Abstract
This chapter explores the differences between public speaking and conversation in order to highlight the specific status of the former and the challenges it raises. Public speaking is defined as formal oral monologue based on a fundamental asymmetry between speaker and audience. The speaker–audience relation needs to be managed via choices of language that typically stage an interaction with the audience.
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- 1.
Transcribed from video retrieved https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGxEQhdi1AQ.
- 2.
This speech, delivered annually by the U.S. president in front of Congress, lasts between 45 minutes and 1 hour.
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A variation to this two-tiered audience structure can be identified in contexts when speeches are delivered in front of both a jury and a live audience. For example, debating tournaments, sales pitches and three-minute-thesis presentations all require the naming of a winner, the decision being incumbent on the jury, the assembly or both. Speakers therefore need to cater to both of these components of the audience.
References
Anderson, C. (2016). TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Fairclough, N. (1994). Conversationalisation of Public Discourse and the Authority of the Consumer. In R. Keat, N. Whitely, & N. Abercrombie (Eds.), The Authority of the Consumer (pp. 235–249). London: Routledge.
Goffman, E. (1981). Forms of Talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
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Rossette-Crake, F. (2019). Public Speaking Versus Conversation. In: Public Speaking and the New Oratory. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22086-0_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22086-0_4
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