Power Speech Analysis

Cyberbullying Speech Analysis

The first language feature that has been used to express power is rhetorical questions which is part of AFOREST. The first line of the speech “How many times have any of you encountered cyberbullying?” is a rhetorical question and what this does, is make this question personal to the audience and make them reflect on times where this may have occurred. What this also does, is makes the speech seem as if it is directed at an individual who is listening to the speech allowing the speaker to have power over an audience. 

The second language feature that has been used to express power is statistics which is part of AFOREST. The line “Did you know that that 12% of all cyberbullying cases turn out to have started in person and 4% of these are considered not serious enough to be dealt with by a higher authority?” is a statistic and this shows that the speaker has power over the audience as there are numbers that back up the points brought up by this speech allowing for the speech to have a more persuasive tone to it.

The third language feature that has been used to express power is the use of modal verbs. The line “There’s no denying that cyberbullying might not be a myth but with this sort of evidence you can see where we’re coming from” incorporates a modal verb. The modal verb within this line is “might” which shows that the speaker is looking at the topic of the speech from both points of view meaning that the speaker is influential with the points that he has brought up, he demands respect when speaking and it displays confidence through speech.

The final language feature that has been used to express power is the use of the modal verb. Leading on from the previous point, the modal verb “might” is also used for epistemic modality meaning that he is expressing his opinions on a certain statement within the speech. By having this within the speech, the speaker has total power of the audience because he is looking at the statement from two different views.