There are also a few concrete nouns in the speech, as shown in bold type, in the extract below.
“Confidence is the key to prosperity. Insecurity spreads like a contagion. So people crave stability and order. The threat is chaos. Tyrannical regimes with weapons of mass destruction, and extreme terrorist groups who profess a perverted and false view of Islam.”
However, the concrete nouns are all of very little importance, in relation to the actual topic of the speech itself. The only significant concrete nouns here are “terrorist groups” and “weapons”. “Weapons” is a common, concrete, plural, neuter gender noun. The word “key”, is a concrete, common, singular, neuter gender noun; and here, is only used here as a metaphor. “People”, is ‘us’. We are the “people”, we are the country, and unless Tony Blair has asked every one of us what exactly it is that we “crave”, like much of his speech, his statement, “So people crave stability and order”, is opinion, not fact. Much of his speech is like this. In the same way that he has no concrete evidence, so uses no concrete nouns, he has no facts, and so resorts to using opinions, and saying them as declaratives, to sound like fact. An example of this, is “Confidence is the key to prosperity.” This is another opinion, stated as a fact. Even after just analysing his speech thus far, we can see that Tony Blair has very little to base his speeches on.
The adjectives in this speech are shown below in bold type.
“Confidence is the key to prosperity. Insecurity spreads like a contagion. So people crave stability and order. The threat is chaos. Tyrannical regimes with weapons of mass destruction, and extreme terrorist groups who profess a perverted and false view of Islam.”
“Tyrannical” is used here, to describe the “regimes”, and is an absolute adjective. “Mass” is an adjective of quantity, which describes the noun, “destruction”. It is saying that the destruction will be not just of one, but of many, and it implying that it will be catastrophic. The word “extreme” is describing the terrorist groups. It is an absolute adjective. Perverted and false are both absolute adjectives, used to describe the view of Islam.
There is a similes and a metaphor in this speech extract.” Confidence is the key to prosperity.” This is a metaphor. Prosperity does not need a key to unlock anything. “Key” is used to describe how prosperity can be achieved. “Insecurity spreads like a contagion.” This is a simile, explaining the way in which insecurity spreads. It likens it to a contagion, an infection. Having similes and metaphors, is again evidence that there is little or no justification for what Tony Blair is saying and doing.
There are only two verbs in this speech extract; “spreads” and “profess”. They are both transitive, present tense, third person verbs. “Spreads” is plural, and “profess” is singular
There are a huge amount of connotations in this speech. Almost every word provokes thoughts, images and ideas in one’s mind, and this makes it easy for Blair, because he can put things in people’s minds, without having to justify actually saying it. Below are the connotations that came to my mind from this speech extract.
Confidence: strength upstanding, expectation, conviction
Prosperity: success, wealth, improvements
Insecurity: fear, anxiety
Contagion: infection, fast-spreading, unstoppable
Stability: happiness, safe, strength
Chaos: crazy, disorder, confusion, pandemonium
Tyrannical: cruelty, fear, domineering, unbeatable
Weapons: danger, fear, death, destruction
Destruction: chaos, devastation
Terrorist: fear, death, unjust
In summary, Blair’s listeners will rarely analyse his speech word for word, so it works to his advantage to use many of these techniques to put across his speech, even though most of it is not entirely what will be interpreted by his listeners. There are few facts, just opinions, stated as facts, to make them sound as if they have strength and conviction. Whether Blair has just stretched the truth, or completely lied, he can not go back on his word, so whatever he says now must follow on from previous speeches. This means that he cannot admit that he is, or ever was, wrong; hence the abstractness of his speech.