An analysis on genres used in Barack Obama’s speech in Cairo

ABSTRACT

It is admitted that recent developments of discourse studies have been coming to the more specific areas since the recent decades. One of them is in genre analysis which fall under the umbrella of discourse analysis. This research examines the types of genre and how they are used in Barack Obama’s Speech in Cairo. The aims of the research are to find out the types of and the way how genres are used in the speech.

The descriptive qualitative method is employed in conducting this research. To obtain the data, the researcher himself become the main instrument by browsing the internet, reading and classifying the data. Then, the data are presented and analyzed by using the types of genre theory proposed by Allysa McCabe.

The findings of the research show that Barack Obama uses two kinds of genre in his speech, they are narrative and expository genre. He does not use any humor genre in his speech. In addition, he prefers to use narrative genre in three various ways, they are by narrating his real memories of something that he experienced or something that has already occurred, narrating something that will occur or will be done in the future, and presenting a certain group in particular position. As well, the research finds that Barack Obama uses expository genre in six various ways, they are by making statements or arguments, explaining the consequence of particular group or one’s actions, taking function of explanatory description, stating causal explanations, offering requests or commands, and stating explanations of internal state.

Based on the findings above, it is suggested that the use of Barack Obama’s genre in delivering his speech to be a model of delivering speech in communication to the politicians, administrators, and all of the people who intend to deliver formal speeches. In addition, it is expected that those who are interested in studying discourse specifically in genre analysis to deepen the analysis on each genre within more various contexts. Also, it is potential for the next researches to focus more on the discussion on genre analysis comparison among those various contexts.