Masaryk university faculty of education
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26.Wilson’s speech
Wilson’s speech is 2728 words long, with 77 sentences, averaging 35 words per sentence. Based on just this calculation it would appear that his sentences are rather long, indeed the longest one has 127 words, more than Lincoln’s or McKinley’s longest sentence, but the contrary is true. Wilson does have several long sentences with over 80 words each, but he compensates with many short sentences, almost resembling sound bites, using them at the beginning of paragraphs. It is a war against all nations. The challenge is to all mankind. What this will involve is clear. His speech therefore makes the impression of flowing better and being more comprehensible than those of Lincoln and McKinley. As for the use of tenses, there is still ample use of passive voice, finite sentences and also it-clauses, such as It will involve…, employing no evident agent. Based on Wilson’s topicalization shown in chart 8.9, we can see that most of his speech focused on praising the United States, or on an appeal towards American values, which is essentially also commending the United States, and together they comprise 36% of the speech. Chart 8.9 This statistic suggests a new impulse in American politics, shying away from criticism and emphasizing the positives, particularly those related to the United States.
Among the top ten nouns used by Wilson, depicted in table 8.10 are anticipated words such as government or people but also words of universal concern such as world, rights, nation(s), peace or law, indicative of global issues, relating to World War I. but also a global reach, which the United States was counting on. Table 8.10
While Wilson’s vocabulary is not as emotionally charged as in McKinley’s case, nonetheless, words like cruel, reckless or bereaved are strong and evoke compelling imagery. Closely related is the concept of binary conceptualizations, which are used on at least four occasions, with an example below: I am not now thinking of the loss of property involved, immense and serious as that is, but only of the wanton and wholesale destruction of the lives of non-combatants, men, women, and children…have always been deemed innocent and legitimate. Property can be paid for; the lives of peaceful and innocent people cannot be. Wilson juxtaposes the loss of property and destruction of lives against the legitimacy and innocence of not just people, but namely men, women and children. This explicit use of women and children especially is very effective. Further, Wilson skillfully navigates through the discourse with the use emotive expressions in frames focused particularly on human rights, as in the following example. When looking at the words in bold, positive evolution occurs in nouns: choice, moderation, counsel, temperateness, character, nation, not revenge, (not) might, vindication, right, champion; with the support of pronouns all in 1st person plural, moving toward the ultimate goal of depicting America as a nation of integrity, humility and restrain. The choice we make for ourselves must be made with a moderation of counsel and a temperateness for judgment befitting our character and our motives as a nation. We must put excited feeling away. Our motive will not be revenge or the victorious assertion of the physical might of the nation, but only the vindication of right, of human right, of which we are only a single champion. The paragraph starts with making a difficult choice, pushing aside feelings of excitement, revenge, hunger for victory or physical might, and finally the nation emerges as a single champion of right, of human right, the most prized of all. Not all paragraphs make use of frames as much as this one, but their use is nonetheless effective and somewhat numerous, applied in altogether ten instances. Wilson is quite explicit, particularly in the area of circumstantial evidence serving as justification, explaining all details of the conflict, giving concrete names and instances of attacks, not making much use of presupposition. Parallelism is more favored, as Wilson re-tells his ideas in a different manner, often with help of different frames or expressions. Metaphors are again rare. Worth mentioning is an emotional personification of America as a woman, combined with a strong appeal toward city upon a hill principle, urging people to fight for principles of their forefathers: America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured. God helping her, she can do no other.
Wilson is the first speaker analyzed attempting to make use of audience involvement strategies, by seriously employing 1st person plural, particularly the pronoun we 42 times and our 25 times, as seen in chart 8.11. There is also a numerous use of 1st person singular I used 21 times, however, Wilson tries to compensates by inviting the audience, using let us twice. Rhetorical questions are not used at all and the possessive pronoun their, usually referring to the German Government, is used 23 times. It is important to note that Wilson does not hide behind the title of the President or the Executive, but recommends the declaration of war to the Congress in 1st person singular, as follows: With a profound sense of the solemn and even tragical character of the step I am taking and of the grave responsibilities which it involves, but in unhesitating obedience to what I deem my constitutional duty, I advise that the Congress declare the recent course of the Imperial German Government to be in fact nothing less than war against the government and people of the United States… It is clear that Wilson is more decisive than his predecessor, as the nature of the conflict was much less controversial, that said, though war was declared right away, many senators still voted against. Chart 8.11 Interestingly, though World War I was being waged on the other side of the ocean, far away from the United States, Wilson’s deictic pointers stay within his time and place in more than 60% of cases, this being attributed to the pervasive use of I. This might also be connected with the global aspect of the conflict (mentioned in semantics), which kept the United States out of the war for long three years, despite the calls for help from Allied forces in Europe. The politics of the United States then favored isolationism, and entering a war taking place thousands of miles away, albeit dragging America in quickly, still seemed very wrong to many citizens as well as politicians. By taking a deictic approach of pointing here and now, Wilson tried to bring the war to America in order to convince everyone of the necessity entering it before it was too late. Chart 8.12 To further aid his cause, Wilson made entering the war a global issue of peace and humanity, appealing to his audience and their values, as per the excerpt below: We are glad, now that we see the facts …to fight thus for the ultimate peace of the world and for the liberation of its peoples, the German peoples included: for the rights of nations great and small and the privilege of men everywhere… To make his arguments firmer, Wilson favors repetition of all kinds, for example pronouns, prepositions, adjectives, or entire clauses, such as we, it, without, it was not. His favorite is the repetition of an adverb phrase with a subsequent inversion and addition of another adverb or phrase like in excerpts below. Let us be very clear, and make very clear to the world There are serious, very serious, choices of policy to be made, and made immediately As for the impact of media on Wilson’s speech, radio was already in existence at that time and though his speech did not yet air over the radio, certain linguistic features appear as if chosen to work in accordance with this possibility. There are short sentences used as sound bites, there is repetition for emphasis, parallelism for clarity and appeal toward American values, including several attempts of the use of audience involvement strategies. Wilson also employs a three part statement it will involve followed by a different verb at the beginning of a paragraph, when outlining the plans for entering the war. That said, there is still a high number of extremely long sentences and complex syntax with explicit descriptions, expecting the audience to be able to work through this uneasy discourse, being rewarded with a well organized narrative and expressions such as: …utmost practicable cooperation in counsel and action with the government… …the intimation is conveyed that…[they] will be treated as beyond the pale of law… This speech gives the impression of a solid and honest attempt to awaken the spirits of humanity and freedom in order to enter a global conflict for, as Wilson put it, “the universal dominion of right.”
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