whaikōrero

 

 

There are always three speeches, for everyone you actually gave. The one you practised, the one you gave, and the one you wish you gave.
– Dale Carnegie

 

te ao Māori principles

There are five key principals that we as an English Department consider important as part of a holistic study at school. Please read through these and know that we will come back to them as we begin looking at texts.

• Kaitiakitanga: Guardianship of natural resources and elements of sustainability
• Rangatiratanga: Leadership, authority, Mana, empowerment, Respect
• Manaakitanga: The process of showing respect, generosity and care for others.
• Whanaungatanga: A relationship through shared experiences and working together which provides people with a sense of belonging.
• Tikanga: The customary system of values and practices that have developed over time and are deeply embedded in the social context.

Exercises

Public Speaking

whaikorero

Public Speaking

We have covered a lot of ground when it comes to writing arguments, researching, and recognising biases in fact and opinion. Now we need to put it all together.

You might think that public speaking skills are outdated and no longer relevant. Surely people in our present-day societies don’t gather to listen to the rhetoric of argument and debate. You might even think that speaking well is no longer a criterion for success. Then how do you explain the court system? Public speech is an inherent component in that process. Two adversarial lawyers arguing points of law before a jury is an example of public speaking at its best. Citizens are asked to determine guilt or innocence based on the effectiveness of the speakers and their arguments. In fact, people make important decisions every day based on a speaker’s skill in communicating.

Think about our political process. In democratic societies around the world, citizens gather to hear political candidates debate the pertinent issues. Often the choices people make about who should be elected are based, in large part, on the candidate’s ability to speak fluently and eloquently in public. Consider political protests and rallies. Aren’t these concerned citizens are much like the early Greeks and Romans gathering in a public place in order to exercise their right to public speech?

Top Five Qualities/Skills Employers Want Leadership Ability to work in a team Communication skills (written) Problem-solving skills Communication skills (verbal)

 

Public speaking is a key life skill. It is one of the things that you can bank now and reap the benefits later. You will need to present in your life at some point. Here are some examples of where the skills of public speaking are required:

• School requirement (like now)
• School assemblies
• Class discussion
• Telling a story to your friends
• Accepting an award
• Being captain of a team
• Debating
• Weddings
• Funerals
• 21sts
• Birthday parties
• Anniversaries
• Job interviews
• Work presentations
• Meeting new clients
• Pitching new concepts to a colleague
• Meeting a significant other

And the list goes on and on and on. As you can see, the skills of public speaking are really important to daily life and show up a lot more than perhaps you may have realised.

The great news is that we can get better at public speaking and increase our confidence at the same time.

We are all on a continuum when it comes to social confidence. You may feel that you like speaking to anyone and everyone without any concern; or even the thought of speaking to someone new fills you with dread.

Acknowledge where you are on that scale. It’s fine to be anywhere on that scale. The aim is for consistent little changes that over time create big changes. It is the aim of this course that you will feel the energy from a group of people. This audience will provide an inspiration for you, rather than create a level of discomfort and fear.

Even great speakers struggle: Mark Twain, the first time he stood up to lecture, felt as if his mouth were filled with cotton and his pulse were speeding for some prize cup.

How to improve public speaking

Firstly, start with a strong and persistent desire to be better at it.

Think of what additional self-confidence and the ability to talk more convincingly in public will mean to you. Think of what it may mean and what it ought to mean, in dollars and cents. Think of what it may mean to you socially; of the friends it will bring, of the increase of your personal influence, of the leadership it will give you. And it will give you leadership more rapidly than almost any other activity you can think of or imagine.
“There is no other accomplishment,” stated Chauncey M. Depew, “which any person can have that will so quickly make for them a career and secure recognition as the ability to speak.”

Learning to public speak should be of the top things you want to take away from schooling, such is the importance of it.

When you start it will be really challenging and you may feel like you want to give up. Keep going!

Secondly: Know Thoroughly What You Are Going to Talk About

Unless you have thought out and planned your talk and know what you are going to say, you can never feel very comfortable when you face an audience. In these cases you feel self-conscious of what you don’t know, rather than confident about what you do.

[hint: a little trick you can try when you first start out is to have some sort of prompt available to you, write a word on the board which you can anchor yourself to, hold a book ready to quote from it, open a window and talk about the warmth previously and the comfort level now, point to a map, shift something on the table. Anything that will mean you have taken some sort of control of the situation. But don’t do it forever, just until you find some confidence]

Thirdly: Act Confident

There is a well known saying that says ‘Fake it till you make it’ and it has been repeated for generations because there is truth in it. Professor William James wrote:

Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not.

Thus the sovereign voluntary path to cheerfulness, if our spontaneous cheerfulness be lost, is to sit up cheerfully and to act and speak as if cheerfulness were already there. If such conduct does not make you feel cheerful, nothing else on that occasion can.

So, to feel brave, act as if we were brave, use all of our will to that end, and a courage fit will very likely replace the fit of fear.

Apply Professor James’ advice. To develop courage when you are facing an audience, act as if you already had it. Of course, unless you are prepared, all the acting in the world will avail but little. But granted that you know what you are going to talk about, step out briskly and take a deep breath. In fact, breathe deeply for thirty seconds before you ever face your audience. The increased supply of oxygen will buoy you up and give you courage.

In every age, in every climate, mankind has always admired courage; so, no matter how your heart may be pounding inside, stride forth bravely, stop, stand still and act as if you loved it.
Draw yourself up to your full height, look your audience straight in the eyes, and begin to talk as confidently as if every one of them owed you money. imagine that they do. Imagine that they have assembled there to beg you for help. The psychological effect on you will be beneficial.

Fourth: Practice! Practice! Practice!

The last point we have to make here is emphatically the most important. Even though you forget everything you have read so far, do remember this: the first way, the last way, the never-failing way to develop self-confidence in speaking is-to speak. Really the whole matter finally simmers down to but one essential; practice, practice, practice. That is the sine qua non of it all, “the without which not.”

What you need, in the face of the task, is cool headedness. This can only be achieved through practice. You must, but repeated exercise of self-mastery, get your nerves under control. This is a matter of habit in the sense of repetition and exercise of will power. If you know what you want, you can grow stronger and stronger each time you practice it.

Remember, no one became an Olympic swimmer by reading about swimming. Instead, they got in the water.

To get better at public speaking, try to speak as regularly as you can in a public environment. Answer questions in class, ask advice from others, be willing to learn.

 

You are not alone in your fear and concern about public speaking. A significant number of famous speakers had to learn the process you are learning right now. It is a journey, not a destination.

 

There is an organisation called Toastmasters who have the goal of helping people with public speaking. Some of the skills we cover in this course can help us all.

Check out this ‘ad’ for them.

 

Here is the 2015 world champion for the Toastmasters competition. See if you can spot the five tips from the toastmasters ad above.

 

Marking Public Speaking

You will be writing a persuasive speech which will mean that you will need to incorporate some techniques into your speech which we, as teachers, can make a note of and mark accordingly.

In the section of ‘Argument’ we introduced these key concepts

The following ideas will also help

• Repetition: Repeating yourself so that you can reiterate an idea clearly and effectively
• Imperative: A command
• Syntax: The use of sentences to create meaning.
• Personal Pronoun: Making something more personal by using first person, or appealing to someone else by using second person
• Figurative Language: Creating images for the audience.
• Adjectives: Show comparatives and superlatives
• Rhetoric Devices: This is a new one, there are three main aspects to look at there.
  • Allusion: making a reference to something that is well known, like ‘You’re Romeo and she’s Juliet’
  • Anecdote: telling a personal story to help explain a point.
  • Analogy: a comparison between one thing and another, typically for the purpose of explanation or clarification.
• Questions: Both rhetorical questions and direct questions can really help to explain something clearly.

Let’s take some time to look at how these can work in speeches.

Repetition

Repetition is a massive subject when it comes to speaking. There are all kinds of ways that you can incorporate repetition in your writing. Here are just a few examples:

• Alliteration: The repetition of the same sound in a group of words, such as the “b” sound in: “Bob brought the box of bricks to the basement.” The repeating sound must occur either in the first letter of each word, or in the stressed syllables of those words.
• Anaphora: The repetition of words at the beginning of successive clauses, phrases, or sentences. For example, Martin Luther King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech contains anaphora: “So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania…”
• Assonance: The repetition of the same vowel sound within a group of words. An example of assonance is the repetition of the “oo” sound in: “Who gave Newt and Scooter the blue tuna? It was too soon!”
• Consonance: The repetition of the same consonant sound within a group of words. An example of consonance is the repetition of the “f” sound in: “Traffic figures to be tough on July Fourth.”
• Epistrophe: In epistrophe, one or more words repeat at the end of successive phrases, clauses, or sentences. In his Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln urged the American people to ensure that, “government of the people, by the people, for the people,shall not perish from the earth.” His repetition of “the people” at the end of each clause is an example of epistrophe.
• Polysyndeton: Occurs when coordinating conjunctions—words such as “and,” “or,” and “but” that join other words or clauses in a sentence into relationships of equal importance—are used several times in close succession, particularly where conjunctions would normally not be present at all. For instance, the following sentence contains polysyndeton: “We ate roast beef and squash and biscuits and potatoes and corn and cheese and cherry pie.”
• Refrain: In a poem or song, a refrain is a line or group of lines that regularly repeat, usually at the end of a stanza in a poem or at the end of a verse in a song. In a speech or other prose writing, a refrain can refer to any phrase that repeats a number of times within the text.
• Tricolon / Triadic Structure: A specific type of parallelism/parallel structure where there are three main clauses (tri = three) Examples: “I came; I saw; I conquered”/”Veni vidi vici” -Julius Caesar.

Imperative

In persuasion, imperative sits on the hard-sell end of the spectrum. It is telling the audience what they should do, and why they should do it in very clear and certain terms.

• High Modality: Modal verbs refer to the strength of the language. If something has high modality then there is an emphasis on the verbs using language such as ‘must’ or ‘have to’. Low modality uses language such as ‘could do’ or ‘might’. There is less emphasis and certainty on the language with low modal verbs.
• In imperatives there must be high modal verbs:
  • “Make a difference”
  • “Vote for chance”
  • “We have to do something to solve this crisis.”

 

Syntax

There is a lot of different types of sentences. Being mindful of how you are putting together your sentences is important. Here are some basics to helps:

• Function: The use of the four types of sentences (declarative, imperative, interrogative, exclamative)
• Balance: How is the sentence put together? Active / Passive etc.
• Structure: How do the sentences respond to the emotion – e.g. short sentences to create pace.

 

Pronoun

Pronouns are immensely powerful little words that can add significant power to persuasive language.

This power means that it is easy to under-do or over-do their usage. Too few and you will seem distant. Too many and you may seem aggressive or manipulative

• Singular:
  • I: ‘I’ is a small word but is written as a capital letter. This suggests power and significance (although originally was just to make the small letter stand out). When you use it in persuasive language, you are placing all that you are into the fray, showing your commitment and purpose.

    That is good. [person-less judgement]

    I think that is good. [committing your view]

  • You: Think about when you were half-listening to someone talking and they said ‘you’ — the chances are this startled you in some way, jolting you back to full listening. When you say ‘you’, then you are firing an arrow directly at the other person and your words will be noticed and processed more consciously. Talking in the second person shows that you are recognizing others as separate individuals, thus stroking their sense of identity and locating them in your sphere. ‘You’ can also create a separation between yourself and the other person — sometimes ‘we’ is better.

     Ladies and gentlemen, have you ever been to the Paris Ritz? Would you like to go? All you have to do now is listen to me for five minutes to get your chance!

    I like you. [creating a bond]

  • [S]he: Talking in the third person references another person outside of the you-me conversation. This has the effect of creating an out-group, separate from us. By implication, it also bonds you and me as an in-group, thus drawing us together and making you more likely to agree with me.

    He doesn’t make sense to me.

    She’s not like you.

  • It:  The English language is surprisingly unique in having a neutral third person. This is very useful for objectification, where we create ‘things’ that are non-human and hence can be treated more objectively and with less care.

    What do you think of HR? It is not very helpful.

• Plural:
  • We: ‘We’ brings you and me together, bonding as a single unit and thus connecting our thoughts and feelings. If I think something to be true, then you have an obligation to consider it true also. ‘We’ also creates a group, making boundaries within which a cohesive in-group exists, within which each person must comply with group values and rules.

    We like apples, don’t we?

    We meet every Monday morning.

  • You: The plural ‘you’ refers to a group of other people. Talking to groups can be very effective as you change many minds at once. If, however, they do not like or agree with you, they can be a difficult force to overcome. It thus pays to take care when using ‘you’ with groups. Remember that ‘you’ separates yourself from others, and that ‘we’ can act to unite. Beware, though, of inviting yourself to be a member of their group when they may not want you to join yet. The fact that ‘you’ is the same word in the singular and the plural makes for the clever effect that addressing a group as ‘you’ can also add the powerful effect of seeming as if you are talking with each person individually.

    You all know that we must succeed.

  • They: The plural third party shows a group of others to be separate from us, emphasizing our similarity though implication of out-group homogeneity. This allows you to ‘push away’ others who do not conform as you build a more cohesive in-group.

    They are all like that.

    What did they say?

Figurative Language

Figurative language is a broad term for techniques that make the audience imagine something, or that create imagery in their mind. The main ones are

• Metaphor: A figure of speech in which a term or phrase is applied to something to which it is not literally applicable, but to transform it with associations. Example: “It is also aimed at building a bridge between Indigenous and non-Indigenous New Zealanders—a bridge based on a real respect rather than a thinly veiled contempt.
• Simile: Similar to metaphor but using terminology ‘like’, ‘kind of’, ‘-esque’. ‘style’ or ‘as’ to create the comparison. Example: ‘the legislation also has a kind of Churchill-esque language style throughout’
• Personification: Giving human qualities to non-human things. Example: “The pages spoke” or “The trees cried out.”
• Hyperbole: Using intentional exaggeration to create an emotional point or connection.
• Humour: While not technically a figurative device, many of the specifics of humour such as pun or wordplay can use figurative language.

 

Adjectives

In persuasion, adjectives are wonderfully helpful in aiding emotional response through the use of direct adjectivals, plus they are able to provide comparison between two things through comparatives and superlatives.

• Emotive language: the appeal to the emotional quality of the person, thing or entity being referred to. Example: think of these poor little trees about to be cut down by vicious and vindictive counsellors.
• Comparatives: the ability to compare one thing to another for persuasive purposes. Example: this new washing powder creates brighter colours than the competition.
• Superlatives: used to accentuate the top qualities of the person, thing or entity. Example: New Zealand is the greatest sporting nation after the win.

 

Rhetoric Devices

Three concepts here: Analogy, Anecdote and Allusion

• Analogy: An analogy is comparable to a metaphor and simile in that it shows how two different things are similar, but it’s a bit more complex. Rather than a figure of speech, an analogy is more of a logical argument. The structure of the argument leads to a new understanding for the audience. Consider this analogy on climate change:
  • “There are two doors. Behind Door Number One is a completely sealed room, with a regular, gasoline-fueled car. Behind Door Number Two is an identical, completely sealed room, with an electric car. Both engines are running full blast.I want you to pick a door to open, and enter the room and shut the door behind you. You have to stay in the room you choose for one hour. You cannot turn off the engine. You do not get a gas mask.I’m guessing you chose Door Number Two, with the electric car, right? Door Number One is a fatal choice — who would ever want to breathe those fumes?This is the choice the world is making right now.”
• Anecdote: People, by nature, tend to feel instead of analyse. If you can make them feel something as opposed to think something, or pure logic in other words, then they may be more likely to be persuaded to move towards some sort of action or change. And one great way to get people to feel what you’ve got to say is to use an anecdote. This anecdote can use rhetoric, facts, even a stat here or there, so long as all of those things are woven into the story you’re telling in an interesting way that doesn’t seem out of place. Here’s how:
  • Have a message to your anecdote.
    Again, the messages shouldn’t tell people what to do! Instead, it should imply the reasons for why it might be beneficial for them to follow a course of action or think a certain way. Great stories don’t list these reasons. Instead, the message itself makes it clear what the benefits are or aren’t.
  • Use the correct example in your message.
    If your message is about fire safety, talking about swimming in the water is not the best idea. Tell a real story about a person who didn’t follow the right fire safety protocols and what happened to him/her.
  • Tie everything together.
    Start with the problem or situation at hand. Describe the example that tells us what happened in the real-life story. Tie all of that together into a pitch that explains the benefits.
  • Don’t be a robot.
    The best stories, even they’re only kind of interesting in terms of details, are told by people who display passion about a topic. It’s one thing to listen to a person listing the reasons for why prison is bad. It’s a whole other thing when that same person is emotionally involved in his or her story or the examples of others who went to prison.
• Allusions: An allusion is a tool that references a person, place, event, or some other generally well-known object that is either directly or indirectly related to the topic at hand. Such a reference helps drive the argument by offering a well-known real life example, providing a thought-provoking argument, and/or giving the reader the opportunity to draw their own conclusions.
  • When it comes to singing, I am no Michael Buble.

 

Questions

Rather than persuading by making statements, persuade with questions. This is called the Socratic Method, after the Greek philosopher Socrates, who delivered his lessons in the form of questions. . If you want to be persuasive, ask questions that lead people to your point of view.

Here are the six types of questions that Socrates asked his pupils:

• Conceptual clarification questions: Get them to think more about what exactly they are asking or thinking about. Prove the concepts behind their argument. Use basic ‘tell me more’ questions that get them to go deeper.
  • Why are you saying that?
  • What exactly does this mean?
• Probing assumptions: Probing their assumptions makes them think about the presuppositions and unquestioned beliefs on which they are founding their argument. This is shaking the bedrock and should get them really going!
  • How did you choose those assumptions?
  • Please explain why/how … ?
• Probing rationale, reasons and evidence: When they give a rationale for their arguments, dig into that reasoning rather than assuming it is a given. People often use un-thought-through or weakly-understood supports for their arguments.
  • Can you give me an example of that?
  • What do you think causes … ?
• Questioning viewpoints and perspectives: Most arguments are given from a particular position. So attack the position. Show that there are other, equally valid, viewpoints.
  • Another way of looking at this is …, does this seem reasonable?
  • What alternative ways of looking at this are there?
• Probe implications and consequences: The argument that they give may have logical implications that can be forecast. Do these make sense? Are they desirable?
  • Then what would happen?
  • What are the consequences of that assumption?
• Questions about the question: And you can also get reflexive about the whole thing, turning the question in on itself. Use their attack against themselves. Bounce the ball back into their court, etc.
  • What was the point of asking that question?
  • Why do you think I asked this question?

Rhetorical questions are not really questions, but statements given in question format.

Public speakers often use rhetorical questions in the middle of speeches. Of course, the audience cannot all answer, but the intent is to engage them in thinking and consider what answer they would give if they could.

In figures of speech, rhetorical questions are known as Erotema.

• Gaining agreement:  Rhetorical questions are often intended to make the listener agree with the speaker as the answer is obviously yes. Even if the listener does not say the word, they will think it. And once they start agreeing they are more likely to keep doing so.
  • Is the Pope a Catholic?
  • Is the sky blue?
  • Is this a great product?
• Hedging: We use rhetorical questions sometimes when we want to make a statement but are not confident enough to assert a point. The question format thus allows others to disagree, but is not necessarily seeking agreement.
  • Isn’t that wonderful? Is it a shade of blue?
• Self-talk: Sometimes when you ask questions, you are really asking them of yourself rather than the other person. this is particularly noticeable when you give the answer soon after asking the question.
  • What is that? A bird, I’d say. What type? Maybe an eagle? I think so. What a lovely flight path.
• Multiple questions: When you ask multiple questions at once, you seldom expect them all to be answered, and perhaps none of them. They become particularly rhetorical when you do not give time for the other person to answer.
  • Where have you been? What time do you think this is? Do you think you can come home late like this and nobody notice?
• Terminating statement: Another way that stopping the other person from answering is to put a statement of some sort immediately after the question. There is hence no space for the person to answer the question and they are directed more by the final statement than the question.
  • Can you see? Look there!

Ko te reo te tuakiri | Language is my identity.  
Ko te reo tōku ahurei | Language is my uniqueness.
Ko te reo te ora. | Language is life.