2. Your Voice, Your Tool
Speaking - a powerful tool
Words AND VOICE!
Rhetoric
Live
Recorded
Web tools
3. Oral Language Skills Today
How important is speaking or talking?
On the job – writing or speaking
predominates?
Audible minorities
impact?
4. Before Writing
Oral / aural societies
Memory central to preserving
knowledge
Persuasiveness – the source of power
Schools – taught speaking skills
5. Aristotle
Using spoken language to get what
you want
Probably not author as much as scribe
of pre-literate oral knowledge
The Art of Persuasion
Still completely relevant today
6. What is Rhetoric Today?
Getting the audience’s attention
Keeping the audience’s attention
Getting the audience to see your
point of view
Getting audience to do what you
want them to do
7. “Thank You For Arguing:
What Aristotle, Lincoln, and Homer
Simpson Can Teach Us About The Art
Of Persuasion”
Jay Heinrichs
http://www.amazon.ca/Thank-You-Arguing-A
8. Words Alone are Limited
Paralanguage and meaning
- emotive quality
Loudness, rate, pitch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paralanguage
Meaning - 7% by words, 38% by tone
Albert Mehrabian - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_language
9. Attunement Needed
Beyond but including empathy
Speaking to ...
not just in front of
Totally involved in the meaning
Totally focussed on the audience
“getting” the meaning
10. What About the Audience?
Learn as much as you can about its
composition
Ages -
Backgrounds -
Interests -
Abilities -
11. “To Sell is Human:
The Surprising Truth About Moving
Others”
Dan Pink
http://www.amazon.ca/To-Sell-Is-Human-Surp
Persuasion =
Interpersonal Intelligence
Rhetoric
12. Where is Speaking Learned?
Learning to speak?
Learning to sound professional?
Where do people ‘practise’ speaking?
Where ‘practise’ speaking professionally?
15. Pathos
Pathos – argument by emotion
Audience’s mood – sympathy, and
playing back the same emotion
Laughter – play up to laughter from your
audience?
Go after the breath intake of
shock/fear?
16. Logos
Logos – argument by logic
Not just intelligence and accurate
information
Use group’s accepted beliefs to “frame”
your argument (Attunement – To Sell is
Human)
Heinrichs – Thank You for Arguing
17. Ethos
Ethos – argument by character
Trustworthness
Reputation, professional role,
Examples
Scholarship level.
Shock of Russell Williams being sex
murderer as well as military rising star
Match yourself to audience (and move
on)
Clothing, speech patterns, beliefs
19. Speaking to a Live Audience
Attunement (Dan Pink)
Before and during
Improvisation
Follow the audience’s energy
NEVER, NEVER, NEVER read a word-
for-word script
Unless you want the audience to stop
listening to you and yawn!
20. Media
Live (interactive)
Same space
Same time
Skype, webinars, Google Hangouts
Asynchronous (recorded)
Different space
Different time
Podcasts, YouTube, SoundCloud
21. For Live and Recorded Speech
Speech intelligibility
Sound quality
Articulation
Prosody
pitch, loudness, tempo and rhythm
Figures of Speech and Tropes
22. Figures of Speech & Tropes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figure_of_Speec
Repetition
Rhetorical Questions
Alliteration
Dramatic pauses
Obama
Lots more
24. Avoid Up-talk
Making statements sound like
questions – voice rises at end
Surprisingly common among young
people
Creates impression you’re uncertain or
don’t really know
25. Preparing
Practise articulating clearly
Slower is better than faster,
Unless you’re Rick Mercer
Over-enunciate
Especially before important speaking or
recording
Alone – car (not driving) or bathroom etc.
26. Recorded Speech
Harder to get and hold attention
Replace live energy, improv impact
Sound effects
Music
Story structure
27. Comparisons - Starting Story
Live
Less formal,
Can fill gaps, correct impressions
Rhetorical skills
Recorded
Strong opening needed
Set up mystery, create curiosity
Strong story structure
Art – rhetorical skills
29. Recording Tools
SoundCloud – web-based accounts
Hear what you sound like - practise
AudioBoo - web-based accounts
Audacity – Free audio-editing
software – lots of free tutorials
GarageBand - Mac
30. Learning Audacity
Over 1, 280, 000 hits on Google for
“Audacity Tutorials”
A favorite -
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/manual-1.2/tutorials.html
Essential – for MP3s, LAME needed
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-
create-valid-mp3-files-with-audacity/
33. Free Blogging Platforms
Free and easy blog tools where you
can add audio files –> podcasts
Posterous – www.posterous.com
Blogger – Google it
WordPress.com - http://wordpress.com/
34. Oral Rhetoric for
Aural Reception
Speaking with power
Words – Rhetorical art
Voice – rich with meaning
Audience Requirements
Live and recorded
Tools for recording
Hinweis der Redaktion
Covering these Oral rhetoric + words & voice Rhetoric = “argue without anger”, “tap into social power” persuasion, tested tools- Aristotle still totally relevant Heinrichs Different tools for different media – live & recorded
Talk differently – with friends? In school? To parents? To authority figures? Why? How learn?
Little bit of history
Centuries of oracy – developed awareness of what worked to persuade, to be powerful “ Smooth talkers” – what traits, techniques? Speaking not just a rational transfer of information (why legal writing is so complex and detailed) Getting people to do what you want – more than fiat, especially among equals or inferiors. Spin, art (beauty has power)
Information overload, multiple choices for every moment of attention
Best, most readable, modern book on the power of rhetoric
Recognize unconsciously – sound nervous, angry, etc. Faking sincerity Reading aloud – sounds like reading b/c just showing you recognize the words. Reading with MEANING – takes skill, like method acting, hold meaning, emotion in mind and let it be heard in voice
Set up for empathy, but especially attunement (Dan Pink)
Ask about persuading – parents, employer, friends, police officer who stops you
British articulation – Gian Ghomeshi & many other media people – British upbringing but no apparent accent Family member – on phone – similar? Mimicking experts, teachers?
Classrooms, work spaces, listening! Increasingly difficult – “Elevator pitch – what happens in elevators currently? Back to getting and holding attention Other listening spaces? Effect?
Logical, pathetic, ethical
Whip audience into a frenzy – Canadians not so much, maybe at sports “What do we want? When do we want it?” Increasingly – this works on us – we see & hear - more than read – more vulnerable to emotions - Veronique Pozner – 5 year old Noah – shot 11 times, jaw & left hand, mostly gone.
Big with academics, part of why you cite, write essays, reports -> Using “logic” so it “makes sense” to audience Ever written an essay knowing what your teacher wanted? We think that’s what we decide by, pay attention because of BUT
What do we know about their expertise? American politics, not Canadian - Jon Stewart vs Fox News Why citations are important – Wikipedia?
Of course, just old logos, pathos and ethos Examples?
Clothing, attitude, language, props Business people & Second City – WRI330 – most fun assignment – speaking & listening live to stories Learned to show you recognize words & can pronounce them
Skype & Google hangouts & webinars Podcasts, YouTube, SoundCloud, AudioBoo – More later
Unconsciously classify as boring Just give up listening? or easily distracted Interesting voices Language skills for memory & ’softening’
Repeat same word at beginning of series of phrases – Where is the life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? T.S. Eliot Around the rugged rock, the ragged rascal ran – poetry & memorable
Other common fillers?
Interviews, speeches, recordings
First 2 – you can record using them OR upload a recording
Open Audacity, get someone to speak at the computer to record
