The study on use of power “in language” seems to be very interesting today.

But this has

not been even a matter of serious discussion until different discourse theories appeared for the first
time. The concept of language and power was a natural outcome of serious researches in the field
of speech acts. His major contributions lie on taxonomy, intentionality and human psyche in
speech acts.

Language studies focus not on the structure rather the function in deeper level. Later in
20th century when modern linguistics developed with an overwhelming focus on structure of
language undermined functional role of language. The power of language has often negotiated
between syntax and content. According to Searle it is not the syntax, the impetus rather the
intentionality of the author or speaker is the source of power (J. Searle, 1975). The intentionality
as the undercurrent force manifests itself in speech acts in particular contexts. So without
understanding the intentionality and its intrinsic force we cannot measure the power of language.

The speech at 2004 Democratic National Convention is considered one among the
diplomatic speeches by President Obama. As a person in the world focus, the deliberations are of
special interest. The precise, luminal, sharp and glorified language is approached with an
inquisitive mind to find out how power communicated in the speech through different speech acts.
The transcribed text of speech has been used for the analysis. Taxonomy of speech acts

According to Searle there are five basic primitive forms of illocutionary act. These are assertive,
directive, commissure, expressive and declarative. In an assertive speech act, speaker respond
himself in varying degrees to the truth of the expressed proposition. They appear in sentences like;
statements, explanations, and assertions. In directive, the speaker attempts to get the hearer to do
something. Orders, requests, and commands are some sort of them. The third is commissure speech
act where the speaker commits himself to do something in future course of action. The most
famous example is promising, and other commissures are vows, threats, pledges, contracts, and
guarantees. The fourth class is expressive where the speaker expresses his feelings, beliefs,
ideologies, attitudes etc. to the propositional content. Examples are apologies, thanks, and
congratulations. Declarations which come as the fifth category brings out changes in the world
through utterances, so the world changes to match the propositional content but solely in virtue of
the successful performance of the utterance. The famous declarations are; declaring war,
pronouncing somebody man and wife, and adjourning a meeting. The taxonomy makes a strong
claim about the nature and possibilities of human languages. Though there are different types of
sentences, Wittgenstein says, there are only five basic types speech acts in the line of illocutionary
force.

Sketch of the speech The transcribed text is titled as Remarks by the president at the United States
Military Academy Commencement ceremony (http://www.washingtonpost.com, 2014). The
speech started at 10.22 in the morning and ended at 11.08AM.
The 46 minutes’ speech is divided into six sections for the purpose of analysis on the basis of the
themes in the deliberation. The speech is beginning with words of appreciation and thanks
asserting and stating what has been already done and expressed in acts like; “Thank you (3) Thank
you so much. General Caslen…. To General Trainor, you have been outstanding stewards of this
proud institution and outstanding mentors for the newest officers …”. The second section is about
a few memories of past, expectations of the future, present economy and military situation of the
USA. A few statements of assertions and promises dominate the section. The third section is more
about the changing world and the role of American Military. The fourth, a quite long and perhaps
the most important section and thrust of the speech expresses the vision about USA by president
Obama. He speaks of five major areas of leadership that USA has to take in the contemporary
world. This section is dominated by commissure as well as declarative acts of speech. The fifth
section is a conclusion in general and sixth is closing wishes and blessings. Analysis of Speech
Acts in Text Speech acts may be analyzed on the basis of classification done by John Searle in his
detailed studies on speech acts. They appear in direct as well as indirect sentence structure in the
text. The direct sentences convey literal meaning of the sentences whereas indirect sentences
convey meaning beyond the structure of the sentences. Hence there can have different types of
sentence structures with same meaning or illocution depending on the position of the power. Here
felicity conditions play a major role to in identifying types of illocutions. Although all the
sentences would come under speech acts consideration, only a few of them would consider in this
analysis. The structural analysis in the first part and functional implications in the second part
would reveal the amount of power that had been used in the deliberation. The chart given below
shows the number of occurrences of the different speech acts in five categories. Type one, two and
three indicates subcategories.

Assertive speech acts All kinds of assertions, statements and definitions come under assertive type of
speech acts. Type 1 Acknowledgement
■The verbs like; acknowledge, know, knowledge and verbs of possession indicates the acknowledgement of
responsibility and the situation. The one who is having the power of position is able to acknowledge anything under
his surveillance. Thus the more acknowledgements mean the more execution of power. In sentence level the first
one seems to be more positive and polite whereas the second one is more direct and less polite. The third one
creates a comparison between two generations and executes more power than first two sentences because it goes
beyond the textual level to discourse level. Eisenhower is the 34th President of the United States from 1953 until
1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army during World War