Words That Matter: The Significance of "Stories" in Obama's 2008 Election Campaign

Authors

  • Marta Degani Università degli Studi di Bergamo

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.13136/2281-4582/2014.i3.683

Keywords:

Barack Obama, Discourse Analysis

Abstract

On November 4, 2008 people all over the world could celebrate the advent of a new era. The election of Barack Hussein Obama as the 44th American President was a historic event of immense significance. For the first time in the history of American democracy, an African American was elected President of the United States.

After eight years of policies that had increased military expenditure and broadened the gap between what Obama likes to call “Main Street” and “Wall Street”, the time of the Republican administration was eventually over. Obama was welcomed as the president promising renewal. He was seen as the leader who would move the country ahead and bring about real change in the lives of ordinary Americans. Being young for a person in that role and charismatic, he was capable of awaking American people’s subliminal needs for hope at a time of great uncertainty and economic instability.

References

Alim, Samy and Geneva Smitherman. Articulate While Black. Barack Obama, Language, and Race in the U.S. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.

Bobo, Lawrence and Michael Dawson. “A Change Has Come. Race, Politics, and the Path to the Obama Presidency.” Du Bois Review 6.1 (2009): 1-14.

Capone, Alessandro. “Barack Obama’s South Carolina speech.” Journal of Pragmatics 42 (2010): 2964-77.

Degani, Marta. Framing the Rhetoric of a Leader. An Analysis of Obama’s Election Campaign Speeches, forthcoming.

Georgakopoulou, Alexandra. Small Stories, Interaction, and Identities. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2007.

--- “The Other Side of the Story: Towards a Narrative Analysis of Narratives-in-interaction.” Discourse Studies 8.2 (2006): 235-57.

Hatavara, Mari,Lars-ChristerHydén and Matti Hyvärinen, eds. The Travelling Concepts of Narrative. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2013.

Hunt, Matthew and David Wilson. “Race/Ethnicity, Perceived Discrimination, and Beliefs about the Meaning of an Obama Presidency.” Du Bois Review 6.1 (2009): 173-91.

Kloppenberg, James. Reading Obama. Dreams, Hope and the American Political Tradition. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011.

Labov, William. “Some Further Steps in Narrative Analysis.” Journal of Narrative and Life History 7.1-4 (1997): 395-415.

--- Language in the Inner City. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1972.

Lakoff, George. Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.

Obama, Barack. The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream. New York: Random House, 2006.

--- Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance. New York: Three Rivers Press, 1995.

Pettigrew, Thomas. “Post-racism? Putting President Obama’s Victory in Perspective.” Du Bois Review 6.2 (2009): 279-92.

Remnick, David. The Bridge. The Life and Rise of Barack Obama. New York: Knopf, 2010.

Smith, Rogers and Desmond King. “Barack Obama and the Future of American Racial Politics.”Du Bois Review 6.1 (2009): 25-35.

Walters, Ron. “Barack Obama and the Politics of Blackness.” Journal of Black Studies 38.1 (2007): 7-29.

Downloads

Published

2014-06-01

Issue

Section

Articles (general section) - English language and linguistics