COM 231 (chapters 13 and 6)

Modern scholars generally describe the three general purposes of speaking as A) entertain, persuade, and debate B) persuade, inform, and perpetuate C) celebrate, perpetuate, and inform D) inform, persuade, and entertain E) deliberative, epideictic, and forensic

D

Which of the following is an accurate statement about oral language? A) Oral language has more words than written language. B) Oral language has longer sentences than written language. C) Oral language has more qualifying statements than written language. D) Oral language uses fewer interjections than written language. E) Oral language has fewer quantifying terms than written language.

D

Which of the following is not an example of inclusive language? A) person with disability B) Italian American C) lesbian woman D) handicapped person E) bartender

D

Jenny was conversing with Darlene about her pet rabbit. Jenny grew up in the country and remembers raising rabbits for food for her pet snake, whereas Darlene remembers having pet rabbits her whole life. How are the two differing in their understanding of the word "rabbit?" A) Jenny and Darlene have different metaphors for the word "rabbit." B) Jenny and Darlene have different assonance for the word "rabbit." C) Jenny and Darlene have different denotative meanings for the word "rabbit." D) Jenny and Darlene have the same perception of the word "rabbit." E) Jenny and Darlene have different connotative meanings for the word "rabbit."

E

Chapter 6

Finding a Purpose and Selecting a Topic

Sexual Orientation

Heterosexism occurs when a speaker presumes that everyone in an audience is heterosexual or that opposite-sex relationships are the only norm.

After the questions this is all lecture notes for the quiz about chapter 6. This will vairy for each class so this might not be needed for you.

Lecture Notes for chapter 6: Finding a Purpose and Selecting a Topic

Narrowing Your Topic

Narrowing your topic to something manageable for the constraints of your speech is something that takes time, patience, and experience.

Obscure Language/Jargon

Obscure: refers to language choices that are not typically understood or known by most of your audience. Jargon: refers to language that is commonly used by a highly specialized group, trade, or profession.

Selecting a Broad Subject Area

Once you know what the basic constraints are for your speech, you can then start thinking about picking a topic.

Appropriate for the Speaker

One of the first questions to ask yourself is whether the language you plan on using in a speech fits with your own speaking pattern

Chapter 13

Oral versus Written Language

Gender-Specific Language

The first common form of noninclusive language is language that privileges one of the sexes over the other.

Purpose

The first major constraint someone can have involves the general purpose of the speech.

Appropriate for the Topic

The fourth and final question about the appropriateness of language involves whether the language is appropriate for your specific topic.

Why We Entertain

The fundamental goal of an entertaining speech is audience enjoyment, which can come in a variety of forms.

Generic "He"

The generic "he" happens when a speaker labels all people within a group as "he" when in reality there is a mixed sex group involved.

Disability

The last category of exclusive versus inclusive language that causes problems for some speakers relates to individuals with physical or mental disabilities.

Gender-Typed Jobs

The last common area where speakers get into trouble with gender and language has to do with job titles

Time Frame

The last major constraint that you will face is the time frame of your speech.

Poll Your Audience for Interests and Needs

The last way you can find a great topic is to conduct a simple poll of your audience to see what their interests and needs are.

Media Outlets

The next great ways to find interesting topics for your speeches are watching television and listening to the radio

Appropriate for the Context

The next question about appropriateness is whether the language you will use is suitable or fitting for the context itself.

Appropriate for the Audience

The second aspect of appropriateness asks whether the language you are choosing is appropriate for your specific audience.

Audience

The second major constraint that you need to consider as a speaker is the type of audience you will have.

Needs polls

The second type of poll you may conduct of your potential audience is what we call a needs analysis. A needs analysis involves a set of activities designed to determine your audience's needs, wants, wishes, or desires.

Context

The third major constraint relates to the context.

Your Specific Statement of Purpose

To form a clear and succinct statement of the specific purpose of your speech, start by naming your general purpose (to inform, to persuade, or to entertain). Follow this by a capsule description of your audience (my peers in class, a group of kindergarten teachers, etc.). Then complete your statement of purpose with a prepositional phrase (a phrase using "to," "about," "by," or another preposition) that summarizes your topic. Eg: "My specific purpose is to persuade the students in my residence hall to protest the proposed housing cost increase" *Specific purposes should be statements, not questions.*

Use of "Man"

Traditionally, speakers of English have used terms like "man," "mankind," and (in casual contexts) "guys" when referring to both females and males.

Here are some basic questions to get you started:

What's your major? What are your hobbies? What jobs have you had? What extracurricular activities have you engaged in? What clubs or groups do you belong to? What political issues interest you? Where have you traveled in life? What type of volunteer work have you done? What goals do you have in life? What social problems interest you? What books do you read? What movies do you watch? What games do you play? What unique skills do you possess?

Parallelism

When listing items in a sequence, audiences will respond more strongly when those ideas are presented in a grammatically parallel fashion. Eg: "Give me liberty or I'd rather die."

To Persuade

When we speak to persuade, we attempt to get listeners to embrace a point of view or to adopt a behavior that they would not have done otherwise.

Interest polls

When you ask potential audience members about their interests, it's not hard to quickly find that patterns of interests exist in every group.

The Internet

You can, of course, also look for interesting speech topics online. While the Internet may not always provide the most reliable information, it is a rich source of interesting topics.

Metaphor

a figure of speech where a term or phrase is applied to something in a nonliteral way to suggest a resemblance.

Simile

a simile is a figure of speech in which two unlike things are explicitly compared.

To Entertain

entertainment speaking is focused on the theme and occasion of the speech.

Alliteration

epeating two or more words in a series that begin with the same consonant.

Use Vivid Language

helps your listeners create strong, distinct, clear, and memorable mental images.

subject area

is a broad area of knowledge.

personal inventory

is a detailed and descriptive list about an individual.

Use Finding Aids

is a tool that will help you find lists of possible topics.Let's look at four of them: best-seller lists, organizations that tally information, media outlets, and the Internet.

Power

is an individual's ability to influence another person to think or behave in a manner the other person would not have otherwise done.

Langauge

is any formal system of gestures, signs, sounds, and symbols used or conceived as a means of communicating thought.

Use Inclusive Language

is language that avoids placing any one group of people above or below other groups while speaking.

Assonance

is similar to alliteration, but instead of relying on consonants, assonance gets its rhythm from repeating the same vowel sounds with different consonants in the stressed syllables.

Connotative meaning

is the idea suggested by or associated with a word.

Knowledge sharing

is the process of delivering information, skills, or expertise in some form to people who could benefit from it.

Denotative meaning

is the specific meaning associated with a word. We sometimes refer to denotative meanings as dictionary definitions.

Imagery

is the use of language to represent objects, actions, or ideas.

Clarity

the use of language to make sure the audience understands a speaker's ideas in the way the speaker intended.

Economy

the use of only those words necessary to accurately express your idea.

Polling Organizations

there are also a number of polling organizations that regularly conduct research on the American public. Not only are these organizations good for finding interesting research, but generally the most recent polls are an indication of what people are interested in understanding today.

To Inform

this is about helping audience members acquire information that they do not already possess.

Use Familiar Language

use language that is familiar both to yourself and to your audience.

constraint

we are referring to any limitation or restriction you may have as a speaker.

Concreteness

we attempt to help our audiences see specific realities or actual instances instead of abstract theories and ideas. The goal of concreteness is to help you, as a speaker, show your audience something instead of just telling them.

Key takwways

- Language is important in every aspect of our lives because it allows people to communicate in a manner that enables the sharing of common ideas. - Denotative definitions are the agreed-upon meanings of words that are often found in dictionaries, whereas connotative definitions involve individual perceptions of words. - Misunderstandings commonly occur when the source of a message intends one denotative or connotative meaning and the receiver of the message applies a different denotative or connotative meaning to the same word or words. -Oral language is designed to be listened to and to sound conversational, which means that word choice must be simpler, more informal, and more repetitive. Written language uses a larger vocabulary and is more formal.

Key takeways

- Public speakers need to make sure that they are very aware of their language. Six common language issues that impact public speakers are clarity, economy, obscenity, obscure language/jargon, power, and variety. - When public speakers prepare their speeches, they need to make sure that their speeches contain clear language, use as few words as possible to get their point across, avoid obscenity, be careful with obscure language/jargon, use powerful language, and include variety.

Key takways

- Using appropriate language means that a speaker's language is suitable or fitting for themselves, as the speaker; our audience; the speaking context; and the speech itself. - Vivid language helps listeners create mental images. It involves both imagery (e.g., concreteness, simile, and metaphor) and rhythm (e.g., parallelism, repetition, alliteration, and assonance). - Inclusive language avoids placing any one group of people above or below other groups while speaking. As such, speakers need to think about how they refer to various groups within society. - Using familiar language is important for a speaker because familiar language will make a speaker more comfortable, which will improve audience perceptions of the speech.

Key takeways

-Conducting a personal inventory is a good way to start the topic selection process. When we analyze our own experiences, interests, knowledge, and passions, we often find topics that others will also find interesting and useful. -A speaker can investigate finding aids when searching for a good topic. Various finding aids have their positives and negatives, so we recommend investigating several different finding aids to see what topic ideas inspire you. -One way to ensure a successful speech is to identify your audience's interests or needs. When the speaker's topic is immediately useful for the audience, the audience will listen to the speech and appreciate it.

Overall, when narrowing your topic, you should start by asking yourself four basic questions based on the constraints discussed earlier in this section:

-Does the topic match my intended general purpose? -Is the topic appropriate for my audience? -Is the topic appropriate for the given speaking context? -Can I reasonably hope to inform or persuade my audience in -the time frame I have for the speech?

Key takeways

-Moving from a general to specific purpose requires you to identify the who, what, when, where, and why of your speech. -State your specific purpose in a sentence that includes the general purpose, a description of the intended audience, and a prepositional phrase summarizing the topic. -When creating a specific purpose for your speech, first, consider your audience. Second, consider the rhetorical situation. Make sure your specific purpose statement uses clear language, and that it does not try to cover more than one topic. -Make sure you can realistically accomplish your specific purpose within the allotted time.

Key takeways

-Selecting a topic is a process. We often start by selecting a broad area of knowledge and then narrowing the topic to one that is manageable for a given rhetorical situation. -When finalizing a specific purpose for your speech, always ask yourself four basic questions: (1) Does the topic match my intended general purpose?; (2) Is the topic appropriate for my audience?; (3) Is the topic appropriate for the given speaking context?; and (4) Can I reasonably hope to inform or persuade my audience in the time frame I have for the speech?

Key takeways

-There are three general purposes that all speeches fall into: to inform, to persuade, and to entertain. Depending on what your ultimate goal is, you will start by picking one of these general purposes and then selecting an appropriate speech pattern that goes along with that general purpose. -Informative speeches can focus on objects, people, events, concepts, processes, or issues. It is important to remember that your purpose in an informative speech is to share information with an audience, not to persuade them to do or believe something. -There are two basic types of persuasion: pure and manipulative. Speakers who attempt to persuade others for pure reasons do so because they actually believe in what they are persuading an audience to do or think. Speakers who persuade others for manipulative reasons do so often by distorting the support for their arguments because they have an ulterior motive in persuading an audience to do or think something. If an audience finds out that you've been attempting to manipulate them, they will lose trust in you. -Entertainment speeches can be after-dinner, ceremonial, or inspirational. Although there may be informative or persuasive elements to your speech, your primary reason for giving the speech is to entertain the audience.

Basic Tips for Creating Specific Purposes

1) First and foremost, you always need to think about your intended audience when choosing your specific purpose. 2) the second most important consideration about your specific purpose pertains to the rhetorical situation of your speech. *rhetorical situation is the set of circumstances surrounding your speech (e.g., speaker, audience, text, and context). 3) The specific purpose statement for any speech should be direct and not too broad, general, or vague. 4) You cannot hope to solve the entire world's problems in one speech, so don't even try. At the same time, you also want to make sure that you stick to one specific purpose. 5) When choosing your specific purpose, it's important to determine whether it can be realistically covered in the amount of time you have.

Twelve Ways Oral and Written Language Differ

1) Oral language has a smaller variety of words. 2) Oral language has words with fewer syllables. 3) Oral language has shorter sentences. 4) Oral language has more self-reference words (I, me, mine). 5) Oral language has fewer quantifying terms or precise numerical words. 6) Oral language has more pseudoquantifying terms (many, few, some). 7) Oral language has more extreme and superlative words (none, all, every, always, never). 8) Oral language has more qualifying statements (clauses beginning with unless and except). 9) Oral language has more repetition of words and syllables. 10) Oral language uses more contractions. 11) Oral language has more interjections ("Wow!," "Really?," "No!," "You're kidding!"). 12) Oral language has more colloquial and nonstandard words (McCroskey, et al., 2003).

Common Forms of Entertainment Topics

1) The after-dinner speech is a form of speaking where a speaker takes a serious speech topic (either informative or persuasive) and injects a level of humor into the speech to make it entertaining. 2) A ceremonial speech is a type of entertaining speech where the specific context of the speech is the driving force of the speech. 3) The final type of entertaining speech is one where the speaker's primary goal is to inspire her or his audience. Inspirational speeches are based in emotion with the goal to motivate listeners to alter their lives in some significant way.

Common Types of Informative Topics

1) The first type of informative speech relates to objects, which can include how objects are designed, how they function, and what they mean. 2) The second type of informative speech focuses on people. People-based speeches tend to be biography-oriented. 3) The third type of informative speech involves explaining the significance of specific events, either historical or contemporary. 4) involves concepts, or "abstract and difficult ideas or theories" 5) The fifth type of informative speech involves processes. The process speech can be divided into two unique types: how-it-functions and how-to-do. How-it-functions: helps audience members understand how a specific object or system works. How-to-do: is designed to help people come to an end result of some kind. 6) The final type of informative speech involves issues, or "problems or matters of dispute"

Persuasion: Behavior versus Attitudes, Values, and Beliefs

1) attitude is defined as an individual's general predisposition toward something as being good or bad, right or wrong, negative or positive. 2) Value refers to an individual's perception of the usefulness, importance, or worth of something. 3) Beliefs are propositions or positions that an individual holds as true or false without positive knowledge or proof. Core beliefs: are beliefs that people have actively engaged in and created over the course of their lives (e.g., belief in a higher power, belief in extraterrestrial life forms). Dispositional beliefs: are beliefs that people have not actively engaged in; they are judgments based on related subjects, which people make when they encounter a proposition.

The formal process for conducting a needs analysis is threefold: (1) find a gap in knowledge, (2) figure out the cause, and (3) identify solutions.

1) find a gap in knowledge 2) figure out the cause 3) identify solutions.

Getting Specific

1) you need to have a general purpose. Once you know whether your goal is to inform, persuade, or entertain, picking an appropriate topic is easier. 2) when discussing specific purposes, we are concerned with who, what, when, where, why, and how questions for your speech. Who: you want to know who is going to be in your audience. What: the basic description of your topic. When: you need to consider when your speech will be given. Where: you need to consider where your speech will be given. Why: Why does your audience need to hear your speech? If your audience doesn't care about your specific purpose, they are less likely to attend to your speech.

Tika is speaking on the benefits of sleep, but does not include a call for action to get more sleep. Which type of general purpose does Tika have? A) to inform B) to persuade C) to entertain D) to console E) to educate

A

Which of the following phrases is an example of the powerless form of language known as a hesitation? A) "Well, umm, you know that I, err, wish I could go on the trip with you." B) "Well, I may not be a specialist, but I'll be glad to help." C) "I'm really not a pianist, but I can play a few songs." D) "I may be completely off track, but here goes nothing." E) "I think that is a great idea, don't you think so?"

A

Best-Seller Lists

A best-seller list is a list of books that people are currently buying

Composing a thesis statement

A thesis statement is a clear, concise declarative sentence stating the central idea to be developed in the speech. · A thesis statement cannot be a fragment; it must be a complete sentence with a subject and a verb. · A thesis statement should not contain phrases such as "I think." If you make the statement, you obviously think it. · A thesis statement should not be a question. Once you ask a question, you have to answer it before you will have an idea. · A thesis statement should not be a blanket statement. You must allow for exceptions. The more specifically you state the main idea, the easier it will be to develop it in a speech. · A thesis statement should not contain elements that are not clearly related. Example: Capital punishment is a remnant of times when men were uncivilized; the warden at Raeford is the governor's brother. · A thesis statement should not be expressed in vague language. Choose each word carefully to make your meaning as specific as possible. · A thesis statement should not be too narrow. Unless you express your attitudes, the statement about the subject has no significance for the reader. · A thesis statement should not contain obscure or garbled language. Example: When one thinks about punishment, the subconscious is on a different level. This sentence as it stands is meaningless. Not only are the relationships among "capital punishment, "subconscious", and "different level" muddy, but also the meaning of the words "the subconscious is on a different level" is totally obscure.

"To persuade a group of local residents to buy a car from Mitken's Car Dealership" is an example of which type of purpose? A) celebratory B) specific C) systematic D) supplemental E) general

B

Benji wanted to speak on the elements of jazz music, but his instructor told the class that they could only choose from a specific list of topics. This is an example of A) poor topic selection B) constraints C) a bad speech D) poor narrowing E) topic shortage aversion

B

During a speech on the history of Colorado, Alban said, "The early pioneers came to Colorado by covered wagon, which traveled at a snail's pace." This phrase contains which form of language? A) simile B) metaphor C) assonance D) inclusive language E) immediate juxtaposition

B

Use Appropriate Language

By appropriate, we mean whether the language is suitable or fitting for ourselves, as the speaker; our audience; the speaking context; and the speech itself.

Which of the following would be a good scope for a speech that is five to seven minutes in length? A) the history of the United States B) military maneuvers in the nineteenth century C) women in the Battle of Lewisburg D) religion in Asia E) changes in state-sponsored militias

C

Pure persuasion

occurs when a speaker urges listeners to engage in a specific behavior or change a point of view because the speaker truly believes that the change is in the best interest of the audience members.

Manipulative persuasion

occurs when a speaker urges listeners to engage in a specific behavior or change a point of view by misleading them, often to fulfill an ulterior motive beyond the face value of the persuasive attempt.

Repetition

one of the major differences between oral and written language is the use of repetition.

Variety

or a speaker's ability to use and implement a range of different language choices.

Obscenity

or indecent language, consists of curse words or pornographic references. While it may be fun to use obscene language in casual conversations with your friends, we cannot recommend using obscene language while delivering a speech.

Ethnic Identity

refers to a group an individual identifies with based on a common culture.

general purpose

refers to the broad goal in creating and delivering a speech.

Rhythm

refers to the patterned, recurring variance of elements of sound or speech.

a specific purpose

should be a short, declarative sentence that emphasizes the main topic of your speech.

specific purpose

starts with one of the three general purposes and then specifies the actual topic you have chosen and the basic objective you hope to accomplish with your speech.