Eloquence: the key to delivering a speech that will be remembered
From time immemorial scholars have been trying to find answers for what makes a speech effective. Every time a speaker prepares to give a discourse the person has a message; a message that the speaker wants the audience to reflect upon and/or act upon. Every time I prepare for a speech, I ask myself three questions: what do I wish to convey to my audience, how can I convey it in a manner that the audience carries the message home, how can I make sure that they act upon the message received. After extensive study on rhetorical analysis in my critical writing course, I have arrived at a one-word answer to these questions. Eloquence. Through the display of eloquence, you put yourself in a position where people want to listen to you.
But what is eloquence really? Through time, we can find multiple instances where scholars have tried to define eloquence.
One of the claims was that “eloquence is the power to translate a truth into language perfectly intelligible to the person to whom you speak” (Jasinski 199).
This talks about the importance of keeping the persona of the audience and the decorum in mind while crafting and presenting a speech.
The Synergistic Effect Of Eloquence
Scholars have termed Eloquence to be a fusion of factors.
Winston Churchill has described it as the fusion of speaker, delivery, matter-at-issue, language, image, occasion, and audience into a live articulation of meaning-into a commanding moment of eloquence (Jasinski 199).
As a student in rhetoric study, I would coin eloquence as a synergy of the body language, eye contact, delivery, pace, movement, follow of decorum, emotional appeal, audience centric weaving of the speech together, voice modulation at play.
This synergistic effect of the underlying factors helps in solving one simple problem: it converges the attention of the wandering minds of the audience to register the crux of the discourse. It then paves way towards shaping the realities that they believe in by touching the chords of the heart.
The Key To An Eloquent Speech
I recently watched a video of a woman speaking for the Sikh community in America. I was left deeply moved, yet optimistic about the future of the minority community in America. It was strange because I am not an American, in fact I have never visited America. Nor am I a minority in my own country. Yes, I am not Sikh too. And it was only later that I came to know of Valerie Kaur, the speaker in the video.
If we closely listen to the video and break down the aspects that helped us connect with the speech, my list would have the following: use of personal stories with use of descriptive speech leading to imagery in the mind of the audience, short yet impactful sentences, the progression of the speech from the dark reality of the present to an optimism about the future, the strong feelings with which she presented the speech, strength in her voice, pace and voice modulation.
I haven’t mentioned body language because I wasn’t particularly a fan of the slight wobble in her stance and the constant pursing of the lips together during speech delivery. It usually indicates nervousness, but here it did not contribute to making the speech any less eloquent. So here’s how it is, for eloquence, one needn’t check boxes of every factor that lead to it. Again, it’s a synergy of a couple of factors appropriately selected keeping in mind the context of the speech and audience.
Here, above all, if Valerie wasn’t truly feeling what she wanted her audience to feel, the speech wouldn’t be as impactful.
Few examples for how this speech has remained in the minds of the people can be seen below:
From the above tweets, it is interesting to note how this speech is remembered even after three years of its delivery and still connects to people.
Let’s Make Our Speeches Stand The Test of Time
Before you start your journey of being an eloquent speaker, it is important to spend sufficient time reflecting upon the message you want your audience to carry home.
If we go back to Valerie Kaur’s speech, by comparing comments and tweets on various social media platforms, we can see that most people have expressed a strong connect to these lines:
This is in fact the message Valerie Kaur wished her audience to take home.
To ensure your audience connects to the message you wish to convey, make sure you feel passionately about what you are going to say, have a strong belief in everything that you want others to believe in and reflect that confidence during the delivery through your voice, eye contact, body language.
Feel what you want the audience to feel. Feel the passion towards the motherland when you want to evoke feelings of patriotism, truly feel the pain of the families of the martyrs if you are giving a condolence speech, submit to yourself first if you want others to submit to you.
To elaborate on this very idea, consider what state you want your audience to be in and then consider what state you have to be in to put your audience in that state.
Let’s say we have to deliver a speech about a new product/ technology/ service to be introduced by our company to the public. Then we will want to elicit curiosity, wonder, excitement, sense of discovery and build a sense of closeness and partnership with the audience. I’d then suggest we choose to reflect a sense of belief in our voice, stand light on feet, move laterally across the stage using gestures congruent with the content, voices and expressions, maintain an air of playfulness while coming up with ways to build connections with the audience through our narration and let the synergy of these factors lead our way towards being an eloquent speaker.
Now, consider a situation where you have to deliver a speech wherein you are now required to restore brand credibility after a proven glitch from your company’s end. If you are a student, consider a situation wherein you have to deliver a speech to restore credibility about a team you are leading after it goofs up a pre-fest event. Reflect upon what are the factors of eloquence you would include in your speech to make your customers trust your brand/ team again.
The Role Of Eloquence In Shaping Political History
Eloquence, as we have seen, is the close study of how to get a message to live in the minds of an audience. Rightly so, this key concept has been especially used in political discourses to leave an impact on the prospective voters of a region. A research finding by Harvard Business School suggests that more eloquent politicians are found to be more likeable and trustable even when the comparison is between a person who directly answered a question asked, but less eloquently and a person who dodged the question asked in an eloquent manner while participating in a political debate. Obama’s candidacy is said to have founded on a speech, specifically, his keynote address to the 2004 Democratic National Convention (Masket).
He draws his audience through well-crafted, compelling, poetic discourses using logos, pathos and ethos to back a central thesis by using instances from the common life of Americans which connects to most of his audience and also sharing the story about his roots. He has a real knack for connecting personal stories with the long sweep of history and conveying a profoundly optimistic worldview. The power in his voice, pacing, open body language, voice modulation always captivates the minds of the audience. Eloquent oration has been important to many other presidents in their rise to prominence.
Revitalizing Eloquence In The Contemporary World
If we focus on traditional political rhetoric, it is now a declining art. Candidates have more ways to get a message out, pictures can mean as much as words, and fewer people see major political speeches. In the 1950's and 1960's, presidential candidates were still selling themselves in five-minute speeches as campaign ads.
Now their speeches are mostly ways to highlight the 15-second sound bite they hope will get on the news or vehicles to get talking heads on television to rave about speeches most viewers haven’t seen (Applebome).
Undoubtedly, the art of eloquence has also been impacted by the technical and cultural changes of the time. Scholar Jamieson argues that “Manly” eloquence has been replaced by an “effeminate” style (Jasinski 200).
In simpler terms, it is a shift from abstract, hierarchical, dominating, and problem-solving oriented discourse to use of narrative, concrete examples, analogies, and anecdotes as primary evidence sources, use of personal tone and encouragement of audience participation. This can be witnessed in both the speeches linked above, especially through the narration of their personal stories to build a deep connection with their audience.
Some feminist scholars hail the decline of the masculinist ideal of eloquence. They believe that new norms and ideals, not tarnished by the masculinist rhetorical must be developed. But the question here might to be find out how the two ideals of eloquence can be brought closer to revitalize the backbone of rhetoric.
Next time we come across a speech, let us analyse it further and try to find out which factors are contributing to making the speech eloquent and which are the factors that could have been added to make it more impactful. From the great speeches of all time, let us handpick factors both from the “manly” and “effeminate” styles, appropriate to the speech we are to deliver. Let us experience the synergistic effect of eloquence, by making our audience feel it. Today, let us all consciously start our journey towards being an eloquent orator.
References
Applebome, Peter. “Is Eloquence Overrated?” The New York Times, The New York Times, 13 Jan. 2008, www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/weekinreview/13applebome.html.
Jasinski, James L. Sourcebook on Rhetoric. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, 2001. Print.
Masket, Seth. “The Effectiveness of Obama’s Oratory.” Pacific Standard. Pacific Standard, 14 Feb. 2017. Web. 25 Feb. 2019.
