Accentuating the positive: an analysis of Steve Jobs' and Bill Gates' speeches

This thesis will take into account the evolution of Apple and Microsoft in order to give a complete overview of their development of their choices in the field of communication and marketing strategies. This research will specifically concentrate on the comparison between the speeches delivered by Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. In particular, the language of evaluation will be analysed in order to understand how the two CEOs promoted their companies and the words they chose to use to do so. The goal of this paper is to determine whether these two American innovators used similar terminology or there is a consistent difference between the speeches. In order to do that, two different corpora were compiled and searched with the help of the SketchEngine, a specific language-query system. Then, adjectives, pronouns, analogies extracted from both speeches will be analysed and compared. In the first chapter, the rhetoric of corporate language will be explained in order to introduce the more specific linguistic search regarding the speeches. An insight of the rhetoric used in corporate speeches will be given in order to fully understand how leaders promote their company as well as their products generally. Then, in the second chapter, an example thereof will be discussed: in particular the two American companies, Microsoft and Apple, will be presented considering their history, their brands, and their corporate strategies. Indeed, only by considering their history can we understand the choices they have made throughout the years. Finally, yet importantly, the two compiled corpora will be carefully searched and analysed so as to find remarkable differences and/or similarities in the way Bill Gates and Steve Jobs launch and promote their products.