# Analysis of Biden's Victory Speech

Reiji Miura ${ }^{\dagger} \quad$ Sumiyo Nishiguchi ${ }^{\ddagger}$
Department of Economics, Faculty of Commerce, Otaru University of Commerce ${ }^{\dagger}$
Center for Language Studies, Otaru university of Commerce
reiji.01101114@gmail.com ${ }^{\dagger} \quad$ nishiguchi@res. otaru-uc. ac. jp

## 1 Introduction

We listened to the US President-Elect Joe Biden's speech and analyzed its characteristics.

President-elect Joe Biden emphasized unity in his first address to the nation since securing the White House on November 7th, 2020. He gave a victory speech in Wilmington, Del., where he called on Democrats and Republicans to stop demonizing one another and find a way to compromise. He made a speech using a total of 1818 words.

## 2 Speech Content

Biden got a lot of votes. He has won with the most votes ever cast for a presidential ticket in the history of America. At first, he spoke about his wife, Jill. He said that Jill was going to make a great first lady. He is so proud of her. He had a lot of repetitive expressions in speech.

He used the phrase "the battle to" six times. It briefly describes what he wants to do for America.

He said he was looking ahead. He used "ahead to an America" five times. It shows the potential of America. He may be emphasizing the words by repeating the same words.

The content of his speech is about a spouse, transgender, corona measures, turning point of America and possibility of America.

We thought that his repetitive expression made it easier to understand the important points of the speech and what he wanted to emphasize.

## 3 Frequency of Word Usage

As above, he made a speech using a total of 1818 words. We have summarized the words that appeared frequently in speech in a table. The following graph Table 1 shows the 10 most frequently used words.

 \\

Table 1 The 10 most frequently used words at Biden's victory speech.

From this result, it was found that articles and conjunctions are frequently used. He used "and" a lot, so we can see that he has a lot of opinions. Also, because he uses "our" frequently, which suggests inclusion and thoughts about the people and colleagues.

Next, let's examine the frequency of use of nouns only. The result is the following graph. It shows the 10 most frequently used words.

 \\

Table 2 The 10 most frequently used nouns in Biden's victory speech

From this result, many words about America and people are used. In other words, these frequent nouns display that the priorities of the country and the people in his speech.

## 4 Repetitive Expressions

As mentioned earlier, Biden used repetitive expressions. The first one is "the battle to". He said "America has called upon us to marshal the forces of decency, the forces of fairness. To marshal the forces of science and the forces of hope in the battles. The battle to control the virus, the battle to build prosperity, the battle to secure your family's health care. The battle to achieve racial justice and root out systemic racism in this country. And the battle to save our planet by getting climate under control." in speech. "The battle to" is used 6 times in the text. From this, the audience may infer a strong will to solve the problems of coronavirus and racial discrimination, which are the current problems in the United States.

Next is "ahead to an America". He said "We're always looking ahead. Ahead to an America that is freer and more just. Ahead to an America that creates jobs with dignity and respect. Ahead to an America that cures diseases like cancer and
Alzheimer's. Ahead to an America that never leaves anyone behind. Ahead to an America that never gives up, never gives in, this great nation." In speech. "ahead to an America" is used 5 times and sounded to be the gist or the conclusion of this speech. Biden concisely expresses what he wants to do by using repetitive expressions. The word "an" added in front of the "America" makes it more impressive.

## 5 Conclusion

Listening to Biden's speech, we found that he used a lot of repetitive expressions. The content is emphasized by repeated expressions. We analyzed the word frequencies. The result showed that "the battle to" was used six times to briefly describe the future directions. "Ahead to an America" appeared five times, which showed the potential of America.

## References

1. Bird, Steven, Ewan Klein, and Edward Loper (2009) Natural Language Processing with Python: Analyzing Text with the Natural Language Toolkit

O'Reilly, Sebastopol, CA.

2. Nishiguchi, Sumiyo (2020) "The Semantics of Reduplication" Shin Handai Eibungakkai Sosho 2: Eigogaku no Fukamari, Eigogaku karano Hirogari, Eihosha, Tokyo.

3. Scott, Mike and Christopher Tribble (2006) Textual Patterns:

Key Words And Corpus Analysis in Language Education, John Benjamins, Amsterdam.

4. The New York Times (2020) "Read Joe Biden's President-Elect Acceptance Speech:

Full Transcript,"

https://www.nytimes.com/article/biden-speechtranscript.html

5. CNN Politics (2020) "President-elect Joe Biden Seeks to Unite Nation with Victory Speech"
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/11/07/politics/bid en-victory-speech-2020-election/index.html 6. The Washington Post, "Joe Biden's Victory Speech, Annotated"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020

/11/07/annotated-biden-victory-speech/