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Linguistik

Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz - KFU

3, Marko,2018

Noel A. ©
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A Student

Which side are you on? “


Rhetorical analysis auf a political song


Introduction


The first and original version of “Which Side Are You On? “was written by Florence Reece in 1931, she was the wife of Sam Reece who had been union worker for a mining company in Kentucky. The main reason to write this text was because of the “Harlan County War”, where worker and union organizers worked against coal companies and the law.

Actually, they were trying to make their work conditions better. Since back then the song has been rearranged a few times and one time by Ani DiFranco in 2012. Where she took these classic lyrics and made a new song so the American people would listen to it because in that year a new president should be elected.

In fact, I suppose she wrote the whole song to make the American people wake up and get them to vote. There are a lot of rhetorical figures in the lyrics and I want to take a closer look at them, and which are used wisely to influence the reader or much more the listener in a good way.

I think her main goal was that more people should go to the next election than to the election before, and that really everybody should take part in the election. Even if almost hundred years have gone by since this song was originally written the words and rhetorical figures used still apply to people from today.

And I will show you why in the main part of this paper.

Main Part


The message of these lyrics now and back than may be a bit different but words or phrases which were used back then may have the same meaning as now. Like “30 years of diggin’ got us in this hole”, means we lived in these conditions for 30 years and it is our own fault we have to.

When the coal workers were working under really bad conditions back then they started doing strikes against the companies and this text was created because the workers should be united against the companies. Personally, I think the workers from 1931 are now the people who put their hope in the wrong politicians like the workers who put their luck in the hands from companies.

This makes the song much more open to all kind of people. The most used rhetorical figures are anaphora and cataphora. I think these ones are used to stress the meaning of the question “which side you are on?”. It gets repeated so often you cannot forget this phrase.

And the reason for this is that she really wants people to show responsibility for the things they have done or not. People complain about politicians but won’t go the election or do anything about bad conditions on their own. They always hope that a hero comes along and that he saves them.

This text encourages everybody to have an opinion, represent this opinion and stand tall for it. But the text also just differs between two groups and often it is not the case that we just have two parties fighting against each other. There are much more people involved than two.

DiFranco tries to unite the American voters under one star so that everyone would follow the same dream namely peace and wealth for the American people. The text also implies that the people’s hopes were deceived by the one they have put their hopes into and now they must not stop but rather “finish their job”.

Some metaphors are used to show how bad the situation is in a figurative way, so everybody understand how delicate the situation actually is or was. She also wrote “The curse of reaganomics has finally taken its toll” which means the past finally outruns the present or shows its effects on the present.


Conclusion


In conclusion the two texts might not seem similar at all but if you look close enough there are lots of points where the meanings of the two songs overlap. Actually, the meanings are really the same, a huge part of people who are not rich or wealthy work or help other people at getting richer and richer.

Ani DiFrancos version of “Which side are you on?” lets us decide whether we want to do something about social injustices or not but really tries to get us into her boat. She uses anaphora and cataphora in her main part of her song to really emphasize the part about choosing.



Material


Ani DiFranco – Which Side Are You On?” [Online].

[2019, February 1]


Reaganomics” [Online]
[2019, January 29]


“Harlan County War” [Online]

[2019, January 29]



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