Rhetorical analysis

A successful speech, irrespective of its subject or topic, depends primarily on the

appropriate introductory formulas that the speaker uses, words that can either bring the listeners
closer or to push them away. In Winston Churchill’s speech, ‘Never give in’, two such rhetorical
devices are used: ‘Appellatives that address the whole audience’ and ‘Appellatives that
address specific listeners’.

1. The first of them appears by employing pronouns such as ‘we’ (used 17 times during
the speech), ‘us’ (used 3 times), ‘our’ (used 13 times), ‘you’ (used 5 times), ‘ourselves’ (used 2
times), ‘your’, ‘yourselves’. The main purpose of these formulas is to persuade a large number of
people regarding some important issues of the country. The speaker wants to draw everyone’s
attention on the national and social problems of the state and to get the effect of convincing the
citizens about the decisions that should be taken from that moment ahead. In order to achieve
this aim, he spoke about himself as if he was part of the audience and he had felt the same
oppression as they did. The formula ‘a few of my friends’ is also used to reduce the distance
between him and the audience and to establish an equal relationship between them.

2. Appellatives such as ‘your Head Master’ or ‘I am addressing myself to the School’ are
part of the second category (Appellatives that address specific listeners), being used in order
not to disregard the rest of the audience, but to emphasize the contribution of the person and
institution mentioned at some particular issues and also their importance for the speaker.

Besides these introductory formulas that are mentioned in this speech, the orator tries to
win the benevolence and the credibility of the listeners by means of other rhetorical devices
called ‘Collateral circumstances’.

3. To begin with, Churchill uses even from the beginning of his speech the collateral
circumstances of place. He repeats 4 times the adverb ‘here’ which is followed by the nominal
phrases ‘our country’, ‘our home’. These individualizing formulas achieve the effect of drawing
the public’s attention toward the places where all the issues talked about happened and the
importance of them. However, it can be seen that the speaker does not use any word to move
people’s feeling of pride or to show his honor of being there. He only mentions the name of the
country, ‘Britain’, which is also called ‘these Islands’, but he never shows his happiness directly.
His feelings of pride and honor appear only indirectly by means of context.

4. Following the same ideas, the speaker makes use of the collateral circumstances of
time employing phrases such as: ‘last year/time’, ‘a year’, ‘the ten months’, ‘this (October)
afternoon’, ‘then’, ‘a year ago’, ‘in this period’, ‘this period of ten months’, ‘ten months ago’,

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structures that Winston Churchill uses in order to show that he is aware of the events that marked
that country or place. The speaker wants to prove that he is really interested in people’s welfare,
therefore, he uses the adverbs ‘today’ and ‘now’ three times and two times, respectively, during
his speech. Making a parallel between ‘then’, the events from the past, and ‘now’, the current
events, he proves to the listeners that the country knew a progress in its evolution and that in the
moment of speaking Britain has an advantage over the other countries.

5. Usually, the previous rhetorical devices are mixed with the collateral circumstances
of issues (in our case: ‘ups and downs, misfortunes’, ‘the unmeasured menace of the enemy and
their air attack’, ‘crisis’, ‘war’) and with those of persons (‘I’, ‘you’, ‘they’, ‘your Head
Master’). The speaker combines these two rhetorical devices to show that both the problems
presented and the persons that participated in them are equally important. The effect of this
action is that of manipulating and praising the audience by highlighting their importance as
citizens of Britain.

6. This last characteristic is known as ‘Thanking and praising or criticizing (some

members of) the audience’ rhetorical device and appears in the speech of Winston Churchill by
the expressions ‘your Head Master’s kind invitation’ and ‘I am very greatly complimented by…’,
formulas that are meant to please the persons that are mentioned. However, in his speech, the
speaker also uses some nouns that show the negative parts, the presence of the adversary. Words
such as ‘enemy’, ‘attack’, ‘impostors’, ‘dangers’ have the purpose to incite people to disagree
the enemy’s actions and to be aware that there should be made some changes in their country.

7. The speaker also invokes the image of Divinity (‘we must all thank God…’)
stimulating the people to show gratitude to God for His help in difficult situations and for the
happy events they are in. Invoking God is important in a political speech precisely because the
orator manages to give to the listeners hope and the feeling of being safe, protected by God, a
rhetorical device that reduces, once more, the distance between audience and speaker.

8. The aim of wining people’s credibility, of manipulating and of persuading the audience
is achieved also through ‘The Seductive power of amplification in argumentation’. From this
category the first in importance is the use of repetition. This rhetorical device is preferred by the
speaker to lay emphasis on a certain topic or idea that he considers of great significance. Thus,
he makes use of anaphora in expressions such as ‘cheer myself and cheer the hearts of a few of
my friends’, ‘They do not expect to move from crisis to crisis; they do not always expect that
each day will bring up some noble chance of war’, ‘even if it takes months - if it takes years’,
‘never give in, never give in, never, never, never...never give in’, ‘Never yield to force; never
yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy’ or epiphora: ‘this afternoon, this
October afternoon’, ‘quite alone, desperately alone’, ‘We were poorly armed. We are not so
poorly armed today; but then we were very poorly armed’ and sometimes he even mixes

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anaphora with epiphora as in the example: ‘Do not let us speak of darker days: let us speak
rather of sterner days. These are not dark days; these are great days’. The use of these
amplifications is meant to emphasize a certain idea and the effect on the audience will always be
that of keeping in mind the phrases emphasized. These rhetorical devices followed by that of
enumeration (‘what is short and sharp and what is long and tough’, ‘All this tradition of ours,
our songs, our School history, this part of the history of this country…’- asyndeton) and that of
the Superlative value of adjectives and adverbs in the positive and the comparative degrees
(‘very terrible catastrophic events’, ‘deeply thankful’, ‘the very great improvement’, ‘quite
alone, desperately alone’, ‘poorly armed’, etc.) aim to persuade the listeners. The speaker
seduces them through words and insists on particular features, thus intensifying the meaning of
these constructions. The rhetorical effect of such formulations is to manipulate the audience by
pointing out the greatness and the importance of some national and social events or even of some
emotions that the listeners had at a certain moment.

9. This psychological effect is achieved by Winston Churchill also through the use of
quotations. Employing this rhetorical device, the speaker convinces the public that he is telling
the truth and that people should believe his words as he brings relevant evidence to the listeners.
During his speech, Churchill quotes from a literary text, the poem of Kipling, ‘If’, and he
stimulates, indirectly, the people to be prepared for everything, either bad or good moments: ‘as
Kipling well says, ‹‹we must meet with Triumph and Disaster. And treat those two impostors just
the same››’. Using this quote he also shows his appreciation for the poet and for literature, being
aware of the fact that people tend to believe something much more easily if it is a general truth
wining, therefore, their credibility.

10. Finally, the last of the rhetorical devices employed in this speech is peroration – the
place where politics and religion meet. Winston Churchill uses this device at the end of his
oration saying that ‘we must all thank God that we have been allowed, each of us according to
our stations, to play a part in making these days memorable in the history of our race.’ The
effect on the audience is to leave a good impression to the people, to induce them the feeling of
hope to a better future and to make appeal of their conscience and emotions. The speaker knows
that, for those who believe, God is the supreme power and by invoking His name people will be
fully convinced and persuaded.