Accumulatio - Pennsylvania State University



Style: Using Language Appropriately

A great speech requires crisp, clear, and dynamic language. Your words are all the audience has, so use them well!

Some general advice:

1. Strive for language that is clear and appropriate.

2. Avoid gendered phrasing

a. Don’t use “mankind” when you mean “humankind,” or “he” when you mean “he or she,” or “you guys” when you mean to address the audience as a whole.

3. Avoid grammatically incorrect or imprecise phrasing

a. Note: using grammatically incorrect sentences may be done strategically for effect. As always, your language should be appropriate for the audience and situation.

4. Write for the ear, not the eye. Your sentences should be easy to say and easy to understand. Break long sentences up into smaller ones. When in doubt, use a period instead of a comma.

a. One test: Read your writing aloud (and I do mean loud). It should sound good and be easy to say and hear. Revise accordingly.

5. When quoting others, use something like this form: “According to Dr. Jane Doe, of University of Somewhere Medical Center, x is the case about y.” or “A 2012 study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control found that Z is on the rise among teens.”

Figures and Tropes

Imagery

1. Concrete Words

a. Describe scenes or examples in vivid language that focus on sensory detail and bring things before the mind’s eye.

2. Simile

a. “America is not like a blanket—one piece of unbroken cloth, the same color, the same texture the same size. America is more like a quilt—many patches, many sizes, and woven held together by a common thread.” (Jesse Jackson)

3. Metaphor

i. “With globalization, the same sea washes all of humankind. We are all in the same boat. There are no safe islands.” (Kofi Annan)

Rhythm

1. Parallelism

a. “Rich and poor, intelligent and ignorant, wise and foolish, virtuous and vicious, man and woman—it is ever the same, each soul must depend wholly on itself.” (Elizabeth Cady Stanton)

2. Repetition

a. “When you see your street, see my street. When you see your house, see my house. When you see your children, see my children.” (Whitney Young, Jr.)

3. Alliteration

a. “Peace is essential for progress, but progress is no less essential for peace.” (Liaquat Ali Khan)

4. Antithesis

a. “Ask no what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” (John F. Kennedy)

accumulatio

Bringing together various points made throughout a speech and presenting them again in a forceful, climactic way. A blend of summary and climax.

Examples

"He [the defendant] is the betrayer of his own self-respect, and the waylayer of the self-respect of others; covetous, intemperate, irascible, arrogant; disloyal to his parents, ungrateful to his friends, troublesome to his kin; insulting to his betters, disdainful of his equals and mates, cruel to his inferiors; in short, he is intolerable to everyone"

allegory

A sustained metaphor continued through whole sentences or even through a whole discourse. Employing several metaphors drawn from the same domain together.

Example:

"I look at this as being in the form of a house...and the students are the foundation, and the teachers are the walls, and the roof itself is the school. And we know that if you have a weak foundation, the walls and the roof can't be supported. Therefore, it crumbles." -- Northwestern State University student Jason Madison, Student's should 'come first' address

Alliteration: repetition of the same letter or sound within nearby words.

"Why not waste a wild weekend at Westmore Water park?”

“Peace is essential for progress, but progress is no less essential for peace” (Liaquat Ali Khan)

Antimetabole: Figure of emphasis in which the words in one phrase or clause are replicated, exactly or closely, in reverse grammatical order in the next phrase or clause; an inverted order of repeated words in adjacent phrases or clauses

Example:

"But we must remember a crucial fact: East and West do not mistrust each other because we are armed; we're armed because we mistrust each other."- Reagan

"Tonight, we are a country awakened to anger and called to defend freedom. Whether we bring our enemies to justice or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done."

-- George W. Bush, 9-20-01 Address to Congress and the Nation

"I, too, was born in the slum. But just because you're born in the slum does not mean the slum is born in you, and you can rise above it if your mind is made up."

-- Jesse Jackson, 1984 Democratic National Convention Address

Antithesis: the juxtaposition of contrasting ideas,

Example:

"The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here."

-- Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address

That's one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind."

-- Neil Armstrong, Apollo 11 Moon Landing Speech

"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. I have a dream today!"

-- Martin Luther King, Jr., I Have a Dream

climax : Generally, the arrangement of words, phrases, or clauses in an order of increasing importance, often in parallel structure. More specifically, climax is the repetition of the last word of one clause or sentence at the beginning of the next, through several clauses or sentences

Examples:

Miss America was not so much interested in serving herself as she was eager to serve her family, her community, and her nation.

But we glory also in tribulations, knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience trial; and trial hope; and hope confoundeth not, because the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts, by the Holy Ghost, who is given to us. —St. Paul

expeditio :After enumerating all possibilities by which something could have occurred, the speaker eliminates all but one

Examples

You either made, purchased, or stole the bomb. Since you lack the intelligence to make it and the funds to purchase it, it can only be that you have stolen it.

hyperbole Rhetorical exaggeration, amplification, overstatement. Hyperbole is often accomplished via comparisons, similes, and metaphors.

Examples

I've told you a million times not to exaggerate.

Parellelism: using the same wording, sounds, or structure in an extended passage

He is esteemed eloquent which can invent wittily, remember perfectly, dispose orderly, figure diversly [sic], pronounce aptly, confirme strongly, and conclude directly —Peacham

"We have seen the state of our Union in the endurance of rescuers, working past exhaustion. We've seen the unfurling of flags, the lighting of candles, the giving of blood, the saying of prayers -- in English, Hebrew, and Arabic." George W. Bush, 9-20-01 Address to the Nation on Terrorism

Personification

"Once again, the heart of America is heavy. The spirit of America weeps for a tragedy that denies the very meaning of our land."-- Lyndon Baines Johnson

"In Torquemada's time, there was at least a system that could, to some extent, make righteousness and peace kiss each other. Now, they do not even bow."-- G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

Repetition

"My Republican Party today -- it is not a conservative Party. It is soft on globalism. It is soft on big government. It is soft on the 2nd Amendment. It is soft on life." –Pat Buchanan

"To raise a happy, healthy, and hopeful child, it takes a family; it takes teachers; it takes clergy; it takes business people; it takes community leaders; it takes those who protect our health and safety. It takes all of us."

-- Hillary Clinton, 1996 Democratic National Convention Address

"We are a people in a quandary about the present. We are a people in search of our future. We are a people in search of a national community." -- Barbara Jordan, 1976 Democratic Convention Keynote Address

"This afternoon, in this room, I testified before the Office of Independent Council and the Grand Jury. I answered their questions truthfully, including questions about my private life -- questions no American citizen would ever want to answer."- Bill Clinton

Metaphor: a comparison made by referring to one thing as another (from meta-'beyond, over' and pherein 'to carry')

"No man is an island"

"Life is a journey"

"Who is the puppeteer of our government officials?"

metaphors often aid the development of pathos appeals as they often "carry over" emotions from one domain or context to another.

Simile: an explicit comparison often, but not necessarily, employing 'like' or 'as'

My love is like a red, red rose-- Robert Burns

How does it feel to be on your own like a rolling stone.-- Bob Dylan

The man took the stage like a hurricane.

Synecdoche: A whole is represented by naming one if its parts (species for genus) or vice versa (genus for species)

Example:

We await word from the crown (part/species for whole/genus)

Caught by the long arm of the law

You'll feel the point of my steel. (genus- steel for species sword)

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