using ethics thus to appeal to the ethical principal and
* Pathos - Emotion is cleverly and satisfactorily used by Mr.Kalam in this speech.

Secondly, comes his style. Style is the manner of expressing thought in language; and more over particularly giving it skillful expression with fitting dignity and distinction. As its said that a man style is mirror of his mind and character, we see that Mr.Kalam's style represent his humanity and humble nature. We can see that his interest, lies in developing not only the nation but also the mind set of the people of the nation.

This speech has its own style and the expression is direct and easily said so that even a layman can understand without any difficulty.

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