A Corpus Linguistic Study on Religio-Rethorical Discourse in the Speeches of J. F. Kennedy and Barack Obama

Facultad de Filología GRADO EN ESTUDIOS INGLESES TRABAJO DE FIN DE GRADO CURSO: 2022/2023 Título: A Corpus Linguistic Study on Religio-Rethorical Discourse in ………….the Speeches of J. F. Kennedy and Barack Obama Alumno: CARLOS CALDERÓN PEREIRA Firmado: Tutora: Teresa López Soto Código Seguro De Verificación HUKwtOntCwsHLT0SU+6sug== Fecha 18/05/2023 Firmado Por MARIA TERESA LOPEZ SOTO Url De Verificación https://pfirma.us.es/verifirma/code/HUKwtOntCwsHLT0SU%2B6sug%3D%3D Página 1/1 A Corpus Linguistic Study on Religio-Rethorical Discourse in the Speeches of J.F. Kennedy and Barack Obama Page 1 of 43 ABSTRACT John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama used easy-to-understand words in their speeches with the only aim of reaching people. In this paper, I will start from the assertion that they had similar approaches to their commitment to society. I will do it using Corpus Linguistics, which studies language through examples of real texts. The frequencies of the different semantic categories present in both Corpora have been analyzed, within other analyses such as concordance plots and lexical neighborhoods with the use of AntConc. Once these objectives have been met, it has been found that the semantic category related to religion was not as high as expected at the beginning of the study and, therefore, social values were what really marked their speeches. This is shown in the semantic category related to feelings and social values. However, with the lexical neighborhoods and the concordance plots, I have observed how the feelings of nationalism and others such as hope were present every time they spoke. Keywords: Corpus Linguistics; AntConc; social values; John F. Kennedy; Barack Obama RESUMEN John F. Kennedy y Barack Obama utilizaron palabras fáciles de entender en sus discursos con el único objetivo de llegar a la gente. En este trabajo, partiré de la afirmación de que tenían enfoques similares en su compromiso con la sociedad. Lo haré utilizando la Lingüística de Corpus, que estudia el lenguaje a través de ejemplos de textos reales. Se han analizado las frecuencias de las distintas categorías semánticas presentes en ambos Corpus, dentro de otros análisis como los gráficos de concordancia y los vecindarios léxicos con el uso de AntConc. Una vez cumplidos estos objetivos, se ha comprobado que la categoría semántica relacionada con la religión no era tan alta como se esperaba al inicio del estudio y, por tanto, los valores sociales eran los que realmente marcaban sus discursos. Así lo demuestra la categoría semántica relacionada con los sentimientos y los valores sociales. Sin embargo, con los vecindarios léxicos y los gráficos de concordancia, he observado cómo los sentimientos de nacionalismo y otros como la esperanza estaban presentes cada vez que hablaban. Palabras clave: Lingüística de Corpus; AntConc; valores sociales; John F. Kennedy; Barack Obama A Corpus Linguistic Study on Religio-Rethorical Discourse in the Speeches of J.F. Kennedy and Barack Obama Page 2 of 43 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION…..................................................................................................... 5 2. OBJECTIVES AND HYPOTHESIS…...................................................................... 8 2.1. Objectives ………………………………………………………………………………... 8 2.2. Hypothesis……………………………………………………………………………….. 9 3. MATERIALS AND METHODS ............................................................................... 9 3.1. Materials……………………………………………….................................................. 9 3.2. Methods…………………………………………………………………………………. 15 4. RESULTS…………………………………………………………………………………… 16 5. DISCUSSION…........................................................................................................... 27 6. CONCLUSION…......................................................................................................... 31 REFERENCES…............................................................................................................. 32 A Corpus Linguistic Study on Religio-Rethorical Discourse in the Speeches of J.F. Kennedy and Barack Obama Page 3 of 43 LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Semantic categories, lexical terms and their absolute frequency present in Corpus Kennedy……………………………………………………………………………………………………………… Table 2: Semantic categories, lexical terms and its absolute frequency present in Corpus Obama……………………………………………………………………………………………….……………………….… Table 3: Absolute frequencies of each semantic category……………….…………………………….… Table 4: Lexical neighborhood for “freedom” across both Corpora………….……………………... Table 5: Lexical neighborhood for “hope” across both Corpora…………………………………….…. Table 6: Lexical neighborhood for “faith” across both Corpora…………………………….…………. A Corpus Linguistic Study on Religio-Rethorical Discourse in the Speeches of J.F. Kennedy and Barack Obama Page 4 of 43 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Comparison of percentages across the two Corpora……….............................. Figure 2: Absolute frequency of Corpus Kennedy……………………………………………….……… Figure 3: Absolute frequency of Corpus Obama………………….…………………………………….. Figure 4: Concordance plot in the word ‘progress’ from the lexical category Politics across both Corpora………………………………………………………………………………………………….. Figure 5: Concordance plot in the word “freedom” from the lexical category Feelings across both Corpora………………………………………………………………………………………………….. Figure 6: Concordance plot in the word ‘hope’ from the lexical category Feelings across both Corpora………………………………………………………………………………………………… Figure 7: Concordance plot in the word ‘God’ from the lexical category Religion across both Corpora…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. Figure 8: Concordance plot in the word ‘faith’ from the lexical category Religion across both Corpora…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. Figure 9: Concordance plot in the word “Nation” from the lexical category Nationalism across both Corpora………………………………………………………………………………. Figure 10: Graphical representation of the correlation analysis……………………………….... A Corpus Linguistic Study on Religio-Rethorical Discourse in the Speeches of J.F. Kennedy and Barack Obama Page 5 of 43 1. INTRODUCTION Religion has always been present in such an important way because it modifies the notion of our life and makes us ask some relevant questions about ourselves and why we are here or what we are doing in the world. The study of lived religion situates all religious creativity within culture and approaches all religion as lived experience (Orsi, 2003). When we try to provide a definition of this term, we may find it really difficult because there is not an exact one. Giving the concept of ‘religion’ a precise meaning is a formidably complicated task (Choper, 1982). This means that religion can be understood by each one in terms of the importance which we give to it, so that it helps us to answer some existential questions and functions as a help when we need support or even when we need protection. Human beings are social and, for this reason, religion plays an effective role in the lives of individuals and groups. ………………….. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, religion is ‘the belief in a god or gods, or a particular system of belief in a god or gods’. One possible reason for overlooking the centrality and importance of religion in the lives of people by psychologists is that psychologists themselves tend to be considerably less religious (Hill et al., 2000). Religion has typically been understood by some eighteenth century French philosophers and other secular scientists as a product of economic backwardness and unenlightened social development (Jevtić, 2007). Since these statements, religion has very rarely appeared as a subject of political research and as a result of that, many issues have been treated neglecting the clear influence of religion. Jevtić (2007) adds a modern example of this: One obvious modern example of this is that, in consequence of this approach, a completely incorrect prognosis was made of the impact religion in general and the organized religious right in particular had on the 2004 US elections and the reelection of George W. Bush (p. 60). A Corpus Linguistic Study on Religio-Rethorical Discourse in the Speeches of J.F. Kennedy and Barack Obama Page 6 of 43 Although religion has been a constant in human life, political scientists have paid insufficient attention to it until a few years ago. It was by the decade of 1980 when they started to worry about its study because before that, most of them regarded it as too exotic or difficult to warrant sustained interest. Between religion and science there has been a prolonged conflict, in which, until the last few years, science has invariably proved victorious (Russell, 1997). Even when religion was considered in relevant studies of political change, it was largely perceived as a problem and not as a solution. The real obstacle which was supposed to be for scholars was, at the same time, a need to look for its beginning in political issues and what role played in it. At this point, Wald et al., (2005) add: These theorists defined modernization as the “separation of the polity from religious structures, substitution of secular modes of legitimation and extension of the polity's jurisdiction into areas formerly regulated by religion” (Smith, 1974, p. 4). By definition, religion was placed in opposition to effective development and this was what created an enormous problem in investigation. Religion more or less forced itself back onto the scholarly agenda just as the result of several developments. With this new appreciation for the political power of religion, scholars started to explore new methods that ranged widely in their focus with regard to place, time, and form of political action. The flowery of politically engaged religion supposed an attractive view of the creation of new civil rights, antiwar, feminist, gay rights, and environmental campaigns. Religions must thus be seen as indispensable allies in the modern struggle for human rights (Witte Jr. and Green, 2011). Otherwise, religion has always been used by many scholars as an analytical category and an independent variable to account for the variances in governance and political violence Consider the postwar comparative theorists who, preoccupied with the newly independent states carved out of colonial empires, identified modernization as the desired end product of political development (p. 123). A Corpus Linguistic Study on Religio-Rethorical Discourse in the Speeches of J.F. Kennedy and Barack Obama Page 7 of 43 (Sandal, 2012). It has been justified by means of religion in a way in which it did not appear. Anyway, what is especially important concerning religion in the politics of the USA is the fact that religion was very influential in the creation of that State and in its political life. All religions without exception became important political factors in themselves and denying them to exist is a way to forget our History and how we have used them in order to have some moral and ethical values. These are reflected in our manners and, obviously, in politics. In either case religion is certainly sufficiently intertwined with politics that the role of religion in politics is worthy of extended discussion, research and debate (Fox, 2018). Nevertheless, if it is focused on the situation given in the USA: “Across the last century, the two presidential candidates who arguably faced the most religious adversity but went on to get elected were John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama” (Anderson and Smith, 2019). Kennedy was one of the few presidents who were Catholic, while Obama was Protestant and was a member of the black Church. They both always tried to defend their arguments according to their religious beliefs and taking into account how important religion is and was for Americans. Clear majorities of the adult population testify that they have no doubts about the existence of a deity, believe in life after death, and belong to a churchrelated group of some kind (Wald and Calhoun-Brown, 2014). Although Obama had to face the news media when they called his religiosity into question, we could conclude that religion and how it is perceived by presidential candidates is also very relevant for the public opinion. In this study, speeches given by presidents J. F. Kennedy and Barack Obama are going to be analyzed in order to prove if their religious beliefs influenced the way they tried to reach people's attention. This will be done with some key semantic concepts from the Linguistic Corpus and how not only religion, but also other words related with social values and emotions reflect society as well. Here it is noticeable the contrast between J. F. Kennedy and Obama’s points of view. A Corpus Linguistic Study on Religio-Rethorical Discourse in the Speeches of J.F. Kennedy and Barack Obama Page 8 of 43 2. OBJECTIVES AND HYPOTHESIS 2.1 Objectives The general objective of this study is understanding how religion and social values are interrelated in presidential discourse establishing a way to communicate and reach people. This study will compare the speeches of the two probably most relevant and young presidents of the USA and how their beliefs and values influenced their way to try to unify the population during their terms, contrasting, this way, what they affirmed and how social values appeared in their use of language. In order to do so, two corpora have been created: Corpus Kennedy and Corpus Obama. This study aims to compare the semantic categories and their absolute frequencies found in the corpora, the percentages of these, and the concordance plot and in these semantic categories. According to the results of the observations concordance neighborhood of the most important terms found, we will be able to know how much religious beliefs and values influenced their political lives. In order to achieve such objectives, this study poses the following tasks: 1. To analyze the religious and social framework of the speeches of J. F. Kennedy. 2. To analyze the religious and social framework of the speeches of Barack Obama as well. 3. To create a significant database of both corpora through tokens, etc. 4. To find keywords which from the semantic point of view can be correlated with the studied data. 5. To study and analyze the incidence of these concepts in terms of frequency in both presidents. A Corpus Linguistic Study on Religio-Rethorical Discourse in the Speeches of J.F. Kennedy and Barack Obama Page 15 of 43 3.2 METHODS In order to demonstrate the hypothesis of this study, both samples were analyzed in terms of lexical frequency using several tools from the software AntConc (v.3.5.7) (Anthony, 2010). First, the ‘Word List’ was used in order to see which words were present in John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama political discourse. In the ‘Word List’, the frequency of each of these words is presented to provide a general view of the importance of each word in relation to its frequency. Then, the tool “Lexical neighborhood” tool was used to see where the most important words of some of these semantic categories appear and with other words, they accompany in each presidential speech, as they could mean something different for our investigation if they were in a context not significant at all for our objectives. Members of a neighborhood that sound similar to the speech waveform receive a high level of activation, whereas items that are dissimilar receive less activation (Tye-Murray et al., 2007). The ‘Concordance plot’ tool was used to help us see in which parts of the speeches given by both presidents some words are repeated, so as to demonstrate how and when social values influenced their way to reach people. A concordance is simply a list of words or phrases, with a few words of context either side of it, so we can see at a glance how the word tends to be used (Baker, 2010). All of these would be leading to the results. A Corpus Linguistic Study on Religio-Rethorical Discourse in the Speeches of J.F. Kennedy and Barack Obama Page 16 of 43 4. RESULTS In order to show the results of the investigation, a comparison of percentages between both Corpora as well as a table of the absolute frequencies of each semantic category will be presented. Figure 1. Comparison of percentages across the two Corpora As can be appreciated (the most significant values are marked with an asterisk), there is a greater tendency for the semantic categories Feelings, Election and Nationalism in both Corpora. Society also calls my attention, but I am going to focus on the three ones previous mentioned. To understand this better, see table 3 where I directly expose the values of each of the semantic categories and the above mentioned can be clearly observed. A Corpus Linguistic Study on Religio-Rethorical Discourse in the Speeches of J.F. Kennedy and Barack Obama Page 17 of 43 Table 3. Absolute frequencies of each semantic category Semantic Category Corpus KENNEDY Corpus OBAMA Politics 267 216 Feelings 721 544 Election 747 807 Society 662 587 Religion 268 222 War 251 108 Justice 177 283 Racism 207 153 Nationalism 990 955 To continue with the results, histograms of the different semantic categories in Corpus Kennedy and Corpus Obama will be presented separately. In this table, the green line refers to the mean, while the blue lines relate to the SD. Figure 2. Absolute frequency of Corpus Kennedy A Corpus Linguistic Study on Religio-Rethorical Discourse in the Speeches of J.F. Kennedy and Barack Obama Page 18 of 43 In the frequency of Corpus Kennedy, I am able to see the dominance of words related to Nationalism, this means that John F. Kennedy shows a strong wish about the importance of feeling together and the perspective of the USA as an ideal place to live. In relation to the other categories, the most frequent one is Election (outlier), meaning that in his discourse, the president talks more about how people vote and the relevance of their votes than of Religion, for example, and than Feelings and Society. These both categories are in the middle, this is to say, they are important, but not that much. Following the graph of Corpus Kennedy, the histogram of Corpus Obama will be presented. Figure 3. Absolute frequency of Corpus Obama The green line, called the mean, represents the standard deviation (SD); this is a measure of the amount of variation. Those semantic categories that are above and below the mean are the outliers. After seeing both Corpora separately, it is possible now to make a comparison of percentages between them both. A Corpus Linguistic Study on Religio-Rethorical Discourse in the Speeches of J.F. Kennedy and Barack Obama Page 19 of 43 In Corpus Obama, the president talks again more about Nationalism (outlier) than Election (outlier), and the semantic category Religion is less important than Justice. Feelings and Society are, like in Corpus 1, not that important for Barack Obama because they are in the middle. In other words, they seem to be relevant for him, but not for the others. Furthermore, the two outliers that stand out in both Corpora are Nationalism (above) and Justice (below). In addition, because of the volume of this study it is advisable to choose only 1SD although some authors choose up to 2SD. In order to proceed with the results, we can see after this the concordance plot of the most important terms of each semantic category present in the normality area from both Corpora. As the manual states, ‘this tool shows concordance search results plotted in a ‘barcode’ format, with the length of the text normalized to the width of the bar and each hit shown as a vertical line within the bar. This allows to see the position where search results appear in target texts’. I am going to begin with the word Freedom. Figure 4. Concordance plot in the word ‘progress’ from the lexical category Politics across both Corpora As I can observe in Figure 4, the word “progress” is present during most of the speeches given by John F. Kennedy with a higher density in the middle, while in the ones pronounced by Barack Obama, is used a lot in the middle and less in the beginning and in the end. A Corpus Linguistic Study on Religio-Rethorical Discourse in the Speeches of J.F. Kennedy and Barack Obama Page 20 of 43 Figure 5. Concordance plot in the word “freedom” from the lexical category Feelings across both Corpora For this word shown in Figure 5, it is remarkable that it is present during the majority of speeches pronounced by John F. Kennedy. But what really matters here is the fact that it is less said around the Corpus (mainly at the beginning) by Barack Obama in spite of having more arguments to refer to it. Figure 6. Concordance plot in the word ‘hope’ from the lexical category Feelings across both Corpora In this case, I can affirm that the word seems to be used a lot around Corpus Kennedy. While in Corpus Obama is repeated again, as it has been pointed before, it is repeated at the beginning but now with a very high frequency. A Corpus Linguistic Study on Religio-Rethorical Discourse in the Speeches of J.F. Kennedy and Barack Obama Page 21 of 43 Figure 7. Concordance plot in the word ‘God’ from the lexical category Religion across both Corpora This word seems to be said more by Barack Obama than by John F. Kennedy, but it is appreciable how it appears in both cases all around the speeches in not many times, so it is very similar in both Corpora. Repetition of the word ‘God’ could be an example of the impact of religion on their lives, but it can be observed how it was not very important for them, at least in the case of this word. Figure 8. Concordance plot in the word ‘faith’ from the lexical category Religion across both Corpora As it is shown in Figure 8, the word “faith” is hardly ever distributed in both Corpora, but what especially calls my attention is that John F. Kennedy repeats it in approximately the middle of its Corpus. Barack Obama tends to do it all around the Corpus without following any pattern. A Corpus Linguistic Study on Religio-Rethorical Discourse in the Speeches of J.F. Kennedy and Barack Obama Page 22 of 43 Figure 9. Concordance plot in the word “Nation” from the lexical category Nationalism across both Corpora Focusing on this word, I pay attention to the frequency of repetition that it has in both Corpora presented in the plot. This reflects how they are involved in the question of being proud of the country where they live and not only in that issue, but as the most important word and well perceived by people who they are speaking to. Continuing with the results, we are going into the lexical neighborhoods of the most predominant lexical terms within each semantic category where can be observed what words are related to them in each Corpus. The following tables show the occurrences of each token. This Results section is organized in such a way as to show the different tables of lexical neighborhoods (concordance) for the most important semantic categories explained above. These categories have been selected because they are significant, as shown in Figure 1 (see above). For this purpose, and taking into account the limitations of this dissertation, I have chosen the most frequent token in the most significant semantic categories to prove my hypothesis: - FEELINGS (semantic category): freedom (frequency=206) and hope (frequency=154.) - RELIGION (semantic category): faith (frequency=97). Both semantic categories are directly related to the hypothesis proposed for this study. After demonstrating how social values, where Feelings are included, are what predominate most in the speeches of both presidents, I wanted to prove how Religion is also used to reach people. Thus, both categories are nothing more than means with which to modulate speeches as long as they are used in the right context. A Corpus Linguistic Study on Religio-Rethorical Discourse in the Speeches of J.F. Kennedy and Barack Obama Page 23 of 43 FREEDOM Table 4. Lexical neighborhood for “freedom” across both Corpora What is shown in the table is how the neighbors of the term “freedom” – from the semantic category Feelings – are very similar because they seem to be higher the same times in both Corpora. Most of the words here are related to emotions, and the other ones produce emotions too. For example: “…we build in the United States will be the defense of freedom…” - (Corpus Kennedy) “…to once again rise up in defense of our freedom…” - (Corpus Obama) Now, I continue working with the same category and I will focus on the word “hope”. A Corpus Linguistic Study on Religio-Rethorical Discourse in the Speeches of J.F. Kennedy and Barack Obama Page 24 of 43 HOPE Table 5. Lexical neighborhood for “hope” across both Corpora The neighbors of the term ‘hope’ – from the semantic category Feelings – are very even. This term demonstrates how it is inevitably connected with other feelings and without it, it is impossible to change the present and have a better future. There are words related to emotions as in the previous lexical neighborhood because they are from the same category. They do not show a high frequency of repetition in both left- and right-neighbors. For example: “…emerging areas whose troubles some hope to exploit.” - (Corpus Kennedy) “With hope and virtue, let us brave…” - (Corpus Obama) Finally, it is also interesting the word “faith” in one of the most important categories - although it is not one with a higher frequency - in my study, Religion plays an important role when referring to their discourse. Both presidents were aware of their capacity to influence people. Religious beliefs were another way to approach to social values and feelings, as everybody feels identified with them. A Corpus Linguistic Study on Religio-Rethorical Discourse in the Speeches of J.F. Kennedy and Barack Obama Page 31 of 43 6. CONCLUSION As a result of the achievement of objectives and the adequate analysis of the results and the data, it has not been possible to demonstrate that John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama were influenced by the education they were given and the religion that marked them, but it was demonstrated they had similar approaches in their compromise with society talking about social values where religion had also to do. According to what has been written previously in the discussion part of this paper, it first appeared that the hypothesis would be demonstrated after having taken a quick analysis of the absolute values. Moreover, the hypothesis of this dissertation could be finally demonstrated with all the results obtained and I have not found any further justification to consider their speeches would have been different if they had not been educated with these religions in their families. Indeed, religion influenced themselves with the social values applied to their speeches. However, despite the fact that the objective of analyzing the lexical frequencies was more than enough to try to demonstrate the hypothesis, in order to refute what my hypothesis stated, other analysis, like concordance plots and lexical neighborhoods were done, and they have indeed demonstrated the hypothesis after a large search of information. What I have to comment on is that with the correlation analysis, it is definitely shown how both of them have many similarities and just a few differences. This makes me realize, as another investigator mentioned before defends, that Obama was the new Kennedy because they wanted to reach people using the same strategies but with a renewal message. Despite the fact that the hypothesis has been demonstrated, religion and education also affected their mood and obviously had an impact on their behavior. Religion has not been studied in politics because some scholars have always thought it was very ambiguous, but what really matters in its study is its influence. Finally, I am convinced that in some years, it will be studied with a higher precision, and I will be able to go on with this interesting study that by now, shows that the hypothesis is demonstrated. I would like to add more data and even adding more presidents. By doing it, I would be able to continue improving my dissertation. A Corpus Linguistic Study on Religio-Rethorical Discourse in the Speeches of J.F. Kennedy and Barack Obama Page 32 of 43 REFERENCES Anderson, S., & Smith, J. M. (2019). Transcending Media Framing of Candidate Religiosity: The Religio-Rhetorical Discourse of John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama. Southwestern Mass Communication Journal, 34(1). Anthony, L. (2018). AntConc (3.5.7) [Windows]. Tokyo, Japan: Waseda University. Available from http://www.laurenceanthony.net/software Baker, P. (2010). 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Kennedy and Barack Obama Page 34 of 43 APPENDIX I Corpus Kennedy Word Token Semantic Category Absolute Frequency Senator Politics 44 Policy Politics 49 Minister Politics 20 Governor Politics 19 Presidency Politics 14 Political Politics 42 Progress Politics 79 Peace Feelings 176 Freedom Feelings 167 Hope Feelings 92 Union Feelings 56 Chance Feelings 25 Happiness Feelings 1 Help Feelings 79 Responsibility Feelings 48 A Corpus Linguistic Study on Religio-Rethorical Discourse in the Speeches of J.F. Kennedy and Barack Obama Page 35 of 43 Obligation Feelings 38 Control Feelings 39 Free Election 145 State Election 97 President Election 137 Government Election 91 Kennedy Election 87 Right Election 100 Candidate Election 6 Campaign Election 9 Equal Election 30 Representative Election 5 Support Election 40 Man Society 213 Public Society 71 People Society 186 Citizen Society 76 Colleague Society 6 A Corpus Linguistic Study on Religio-Rethorical Discourse in the Speeches of J.F. Kennedy and Barack Obama Page 36 of 43 Child Society 40 Neighbor Society 15 Friend Society 31 Mankind Society 24 God Religion 14 Community Religion 27 Religious Religion 26 Blessing Religion 2 Catholic Religion 79 Church Religion 57 Religion Religion 9 Reverend Religion 7 Faith Religion 29 Value Religion 18 Enemy War 17 Danger War 38 Boundaries War 4 Struggle War 35 A Corpus Linguistic Study on Religio-Rethorical Discourse in the Speeches of J.F. Kennedy and Barack Obama Page 37 of 43 Destroy War 14 Burden War 40 Ally War 21 Alliance War 41 Violence War 9 Revolution War 32 Legislation Justice 10 Loyal Justice 3 Law Justice 64 Legal Justice 8 Institution Justice 21 System Justice 52 Judge Justice 16 Ethics Justice 1 Legacy Justice 2 Negro Racism 8 Discrimination Racism 10 Blame Racism 3 A Corpus Linguistic Study on Religio-Rethorical Discourse in the Speeches of J.F. Kennedy and Barack Obama Page 38 of 43 Oppression Racism 7 Prejudice Racism 2 Problem Racism 85 Interest Racism 85 Slavery Racism 2 Suppress Racism 4 Supremacy Racism 1 Nation Nationalism 387 America Nationalism 331 Home Nationalism 38 National Nationalism 98 Opportunity Nationalism 52 Constitution Nationalism 26 Independence Nationalism 58 A Corpus Linguistic Study on Religio-Rethorical Discourse in the Speeches of J.F. Kennedy and Barack Obama Page 39 of 43 APPENDIX II Corpus Obama Word Token Semantic Category Absolute Frequency Senator Politics 27 Policy Politics 30 Minister Politics 7 Governor Politics 10 Presidency Politics 2 Politics Politics 80 Progress Politics 30 Members Politics 30 Passion Feelings 12 Security Feelings 85 Energy Feelings 72 Peace Feelings 42 Freedom Feelings 39 Hope Feelings 52 Union Feelings 23 A Corpus Linguistic Study on Religio-Rethorical Discourse in the Speeches of J.F. Kennedy and Barack Obama Page 40 of 43 Chance Feelings 29 Happiness Feelings 2 Help Feelings 97 Responsibility Feelings 62 Obligation Feelings 15 Control Feelings 14 State Election 107 President Election 146 Government Election 157 Obama Election 69 Right Election 182 Candidate Election 6 Campaign Election 12 Equal Election 13 Support Election 61 Vote Election 54 People Society 342 Woman Society 71