On 2 June 2006, Barack Obama gave a speech at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. He explains the importance to follow your own way to get happy.

He tells the students that it is their turn to help the United States to resist and that no matter which origin they have, they have the chance to become happy. Obama accentuates, a lot of things changed and that life is better today than yesterday. After that he talks one more time about the Graduates origin, that a lot of them come from different countries and found a home in Boston. Not such a long time ago, Boston was a very unlikely place for foreigners to live. The Americans made progress, but not enough, Obama says, and it’s the new generations’s turn to continue the progress. In the following, he lists the things which changed, and explains the things that still have to change. Every student has to go his own way, but Barack Obama gives them a piece of advice: To take risks and to consist on their opinions and hopes. Afterwards, he tells them about his own way after school and with the consequence, he accentuates one more time, what he said before and at the end of his speech, he repeats one more time that it is important to risk everything for your hopes and dreams.

Barack Obama used a lot of stylistic devices in his speech to create it more interesting. For example in using the word ‘you’ or the imperative. He adresses everyone of the listeners, so everyone feels mentioned. For example in line 9: “It’s your turn to keep this daringly radical but unfailingly simple notion of America alive […]”. Obama accentuates that the generation of 2006 cares about to keep the good name of the United States.

Another stylistic device he uses is the inversion. He wants to stress the idea that is important to him, for example that the Americans can no longer assume that the high-school education in Boston have a higher quality than the college education for example in Bangalore or Beijing (see line 40 following).

At the end of his speech, he uses the repetition to stress one more time his argument to follow your own way and not to pay any attention on what others tell you to do. He uses the word ‘advice’ three times (see line 86 following), to point up that a lot of different people had a lot of different opinions, how he could create his life, but he just listened what was in him and he got happy.

Finally, I have the opinion that it was very successfully, that Barack Obama used such often stylistic devices. He emphasized a lot of things which are very important to him and he successfully put through the importance to live your life like you want it and not to follow other advices just to be like everyone else. He convinces the listener that you really can be happy when you just listen to what you want and what you think is the right way to you. The Graduates must have been very optimistic after having listened to Barack Obamas speech.