Alliteration in Inaugural Addresses: From George Washington to Barack Obama

Abstract

This chapter looks at alliteration in one of the sub-genres of political speech, the inaugural addresses of the presidents of the United States. The data cover all the delivered inaugural addresses (56 altogether), from George Washington to Barack Obama, comprising over 130,000 words and over 3000 instances of alliteration. Based on quantitative analysis, careful comparisons are made between the amount of alliteration in various presidents’ speeches and the nature of their presidencies. Even though the most alliterating presidents come from recent years (George W. Bush, John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton), the numbers do not strongly support the argument that alliteration has become more common during recent times. However, alliteration does seem to be related to populism: many presidents with populist approaches resort more to its use. Most of the early presidents used it sparingly, but its use increased with Andrew Jackson, the first ‘populist’ president. With the era of ‘virtual presidency’ and broadcast inaugurals, alliteration has come to serve as a stock device of popular audience appeal. Yet, huge fluctuations in the amount of alliteration occur from president to president. The study also suggests another connection: many presidents judged by their contemporaries as relatively successful seem to resort to alliteration in modesty. Their alliteration scores are average — not among the highest and not among the lowest. For example, Thomas Jefferson, Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan belong to these ‘average alliterators’. Laudable political oratory does not, hence, encourage the overuse of any rhetorical device. Alliteration in political speeches may be seen as a double-edged sword: if overused, it may invite ridicule from the intellectual elite, but if used sparingly, it lends auditory power to one’s rhetorical appeal. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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