Chapter 1: Introducing Public Speaking

The Power and Purposes of Public Speaking

• The power of public speaking can be used to influence and transform society
• Susan B. Anthony, Martin Luther KIng Jr, and Cesar Chavez are all examples of people that used public speaking to their advantage in order to leave their mark on society
• Public speaking is an important and necessary part of the political system, the legal system, and modern media culture
• In American politics, for example, public speeches serve the purpose of influencing the election of candidates, promoting the passage or defeat of various publica policies, and increasing or decreasing public support for the political parties adn their platforms
• In the American legal system, public speeches are utilized to posecute criminals, defend humans and their rights, and to determie the intent and scope of laws
• In modern media culture, public speeches that inform, persuade, and entertain are broadcasted all over in the form of newscasts, infomercials, and variety shows with them being heard on the radio, watched on television, and streamed on the Internet with them representing the values and beliefs of the American nation at a particular point in time
• The three major types of public speeches are: speeches to inform, speeches to persuade, and speeches to entertain
• Informative Speeches are designed to present information that most audience members aren’t already aware of, persuasive speeches are desinged to move an audience to action or to convince audience members to change their minds or positions on controversial topics, and speeches with the purpose of entertaining ar edesigned to make an audience laugh or to provide the audience with pleasure through the creative usage of language
• Good public speaking skills can help getting good jobs or coveted promotions at a worksplace
• Public speaking knowledge gives an individual the powr to become a good speaker and a good perceptive listener

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The Foundations of Public Speaking

• Traces of interest consist of ancient India, china, Africa, and the pre-European cultures of North and South America
• Studying public speaking in modernAmerica pertains to the “western” rhetorical tradition with Greco-Roman roots
• The need for effective public speaking skills in ancient Greece allowed for the rise of public speaking instructors and textbooks
• The philosopher, Plato founded an influential school of in Athens and wrote multip philosophical dialgoues that called Gorgias’ art of oratary into question with Gorgias being a popular speechmakesr and teacher who rose to fame by emphasizing an ornate speaking style that generated strong emotions in his audience
• The rheoticians won the educational competition between philsophers and rhetoricians, in Greek and Roman society
• The Five Canons of Rhetoric break the speech-making process down into five stages: invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery
• Invention is the process of coming up with ideas for one’s speech, arrangement is the process of placing one’s ideas in an appropriate order, style is the process of choosing the right words to express ideas, memory is the process of commiting words to memory, and delivery is the process of presenting oen’s speech to their audience
• The three rhetorical appeals are ethos, logos, and pathos with ethos consisting of appealing to the audience through the projected character of the speaker, logoes consisting of a persuasive appeal directed at the understanding or reasoning capacity of the audience, and pathos being the persusasive appeal put to use by generating emotions in the audience
• Public speaking, interpersonal, small group, organizational, intercultural, and mass communication are all forms of communicating with other people

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The Three Rhetorical Appeals

• The rhetorical triangle which consists of the speaker which is ethos, speech which is logos, and the audience which is pathos

• The rhetorical triangle is a visual reminder that public speakers must always keep the speaker, speech, and audience in mind

• The pathos appeal is an appeal to or through the emotions of the audience

• The logos appeal is an appeal to the reasoning capacity of the audience

• The ethos appeal is an appeal through the projected character of the speaker

• An accidental ethos is the parth of one’s ethos that isn’t easily controlled with these factors consisting of one’s sex, age, and prior reputation

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The Transactional Communication Model

• The communication situation is the context in which the communication occurs

• The context in which communication occurs includes factors such as the location, time, and people involved

• A communicator is someone who either sends or receives a message

• In a public speaking situation, every single audience member is a communicator that is receiving one’s message

• Encoding is the mental process of transofrming ideas nad feelings into symbols

• The concept of encoding reminds a person that there is a lot of mental work and “wordsmithing” involved in the preparation of a speech

• A message is the content of a communication

• The content of a human communication carries encoded thoughts and feelings of the sender with public speakers needing to go through thousands of thoughts and emtions for optimal appeal

• A communication channel is the medium that carries a message

• The two sensory communication channels that are used a lot by public speakers consist of the visual channel adn the auditory channel

• Decoding is the mental process of transforming received symbols back into ideas

• The concept of decoding can sensitize epople to the importance of using clear, unambiguous language when speaking in public

• Feedback is any response that a receiver gives to a message with it being any verbal or nonverbale response that a receiver gives to a message

• Communication noise is anything that interferes with the transmission of a message with communication noise having the potential to be either external noise or internal noise

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Public Speaking and Other Forms of Communication

• A public speaker must develop skills in creating, researching, developing, and organizing ideas with public speakers needing to use critical thinking skills to analyze one’s audience, to determine the speaking purpose, and to employ effective strategies to accomplish one’s persons

• Unlike interpersonal and small group communication situations, situations having to do with public speaking commonly have to do with addressing somewhat large audiences

• Public speeches are not a dialogue, they consist of a monological, one-way verbal performance instead

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Public Speaking and Ethics

• Public speakers need to conisder ethics and what constitutes ethical communication
• Ethics are moral principles that govern people’s actions as they help people decide what is right or wrong and what is good and bad behavior
• Speeches need to avoid plagarism which is the unacknowledged use of anothe perosn’s word or ideas as they violate the code of ethics that public speakers should strive to adhere to

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