From Personalization to Parrhesia: A Multimodal Analysis of Autobiographical Recalls in Barack Obama’s Political Speech - Conflict and Multimodal Communication: Social Research and Machine Intelligence - page 356

and not fishing for consent. He goes on without allowing the applause to continue,
stating frankly the humiliating station of his grandfather, a domestic servant of no
importance (“boy”) in a British family (min. 4.10):
“My grandfather was a cook for the British in Kenya, and though he was a respected elder
in his village, his employers called him “boy” for much of his life.”
He maintains the same attitude of dignified pride (Poggi and D'Errico 2012 ) -
chin raised, gaze moving around slowly, chest puffed out slightly toward his
audience all the while - as if to suggest that he is keenly aware of this humiliation of
his grandfather, but that he also accepts it as a historical fact that cannot be changed.
He wants, however, to denounce all the injustice suffered by his elder and continues
(min. 4.22):
“He was on the periphery of Kenya's liberation struggles, but he was still imprisoned briefly
during repressive times.”
He slowly vacillates as he goes on discussing all aspects of his family story,
hiding nothing, not even the most distressing aspects. Only at the end of his
recollection about his grandfather's brief imprisonment, though an old person and
certainly not a dangerous one, does Obama resume his proud posture (Poggi and
D'Errico 2012 ; Tracy and Robins 2007 ), raising up his head and chin. After this
brief narrative about his grandfather's imprisonment, he closes his mouth firmly,
stops vacillating slightly, and closes his arms in front of him, as if going back to a
resting pose after trying to keep under control the distress of recalling the useless and
undeserved violence perpetrated against his family. The evident effort demanded of
him to communicate these autobiographical events despite showing in public his
personal discomfort accounts for his self-determination (Frijda 2013 ) to present to
his audience a parrhesiastic narrative of African history, not a glorified one (Foucault
2001 ). In fact, the more he recalls his family story, the more he tries to highlight the
bonds inextricably intertwining his personal feelings with the larger African story
(min. 4.29):
“In his life, colonialism wasn't simply the creation of unnatural borders or unfair terms of
trade; it was something experienced personally, day after day, year after year.”
The way he looks at his audience, sternly and without smiling, the movements
of his head, nodding in acknowledgment of the historical truth of what he is saying
(Poggi et al. 2010 ), the way in which his head keeps up at the end of each sentence,
stressing his proud frontal pose (Poggi and D'Errico 2012 ; Tracy and Robins 2007 )
toward his audience with his chest, which now remains almost still as he recalls
not only the humiliation of his family but of all colonized peoples, the frequent
batonlike gestures, the rhythm of his voice, which shows a peak of intensity on the
word “personally,” the brief silent pause following each important concept presented
to the audience - all these signals taken together seem to underscore how focused
Obama is on what he is saying and how he is asking his audience to stay focused,
too, and simply listen to him without unnecessary feedback (Bull 2006 ). The
audience shows a deep acceptance of his communicative proposal, to frankly review
in his official speech the difficulties they share in their common colonial past. Many