Stephen Colbert's rhetorical strategies in breaking commencement speech conventions

¶ … Stephen Colbert's Speech; University of Virginia, 2013

Analysis of Stephen Colbert's Speech at the University of Virginia, 2013

Commencement addresses are typically full of allegorical references that mean more for the educators and administrators than students, as the speakers seek to gain professional stature and prestige in intellectual communities. There is often an obligatory encouragement provided to students as well, with the majority of the content delivered being complex and at times pedantic. Stephen Colbert deliberately breaks all these constraints apart and goes straight to the students, elevating them as superior from an academic, ethical and moral standpoint. He does this using irony, parody, and a slight amount of sarcasm as well. All of these aspects of his speech are supported by his self-deprecating sense of humor which holds the entire dialogue together tightly.

Analysis of the Speech

Three of the most powerful aspects of a speech are self-disclosure including telling stories, self-deprecating humor and a strong command of facts and information. Stephen Colbert weaves all of these together brilliantly, initially seeking to create a connection with his audience through a series of stories of how he attended a local university close to the university as he was not admitted to the University of Virginia. Taking this self-deprecating story to a very personal level, he turns to ask the dean if he can submit the speech as the essay that he never completed as part of the application process. He also uses this aspect of his life to compliment and hold up the graduates as being superior and unique given their attainment of a degree from the university. This is a difficult speech strategy to undertake as it can appear the speaker is being patronizing and insincere. Yet Colbert has the life experiences to back it up and the self-deprecating humor wins over the audience.

At the beginning of the speech he parodies the self-absorbed nature of society today by promoting his own Twitter account and mentions he will be tweeting during the keynote. This is both a parody of the self-absorbed nature of baby Boomers he mentions later in the speech and also shows he completely understands the mindset of students about social media. A lesser speaker would have gone down a pedantic path on this point yet Colbert uses parody and self-deprecation to make the point.