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Speech Analysis

In this speech ex-President Ronald Reagan shares his toughs and give his condolences to the families and friends of the Challengers shuttle crew, the Challenger Seven, who lost their lives seconds after take off  due to the vehicles breakup, the speech was delivered the same day of the disaster, January 28 1986. In this speech he praises the Challengers crew and he addresses them as daring, brave and pioneers. He appeals to emotions, specifically empathy meaning he uses pathos, you can also identify the use of ethos which refers to the trustworthiness of the speaker, but not directly in the speech like "US President Ronald Reagan here" but as the speech was broadcast through television you can see it was delivered from the Oval Office at the White House which put hims in a position of power. As to rhetorical devices in this speech you can identify the us of allusion when he compares the Challenger crew to Sir Francis Drake who coincidentally died that same day three hundred and ninety ago, the intention of this is to highlight the crews dedication and how they wanted to expand man's frontiers, just like Sir Francis Drake wanted. Another rhetorical device used in this speech is alliteration which consists of putting words with similar commencement together so that these words emphasize each other and are embed in the audience's mind.

The speech does achieve its goal to gently address the families of the lost ones and to explain how this things happen when expanding frontiers, the speaker speaks for the country and to the country, but in a special way because this country he speaks for is portrayed in his wife Nancy, "Nancy and I are pained to the core" after this he proceeds to employ the word "our" to talk about the country, the space program and the space quest but not with the intention to say that all of that is Nancy's and his but its the countries. He also speaks about freedom appealing to their constitution therefore patriotism.

I believe the speaker delivers the speech in a perfect fashion regarding the speeches theme and he convinces the audience how in pain all the country feels for the national loss.

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Bibliography: 20/06/2015 CLT 16:30

http://history.nasa.gov/reagan12886.html

http://millercenter.org/president/speeches/speech-3413

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disaster

http://hubpages.com/hub/Examples-of-Rhetorical-Devices-in-Famous-Speeches

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/alliteration

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/assonance

http://www.biography.com/people/francis-drake-9278809