In our 2-day fear-of-public-speaking course, we introduce rhetorical devices to strengthen the rhythm and fluency of articulation.
An introduction to Rhetoric
“If I could just find the right words…” Barack Obama
Barack Obama was thirty-four in 1995 when he wrote Dreams from My Father, from which the above quotation comes. It was written long before he became a household name. The book was modest in its ambition and published with soft reviews. In the book, he describes his memories of the month he spent as a schoolboy with his father, who had lived for most of his life on another continent. The main thing that struck the boy was the way his father talked: “Whenever he spoke ... his large hands outstretched to direct or deflect attention, his voice deep and sure, cajoling and laughing – I would see a sudden change take place in the family ... It was as if his presence had summoned the spirit of earlier times.” His father’s voice and words had a strong influence on the future president. This was the power of rhetoric.
Rhetoric is the persuasive language a speaker uses to influence their audience. It’s the art of using words to sway an audience. With the ability to apply rhetoric, what we say is remembered. The ebb and flow of fluent language, along with the presentation and reiteration of messages in a vital, striking and memorable way, are what make speeches and speakers remembered. We use this priceless art too little. Rhetoric is indeed the art of effective or persuasive speaking - especially the attempt to change minds. And, of course, that can be used for good and evil. How rhetoric is delivered must be comfortable on the ear, and that, too, can take many forms – language and delivery can frighten, excite, motivate, amuse, entertain, and inform in equal measure.
According to Plato, rhetoric is "the art of winning the soul by discourse." Rhetoric, he wrote, is "speech designed to persuade." Aristotle defined it this way: "the faculty of discovering in any particular case all of the available means of persuasion.” Ethos was the term Aristotle used for the part of rhetoric that establishes a speaker’s credibility or bona fides. In other words, is he or she someone you should lend an ear to? Is there value in what he or she says? Can you trust their reputation? Do you like him or her? Is he or she worthy of your time? The actual argument, the message, the appeal, the logic is what Aristotle called Logos. And Pathos was the name he gave to the manipulation of the audience’s emotions, part of the speech armoury often forgotten by speakers these days at all levels in politics and, particularly, in business. Manipulation doesn’t, of course, have to be negative. Think of the last speech (or scene in a play or movie) you heard that manipulated your emotions.
Those who should be good at this are politicians and business leaders. But most are poor rhetoricians, clumsy in their use of language, and awkward and unclear in their answers or explanations. America has a great tradition in rhetoric, as once we did in the UK. Until the eighteenth century, its study was one of the central disciplines in European universities, alongside theology, the natural and moral sciences, and law. The history of the American republic is one that can be traced through its rhetoric: “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent ...”, “We shall overcome”, “Ask not what you can do for your country ... ”, “I have a dream”. We can all recite one or two famous lines of American rhetoric. Similarly, we might know a couple of Churchill’s lines, and we’ve perhaps heard extracts from speeches by the likes of Mahatma Gandhi, Steve Jobs, JFK, and Hitler. Great speeches (for whatever purpose) are memorable, as are the phrases and repetitions that populate them. And the fact is that with practice and rehearsal, more or less anyone can make a great rhetorical speech.
One of the reasons for great rhetoric (other than media profile) is the sheer quality of writing. America and some South-East Asian countries, for example, teach speech-making as a skill in school. We in the UK don’t, not really. Americans and other nationalities learn about figures like Cicero – in whose time rhetoric, along with grammar and logic, constituted one-third of anyone’s education. Same with Aristotle – whose treatise Rhetoric made plain the basics (the rules, really) of the art of persuasion four hundred years before the birth of Christ.
Also, rhetoric is about sound, the music of the words, and how they are spoken. Think of the steady thump of Churchill’s wartime invocation: “blood, toil, tears and sweat” or the perfect ‘music’ of the opening line of the main bit from the American Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident.” It soothes the soul.
Truthfully, none of the basics of making a speech is hard. There are devices that are used because they make us and what we say sound better and more meaningful. And, as with any other skill, there are guidelines to follow, along with a wealth of ideas and examples drawn from history’s greatest speakers and speeches.
For example, repetition, particularly in the form of anaphora (where a phrase is repeated at the beginning of successive lines) is one of the prime oratorical tools. Oratorical tools help make language easy on the ear and powerful in its emotional impact. Obama’s speech at the Iowa caucus on January 3rd, 2008 began: “They said this time would never come. They said our sights were set too high. They said this country was too divided, too disillusioned to ever come together around a common purpose.” If you know the devices and begin to apply them to what you have to say, you’re well on your way to making a good speech, one people will want to listen to.
Often, a speaker can gain position and respect by situating him- or herself in history. You can do that too. And it doesn’t have to be world history, of course. The ‘history’ can relate to a modest project or initiative, a relationship, a marriage, a business, a country, and time. You could, for example, say, “This was the moment when…” or “Looking back, that was the time when…” Such use of the past tense gives us the odd sense of already looking back at the moment, of being in and out of time; as well as giving us, the listener, the sense that the decision has already been taken. It puts the speaker and their message right at the front of the audience’s mind, and it allows the speaker to present the speech content as expansive.
We have mouthfuls of rolling news, texts, chunks of TV, acres of social media, websites, apps, soundbites, and immediate headlines. Maybe these are actually all we need, are sufficient. But there are times when the short pieces of information just don’t satisfy us because they don’t offer the detail, the stories, the persuasion, the emotion, the passion, the charm or the argument that we really need.
Face-to-face. Small bits of text don’t offer ‘voice’, shades of light, dark, character, deep humour, shared wit, heartfelt persuasion, or inflexion. They may influence and, if they do, not always sufficiently for even our impatient needs. Deep down (and, in parts of the world, not so deep down), we do genuinely thirst for the live event or its live transmission on television. We thirst for the back of the hair-tingling moment when our emotions are aroused, when we are made to believe in something. We often want the words that persuade, that encourage, that calm, that give us hope, that offer change, that alter minds, that shape opinions, that explain the present, that shed the past, and that plan the future. Sometimes we want someone to echo or match our own aspirations, feelings, anger, or, unfortunately, our fears. Rhetoric can do that. And, be of no doubt, as soon as people in your audience nod, as soon as they smile, as soon as they laugh, as soon as they applaud or cheer, they are in your world. Your job is to keep them there.
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