Abstract
This chapter is devoted to the craft of characterizing the speaker. To write a speech that fits the speaker and that the speaker is comfortable in delivering, the speechwriter must observe the speaker’s personality. The concern for characterizing the speaker’s personality influences the speech as a whole, and the speechwriter writing a speech for somebody else therefore needs to consider both argument and style in an individual light. After presenting approaches to characterization in classical rhetoric, we introduce a method for creating believable character based on analysis of the speakers’ individual style, preferred way or arguing, and intellectual and physical capacity.
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Notes
- 1.
Kristine S. Bruss, “Ghosting Authenticity : Characterization in Corporate Speechwriting ,” Journal of Business and Technical Communication 25, no. 2 (2011), 159–182, 160.
- 2.
George Kennedy, The Art of Persuasion in Greece (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963), 92.
- 3.
Jannie Damkjær Jensen, “Taleskrivning til Aarhus’ biskop Kjeld Holm. Tale til nytårskur på Christiansborg Slot d. 7. Januar 2015,” Unpublished assignment, Aarhus Universitet.
- 4.
Kathleen Hall Jamieson , Eloquence in an Electronic Age: The Transformation of Political Speechmaking (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 177.
- 5.
Aristotle , Rhetoric 3.7.6–7.
- 6.
G.A. Kennedy (trans.), Progymnasmata: Greek Textbooks of Prose and Composition (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003), 85.
- 7.
See, for instance George A. Kennedy, A New History of Classical Rhetoric (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Paperbacks, 1994), 65.
- 8.
Bruss, 174.
- 9.
Lysias ’ Taler. Translated and commented by Mogens Herman Hansen (Museum Tusculanums forlag), 27–36.
- 10.
The saying alludes to Comte de Buffon’s dictum from 1753 “Le style est l’homme même.” Marie Lund, “Taleskrivning og stil,” Rhetorica Scandinavica 64 (2013), 25–39; Marie Lund, An Argument on Rhetorical Style (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2017), 37–38.
- 11.
Our method is a revised version of a model offered by the American speechwriter for business leaders Alan Perlman . Kristine S. Bruss, “Ghosting Authenticity .” Alan Perlman , Writing Great Speeches: Professional Techniques You Can Use (Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon, 1998).
- 12.
Jamieson , Eloquence in an Electronic Age, 166, 172.
- 13.
Ibid., 176.
- 14.
Helle Thorning-Schmidt : Opening Address 2012.
- 15.
Ted Sorensen, Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History (New York, NY: Harper, 2008), 134.
- 16.
Kenneth Burke defines consubstantiality in this way: “To identify A with B is to make A “consubstantial” with B. Accordingly, since our Grammar of Motives was constructed about “substance” as key term, the related rhetoric selects its nearest equivalent in the areas of persuasion and dissuasion, communication and polemic.” See, Kenneth Burke , A Rhetoric of Motives (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), 21.
- 17.
The speech can be heard at youtube : https://youtu.be/bpnAJdztWOo.
- 18.
Thanks to journalist Anne Eisenberg for tips on interview techniques.
- 19.
The Danish rhetoric and speechwriting agency, Rhetor, for instance, develops such guides for their clients. See Simone Brendstrup, Taleskrivning i Danmark: State of the Art 2017 (Speechwriting in Denmark: State of the Art 2017) (Fredriksberg: Rhetor - rådgivende retorikere, 2017), 23.
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Kjeldsen, J.E., Kiewe, A., Lund, M., Barnholdt Hansen, J. (2019). Characterizing the Speaker. In: Speechwriting in Theory and Practice. Rhetoric, Politics and Society. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03685-0_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03685-0_8
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