EMANUELA MIRIAM TRIPPA

MATRICOLA:Y58001387
JEREMY CORBYN’S LABOUR LEADERSHIP ACCEPTANCE SPEECH - 2015

For what concerns the register of this speech, we can say that is is surely informal. We
can see this by the use of phrasal verbs (fed up, stand up, written off), imperative forms
(let’s deal with…, let us be a force…) and the use of the verb “want”.
Corbyn uses the pronoun “we” exclusively, referring to his political party and the
pronoun they to talk about the “ordinary people”. The pronoun “us” is used to share
the responsability for what has happened, because it is not clear to whom it refers.
We can find two examples of parallelism in line 1: “we have grown enormously; we
have grown enormously because…” and in line 11 (“we are going to be campaigning
together and we are going to be campaigning together because…).
Three-part-listing is used extensively in this speech; in line 20 (“end up in disperation,
end up in terrible places, end up trying to gain a place of safety), in line 33 (“our party
is about justice, is about democracy, it is about the great traditions we walk on”) and
in line 14 (“we do house everyone in London, we do end the sky high rents, we do end
the insecurity of those…”) for example.
Tripling in line 15: “proud, strong and able to stand up”.
Repetition in line 2: “a different Britain, a better Britain, a more equal Britain, a more
decent Britain”.
When Corbyn says “I am fed up with…” (line 12) he is expressing his thoughts with
the intention of increasing the listener’s emotional involvement, therefore using pathos.
In line 28 we can find an example of othering;
Corbyn says: “you can’t do that if at the same time you do nothing about grotesque
levels of inequality within our society”. He is relying on reasoning to make his point,
which means he is using logos.
“Our party is about justice, is about democracy, it is about the great traditions we walk
on[…].” (line 33-34), in this case we can see a clear example of ethos.
At the end of the speech we can find a metaphor: “to take us on that journey”.