ASSOCIATE OF SPEECH NEW ZEALAND

IN PUBLIC SPEAKING & COMMUNICATION TEACHING

CREDIT TWO

Preparation and Structure of Speeches

QUESTION:

Using a specific persuasive speech, explain how structure was employed to achieve the purpose.

ANSWER:

The persuasive speech “The legal drinking age in New Zealand should be raised from 18 to 20” employed a structure which successfully aroused the audience’s attention and persuaded them to take action.  This speech used the structure of Alan Monroe’s Motivated Sequence.  This speech was able to clearly address the problem and initiate the audience to action because of this well structured sequence.  This fulfilled the purpose of the speech, which was to call the audience to participate in a march in front of Parliament to raise the drinking age from 18 to 20.

The first step of Monroe’s Motivated Sequence is to capture the audience’s attention to the problem – to make them aware of the issue the speaker needs to grab the audience’s attention first.  This can be done through catchy openings by using rhetorical devices such as rhetorical questions, quotations or repetition.  Statements are also very attention-grabbing openings – by opening the speech with a statement the audience is immediately compelled to listen to the opinion.  By starting with an interesting opening, the listeners are more likely to take in what is being said throughout the rest of the speech too.  In this specific speech, the introduction opened with statistics of the number of underage drinkers in New Zealand society.  By doing this, the audience’s attention was immediately captured as they were astounded at the appalling statistics of underage drinkers.  This opening arrested their attention, compelling them to listen further.

The second step of this structure was to address the problem directly.  By doing this straight after the attention-grabbing opening, the audience are able to decide if they believe this issue is worthy of their attention – and if it is, they will go on to listen.  This audience analysis is also important in that the speaker would research the opinions of the audience beforehand to make sure the speech is appropriate.  Addressing the issue to an audience that doesn’t care is worthless.  By having arrested the attention, addressing the problem directly is important.  It makes the audience aware of what the issue is and how it affects them.  In this specific speech concerning the drinking age, the audience was a collection of young people either in their last year of high school or first year of tertiary education, in which case, the speech would have been highly relevant to them.  The addressing or arousing attention to the issue, the young drinking age, would have compelled them to keep listening, as the speaker expands on the problem.

By providing examples and statistics around the issue, the speaker can apply the rhetorical styles of ethos, logos and pathos.  As the audience becomes aware of the speaker’s credibility through the extensiveness of their research and character, the ethos is developed in which the audience believes the speaker to be credible.  By using logical arguments such as statistics, facts and figures, logos is developed.  And through the use of anecdotes or emotive language, pathos is developed.  In expanding and broadening the audience’s knowledge on the issue of a problem that needs to be addressed, these rhetorical styles can all be developed.

In the third step of the structure of the speech, the speaker would expand and deliberate the issue, making the audience aware that change is necessary and vital.  In the referred speech “The legal drinking age in New Zealand should be raised to 20 from 18”, after addressing the issue, the speech consisted of anecdotes of personal lives that had been affected by underage drinkers and more statistics that effectively persuaded the audience that this should no longer happen.  The rhetorical styles of pathos and logos were developed in this part of this specific speech, as the anecdotes evoked emotions of the audience and the statistics and figures used developed a logical reasoning behind why the drinking age needed to be raised and what the audience would need to do, which is the overall purpose of the speech.

In the fourth step of the structure of the persuasive speech, the speaker provides a solution to the problem – to the issue that has aroused the attention of the audience.  This is a very important step in that the audience now knows what needs to be done – there is a goal to be reached.  In this specific speech referred to in this essay, the speaker provided a solution, after telling the audience what the issue was – which was that the drinking age was too young.  The solution to this issue is to raise the drinking age to 20 and the audience was persuaded to think of this as the solution too.  By the audience accepting the solution, the speech then has to fulfil it’s purpose.

The purpose of the persuasive speech is to call the audience to action.  The audience, by this final step in the structure of the speech, should be ready and persuaded to take action to make the solution happen.  The speaker needs to tell the audience what they need to do to prevent this issue exacerbating any further and fulfil the solution. In the “Drinking Age” speech, the ultimate purpose was to call the audience to promote and participate in a march that would be happening on the International Alcoholism Awareness Day in March. The speaker encouraged all the audience members to come together and join in, calling for action.

In the speech “The legal drinking age in New Zealand should be raised from 18 to 20” the structure followed a well developed sequence that was clearly planned and laid out so that by the end of the speech, the audience was successfully persuaded to take action, fulfilling the purpose of the speech.