We would be wrong to treat language as an “add-on” to the ideas and structure of the speech. Language is far too complex and foundational an aspect of our lives for us to consider it as an afterthought for a speech. In this chapter we will look at how language functions in communication, what standards language choices should meet in public speaking, and how you can become more proficient in using language in public speaking.

As a means of communication, language functions on two levels we call denotative and connotative. Denotative is the specific meaning associated with a word. We sometimes refer to denotative as dictionary definitions. Connotative, on the other hand, is the idea associated with a word at a cultural or personal level. It’s the way a specific listener interprets a word. For example, the word “police” denotes, according to common dictionary definitions, “the civil force of a national or local government, responsible for the prevention and detection of crime and the maintenance of public order.” Connotations for the word “police,” however, vary according to individuals. In practice, listening involves processing both denotation and connotation.

While as speechwriters we can’t control exactly how an audience hears the words we speak, if we work towards language clarity, effectiveness, and elegance, which are discussed in the next sections, we can improve understanding between speaker and listener.

Clarity

Clarity is the first concern of a public speaker when it comes to choosing how to phrase the ideas of their speech. If you are not clear, specific, precise, detailed, and sensory with your language, you won’t have to worry about being emotional or persuasive, because you won’t be understood.

Be Concrete

The first aspect of clarity is concreteness. We usually think of concreteness as the opposite of abstraction. Language that evokes many different visual images in the minds of your audience is abstract language. Unfortunately, when abstract language is used, the images evoked might not be the ones you really want to evoke. A word such as “art” is very abstract; it brings up a range of mental pictures or associations: dance, theatre, painting, drama, a child’s drawing on a refrigerator, sculpture, music, etc. When asked to identify what an abstract term like “art” means, twenty people will have twenty different ideas. One the other hand, being concrete means saying specifically what you mean so audiences see what you see.

Choose the Right Word

Related to the issue of specific vs. abstract is using the right word. Mark Twain said, “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.” For example, the words “prosecute” and “persecute” are commonly confused, but not interchangeable. Can you think of other such word pair confusion?

Be Simple and Familiar

In the attempt to be clear, which is your first concern, you will also want to be simple and familiar in your language. Familiar language draws in the audience. Simple does not mean simplistic, but the avoidance of multi-syllable words. If a speaker said, “A collection of pre-adolescents fabricated an obese personification comprised of compressed mounds of minute aquatic crystals,” you might recognize it as “Some children made a snowman,” but maybe not. The language isn’t simple or familiar and therefore does not communicate well.

Add Figurative Language

Using appropriate similes and metaphors can add clarity to your speech. Similes and metaphors are tools of figurative language that provide more information through comparisons. The opposite of figurative language is literal language. Literal language says, “The truck is fast.” Figurative language says, “The truck is as fast as a rocket.”

Similes and metaphors do the same thing. The distinction is that similes are indirect while metaphors are direct. An example of a simile is, “Love is like a battlefield.” The metaphor is “Love is a battlefield.” Which one do you think is more effective?

Using figurative language to add comparisons can help you achieve clearer language, if chosen wisely. Speakers are encouraged to pick their similes and metaphors but not overuse them.

Use Imagery

Like comparisons, imagery or sensory language can help make your speech clearer. This is language that makes the recipient smell, taste, see, hear, and feel a sensation. Think of the word “ripe.” What is “ripe?” Do ripe fruits feel a certain way? Smell a certain way? Taste a certain way? Ripe is a sensory word. Most words just appeal to one sense, like vision. Think of color. How can you make the word “blue” more sensory? How can you make the word “loud” more sensory? How would you describe the current state of your bedroom or dorm room to leave a sensory impression? How would you describe your favorite meal to leave a sensory impression? or a thunderstorm?

Avoid Euphemisms

Euphemisms are often used to make something unpleasant sound more tolerable. While not unclear, euphemisms are not quite honest. During the Vietnam War, “air support” was invented to cover the real meaning: “bombing.” Today, terms like “revenue enhancement” are used instead of “tax increases.” Realtors sell “homes,” not houses. McDonald’s sells “Happy Meals” even though it’s the same food they sell that are not “Happy Meals.”

In everyday speech, we use euphemisms all the time. For example, we might say that someone “passed away” instead of “died.”  However, public speakers should use euphemisms carefully. Avoid any that are meant to mislead listeners or hide the true meaning of what we are trying to say.

Effectiveness

Language achieves effectiveness by communicating the right message to the audience. Clarity contributes to effectiveness, but there are some other aspects of effectiveness, specifically credibility and appropriateness. The way you use language helps establish your credibility as a speaker and allows you to communicate your awareness of your audience. Choosing appropriate language fosters inclusion and identification, rather than exclusion.

Unfortunately, we habitually use language for exclusion rather than inclusion. We can push people away with our word choices rather than bringing them together. Below are some examples of language that can exclude members of your audience from understanding what you are saying.

Credibility

Language is an element of credibility. As you learned, speakers establish credibility with audiences by sharing their expertise, experience, and personal interest in the speech topic. However, language plays a role in credibility, as well. Audiences trust speakers who use clear, vivid, respectful, engaging, and honest language. On the other hand, audiences tend not to trust speakers who use language that excludes others. In addition, a speaker who uses language and references that are not immediately accessible or that are unfamiliar will have diminished credibility.

Appropriateness

For language to be effective, it needs to be appropriate to the audience. Appropriateness relates to several categories involving how persons and groups should be referred to and addressed based on inclusiveness and context. People and groups should be respected and referred to in the way they choose to be. Using inclusive language in your speech will help ensure you aren’t alienating or diminishing any members of your audience. Language is ever-changing and responding to the cultural moment; being aware of changes in how language adjusts to inclusiveness, and seeking advice when unsure, is part of the responsibility of being a public speaker.

Gender-Inclusive Language

Avoid non-inclusive language that privileges one gender identity over any other one. Using “he” as generic, for example, or “man” to mean all humans. Use plural subjects and use neutral pronouns (“they” and “their”). Also, avoid gender-typing jobs, for example, by assuming that doctors are “he” and nurses are “she.”

Ethnic Identity

Ethnic identity refers to a group an individual identifies with based on a common culture. Within the United States we have numerous ethnic groups. Avoid statements such as “The committee is made up of four women and a Vietnamese man.” All that should be said is, “The committee is made up of five people.”

In recent years, there has been a trend toward steering inclusive language away from broad terms like “Asians” and “Hispanics” because these terms are not considered precise labels for the groups they represent. You should ask people who belong to an ethnic group how they prefer to be referred to in that context.

Inclusive Language and Disability

A category of exclusive versus inclusive language that causes problems for some speakers relates to individuals with physical or intellectual differences. Sometimes it happens that we take a characteristic of someone and make that the totality or all of what that person is. A common example of this is how to refer to what used to be called “autism.” Saying someone is “autistic” substitutes an attribute of a person for the totality of their identity. Preferable terms are “a person with an autism diagnosis” or “a person on the autism spectrum.”

This is another situation where the person should be referred to as they prefer. “Hearing impaired” denotes a wide range of hearing deficit, as does “visually impaired. “Deaf” and “blind” are not generally considered offensive by these groups.

Slang words for mental illness should always be avoided, such as “crazy” or “mental.”

Other Types of Appropriateness

Language in a speech should be appropriate to the speaker and the speaker’s background and personality, to the context, to the audience, and to the topic. Let’s say that you’re an engineering student. If you’re giving a presentation in an engineering class, you can use language that other engineering students will know. On the other hand, if you use that engineering vocabulary in an arts class, audience members may not understand you. As another example, if you are speaking about the Great Depression to an audience of young adults or recent immigrants, you can’t assume they will know the meaning of terms like “New Deal” and “WPA,” which would be familiar to an audience of senior citizens. Audience analysis is a key factor in choosing the language to use in a speech.

Elegance through Rhetorical Techniques

Elegance in speechwriting means enhancing the power of a speech through rhetorical techniques. There are several traditional techniques that have been used to engage audiences and make ideas more attention-getting and memorable. We will not mention all of them here, but some important ones are listed below.

Assonance

Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds in a sentence or passage. As such, it’s a kind of rhyme. Minister Tony Campolo said, “When Jesus told his disciples to pray for the kingdom, this was no pie in the sky by and by when you die kind of prayer.”

Alliteration

This means the repetition of initial consonant sounds in a sentence or passage. In his famous “I Have a Dream Speech,” Dr. Martin Luther King said, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” Not only does this sentence use alliteration (“content of character”), but it also uses the next rhetorical technique on our list, antithesis.

Antithesis

Antithesis is immensely powerful in public speaking. It means the juxtaposition of contrasting ideas in balanced or parallel words, phrases, or grammatical structures. A common antithesis has the structure, “not this, but this.” John F. Kennedy’s statement from his 1961 inaugural address is one of the most quoted examples of antithesis:

“Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”

In that speech he gave another example,

“If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.”

Parallelism

Like antithesis is parallelism. Parallelism is the repetition of sentence structures. It can be useful for stating your main ideas. Which one of these sounds better?

“Give me liberty or I’d rather die.” vs. “Give me liberty or give me death.”

The second one uses parallelism. Quoting again from JFK’s inaugural address: “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” The repetition of the three-word phrases in this sentence (including the word “any” in each) is an example of parallelism.

Anaphora

This is a succession of sentences beginning with the same word or group of words. In his inaugural address, JFK began several succeeding paragraphs with “To those”: “To those old allies,” “To those new states,” “To those people,” etc.

Language to Avoid

Clichés

Clichés are expressions, usually similes, which are predictable. You know what comes next because they are overused and sometimes out of date. Clichés are not just a problem because they are overused; they also sometimes don’t communicate what you need, especially to audiences whose second language is English. “I will give you a ballpark figure” isn’t as clear as “I will give you an estimate.” As the United States becomes more diverse, being aware of your audience members whose first language isn’t English is a valuable tool for a speaker.

Jargon

Jargon used in your profession or hobby should only be used with audiences who share your profession or hobby. Not only will the audience members who don’t share your profession or hobby miss your meaning, but they will feel that you are not making an honest effort to communicate or are setting yourself above them in intelligence or rank. You need to be careful about assumptions of your audience’s knowledge and their ability to interpret jargon.

Slang

The whole point of slang is for a subculture or group to have its own code, almost like secret words. Once slang is understood by the larger culture, it’s no longer slang and may be classified as “informal” or “colloquial” language. “Bling” was slang; now it’s in the dictionary. Sports have a great deal of slang used by the players and fans that then get used in everyday language. For example, “That was a slam dunk” is used to describe something easy, not just in basketball.

Complicated vocabulary

If a speaker used the word “recalcitrant,” some audience members would know the meaning or figure it out, but many would not. It would make much more sense for them to use a word readily understandable: “stubborn.” Especially in oral communication, we should use language that is immediately accessible. However, don’t take this to mean “dumb down for your audience.” It means being clear and not showing off. For a speaker to say “I am cognizant of the fact that…” instead of “I know” or “I am aware of…” adds nothing to communication.

Profanity and cursing

It’s difficult to think of many examples, other than artistic or comedy venues, where profanity or cursing would be effective or useful with most audiences, so this kind of language is discouraged.

Developing Your Ability with Language

At this point, we will make some applications and suggestions about using language as you grow as a public speaker.

First, get in the habit of using “stipulated definitions” with concrete examples (defining operationally). In other words, define your terms for the audience. This is especially necessary if you are using a technical term, a word that has multiple meanings in different contexts, or an often-misunderstood word. You can say at the beginning of the body of your speech, “In this speech I am going to be using the word ”X,” and what I mean by it is . . . ”

Second, develop specific language. You can develop specific language with the following techniques:

• Distinguishing between individuals and the group (that is, avoid stereotyping).
• Specifying time and place of behavior instead of making broad statements. What was true of a person in 1999 isn’t necessarily true of the person now.
• Using names for jobs or roles (“accountants,” “administrative assistants,” “instructors”) instead of “people” or “workers.”
• Avoid “always/never” language. “Always” and “never” usually don’t reflect reality and tend to make listeners defensive.
• Avoid confusing opinions for facts. If I say, “Avatar is a terrific movie,” I am stating an opinion in the language of fact. If you preface opinions with “I believe,” or “It’s my opinion” you will be truthful and gain the appearance of being fair-minded and non-dogmatic. Using this kind of language also helps make the speaker seem less dogmatic and closed-minded.

Third, personalize your language. In a speech it’s fine to use personal pronouns as opposed to third person. That means “I,” “me,” “we,” “us,” “you,” etc. are often helpful in a speech. It gives more immediacy to the speech. Be careful of using “you” for examples that might be embarrassing. “Let’s say you are arrested for possession of a concealed weapon,” sounds like the audience members are potential criminals.

Finally, develop your vocabulary, but don’t show it off. One of the benefits of a college education is that your vocabulary will expand greatly—and it should. A larger vocabulary will give you access to more complicated reading material and allow you to understand the world better. But knowing the meaning of a more complicated word doesn’t mean you have to use it with every audience.

Conclusion

Language choices, or what the ancient rhetoricians called “style,” are as important as other parts of speechwriting. Audience analysis will help you to develop language that is clear, vivid, appropriate, credible, and persuasive.

Something to Think About

What are some of the clichés and slang that have become popular recently? What do they mean? Why would they not be useful in public speaking?

Listen to a presidential speech, such as an inaugural address, and study it for the figurative language (similes, metaphors), rhetorical techniques, and use of words to build and reflect the power of the presidency as well as connect with the audience.