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Chapter 1
Introducing Public
Speaking
Introducing Public Speaking:
Introduction
• Effective public speaking can inspire, persuade,
educate, and entertain.
• Because of this, public speaking is a required
course at many colleges.
• Despite this, many employers report a lack of
public speaking skills among job candidates.
• You can learn to overcome speech anxiety and
master public speaking just like you can learn to
read, ride a bicycle, or use the Internet.
Introducing Public Speaking:
Introduction
Introducing Public Speaking:
An Overview
• This introduction to public speaking
reviews:
– What is public speaking? What distinguishes
it from other types of speech?
– Why study public speaking?
– Public speaking: a great tradition
– Public speaking: a dynamic discipline
What Is Public Speaking?
• Public speaking
features
communication
between a speaker
and an audience.
– The speaker does
most of the talking.
– The audience listens
and gives feedback.
What Is Public Speaking?
• Public speaking
is audience
centered.
• Good speakers:
– Consider
audience's
interests and
needs
– Adapt to the
occasion
What Is Public Speaking?
• Public speaking emphasizes the spoken
word.
– Visual aids should supplement the speech.
– Good speakers spend their time speaking to
their audience.
– Good speakers heighten their words with
other forms of communication.
What Is Public Speaking?
• Public speaking is usually a prepared
presentation.
– The best speakers spend significant time
preparing.
– Even impromptu speeches typically piece
together a string of relevant ideas.
Why Study Public Speaking?
• Studying public speaking can help you
deliver effective presentations in the
classroom, on the job, and in your
community.
Why Study Public Speaking?
• Using public speaking as a student
– Many courses require speeches.
– Strong speeches make a better impression on
the professor and the class.
– Extracurricular groups often have a public
speaking component.
Why Study Public Speaking?
• Using public speaking
in your career
– Employers cite
communication skills as
the most important
quality for a job
candidate.
– Workers report that
communication is
important in their jobs.
Why Study Public Speaking?
• Using public
speaking in your
community
– Membership in
community
organizations may
require speaking.
– Community
leadership will
require speaking.
– Other special
occasions may
require speaking.
Public Speaking: A Great Tradition
Public Speaking: A Great Tradition
• There is a great tradition of the study of
speaking in antiquity.
• In fifth-century B.C.E. Greece, speaking at
assembly gave rise to the first formal
studies of rhetoric, the craft of public
speaking.
– Aristotle formalized the analysis of rhetoric.
– His work influences the study of public
speaking today.
Public Speaking: A Great Tradition
• In first-century B.C.E. Rome, vigorous
debate took place in the Senate.
– Cicero was a senator and famous orator who
wrote prolifically on rhetoric.
– Quintilian emphasized the notion of the ethical
orator—the good person speaking well.
Public Speaking: A Great Tradition
• Historically, public speaking has been
important across the globe.
– From the fifth through third centuries B.C.E.,
traveling scholars debated philosophies
throughout ancient China.
– Traveling storytellers and Islamic scholars
spoke throughout Africa in the fifteenth
century.
– Many Native Americans prized oratory over
bravery in battle.
Public Speaking: A Great Tradition
Public Speaking: A Great Tradition
• The tradition of public speaking flourished
in colonial American history.
– The Great Awakening of the 1730s-1740s
was an oratorical religious revival.
– George Whitefield spoke in fields because
churches weren't big enough.
– Jonathan Edwards made worshippers shriek
in fright with “Sinners in the Hands of an
Angry God” in 1741.
Public Speaking: A Great Tradition
• There were many key speaking opportunities
in revolutionary America.
– The Boston Tea Party is a well-known instance of
colonists speaking out in protest of taxation.
– Numerous political debates arose around the
framing of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
– The Lincoln-Douglas debates before the Civil War
drew massive crowds.
Public Speaking: A Great Tradition
• The antislavery movement was one of
great oratory.
– Frederick Douglass moved audiences with
accounts of life under slavery.
– Women joined the abolitionist movement and
spoke out publicly.
– Abolitionist Angelina Grimké won adherents
with her tales of slave abuse in South
Carolina.
Public Speaking: A Great Tradition
• The women's suffrage movement emerged
at the same time.
– Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony,
and others led the movement.
– They used oratory to persuade Americans
that women deserved the vote.
Public Speaking: A Great Tradition
• Public address flourished in the twentieth
century.
– After World War I President Wilson traveled through
the U.S. to promote his League of Nations idea.
– In 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. brought 250,000 to
the Capitol with his march on Washington and his “I
have a dream” speech.
– In the mid-1990s, activists participated in the Million
Man and Million Woman marches.
Public Speaking: A Great Tradition
• Today, it may seem as if speaking is less
important.
– We are more likely to communicate now by
cell phone or text message than to listen to a
speech.
– Yet public speaking remains a potent
leadership tool.
– Presidents still speak directly to the people in
various ways.
Public Speaking: A Great Tradition
Public Speaking: A Dynamic
Discipline
• From linear to
transactional: Evolving
views of the public
speaking process
– The linear model
emphasized a source
encoding a message
through a channel
impeded by noise to a
decoding receiver.
Public Speaking: A Dynamic
Discipline
• From linear to
transactional: Evolving
views of the public
speaking process
– Recent models stress the
idea of transaction: both
parties are in
communication, sending
and receiving messages
and feedback, and
creating shared
meaning.
Public Speaking: A Dynamic
Discipline
• Awareness of audiences’ cultural diversity
• The United States is culturally diverse.
– Culture is the traditions, values, and rules for
living that people pass from generation to
generation.
– Increasingly, Americans come from other
countries, bringing cultural diversity.
– Speakers must consider these differences.
Public Speaking: A Dynamic
Discipline
• Awareness of audiences’ cultural diversity
• Because of cultural diversity, it is unlikely
people you interact with share the same
worldviews and values.
– We must adapt the way we use humor.
– We must adjust our understandings of how
audiences express feedback.
– The recent immigration debates illustrate the
complexity of this issue.
Public Speaking: A Dynamic
Discipline
• Emphasis on critical thinking
– You should feel confident that all the ideas
you present to an audience are reasonable.
– You should always evaluate the truth claims
you make.
Public Speaking: A Dynamic
Discipline
Public Speaking: A Dynamic
Discipline
• A focus on free and ethical communication
– Freedom of expression is vital in a
democracy.
– Speakers have a responsibility to express
ideas ethically.
– Unethical communication seems to have
increased in the United States.
Public Speaking: A Dynamic
Discipline
• A focus on free and ethical communication
– It is thus even more important that we treat
our audiences ethically.
– The persuasive power of public speaking
comes with responsibilities.
– Always tell the truth.
– Provide balanced, accurate information.
– Avoid manipulative reasoning.
– Supply proper support for your argument.