A comparative study of persuasive strategies in lincoln's gettysburg address and volodymyr zelensky's 2022 speech to the U.S. congress

Abstract

The present study is a comparative analysis of two political discourses delivered in different periods: Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and Volodymyr Zelensky’s speech to the U.S. Congress. The main aim of this research is to analyze the language used by both leaders, by examining the persuasive strategies used as a central objective, referring to Aristotle’s framework (Aristotelian rhetorical appeals) which are ethos (credibility), pathos (emotions), and logos (logic, reasoning), in addition to the analysis of figurative language and lexical semantic choices to understand the content and style of each utterance. In this thesis, we have opted for a qualitative research approach, complemented by limited quantitative analysis. The sample of this research is Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, which was delivered during the American Civil War on November 19, 1863, in order to honor the soldiers who died during the battle of Gettysburg, and Zelensky’s speech to the U.S. Congress delivered during the Russian invasion of Ukraine on December 21, 2022.The findings revealed that both politicians used a variety of persuasive strategies, including ethos, pathos, and logos principles. The results also showed that both leaders mainly enhanced credibility and used emotion to persuade. Both Lincoln and Zelensky relied more on pathos, which appealed to the audience’s feelings and emotions by using emotive words to attract the attention of the American audience. Lincoln also used logos by giving logical reasoning and facts to convince his audience. In contrast, Zelensky focused on ethos to show his credibility and the importance of international help through his speech. They also utilized literary devices, such as metaphor, parallelism, antithesis, repetition, and lexical semantic choices, reinforcing each speaker's persuasive impact. It also highlights a significant difference in the evolution of persuasive strategies, even though both leaders used rhetorical appeals, figures of speech, and lexical semantic choices. However, contemporary speeches used informal language, included personal stories, and consisted of multimedia elements. We recognized that despite the differences in situations and historical contexts, both speeches succeeded in using language as a strong tool of persuasion.