Talk about English - Politics and presentation pt1 | Текст песни

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• Talk about English
• Politics and presentation pt1

Jackie: Hello, this is Talk About English, live from the BBC World Service in
London. I'm Jackie Dalton…

Callum: And I'm Callum Robertson.

Jackie: This week, in our final programme on politics and language, we hear
about some of the tricks political speakers use to get us on their side.

Tony Blair
And I do it because I believe. I do it because the society I want to create is not some
fantasy or dream. It could be true!

Callum: And tips for all of us on how to improve our public speaking skills.

Sandy Miller
It's important to be yourself. But be yourself as impactfully as you can.

Jackie: That's all coming up in Talk About English! But first of all…

Callum: It is competition time. And you'll hear the answer to this week's question
during the programme. And the question is:

Jackie: What does 'rhetoric' mean? What is 'rhetoric'? And write a sentence for
us using the word 'rhetoric'.

Callum: Send your entries to talkaboutenglish@bbc.co.uk and the first correct
entry will win.

Jackie: We've got extra special prizes this week!

Callum: Yes, not only will you get a BBC Learning English bag, but also, a
Learning English t-shirt AND a key ring.

Jackie: There's a reason why we're being especially generous this week…

Callum: There is, and that's that this is our last webcast of 2006. We're stopping
for a few weeks but we'll be back in 2007.

Jackie: And this is where you could really help us. We'd love to hear your
feedback. We want to know how you think the webcast could be
improved. What kinds of things would you like to see in it? Maybe you
think it's too short or too long…What sorts of topics are you interested in?

Callum: Yes, send your thoughts to talkaboutenglish@bbc.co.uk.

Jackie: Now, as promised, let’s turn our attention to the language tricks and
techniques that politicians use to win us over …

Tony Blair
We are not going to win despite our beliefs. We will only win
because of our beliefs!

Callum: The British Prime Minster Tony Blair in action …Well, to find out how
political speeches work, we spoke to Professor Max Atkinson, an expert
on political communication. He’s listened to hours and hours of political
speeches in order to identify the language techniques that make an
audience applaud.

Jackie: Now these techniques date back to ancient times and they’re known as
'rhetorical devices' – from the noun ‘rhetoric’ which means the skill of
using language effectively and to persuade. And the good news is that
rhetorical devices are simple and easy to use! But before we listen to
some examples, we asked Max Atkinson to explain why he thinks it’s
important to understand the tricks of rhetoric.

Max Atkinson
Most people are dimly aware that, when they hear an effective communicator, that that
person has skills that they don’t have, but they’re not quite sure what those skills are
and I think knowing more precisely what it is that the effective communicators are
doing enables audiences to distinguish between the form, the structure of what
someone’s saying, and its content, if you like. I think it may mean that audiences are in
a better position to judge whether or not a speaker is worth taking seriously.

Callum: OK. It’s important to know what good communicators are doing so you
can separate the form and techniques from the ‘content’, so you can
separate the ‘how’ and the ‘what’! Then you can judge the content
properly. Now good speeches are memorable so any rhetorical technique
that makes the audience remember your message is going to be very
useful.

Jackie: Listen to these three extracts from speeches made by Winston Churchill,
when he was prime minister of Britain, Boutros Ghali, when he was
Secretary General of the United Nations, and Margaret Thatcher, when

she was Prime Minister of Britain. They all illustrate a rhetorical device
- used very frequently by politicians - known as THE LIST OF THREE.
As you’ll hear, this can be a list of three identical items or different ones.
Voices
Winston Churchill:
Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.
Boutros Boutros Ghali
There is an awareness that the United Nations, for all its setbacks, is recognised for
having done so much, so well and in such a short span of time
Margaret Thatcher
He wanted the commission to be the executive and he wanted the council of ministers to
be the senate. No! No! No!

Jackie: Three very effective lists of three! Listen again.

Voices (repeat)

Callum: And Max Atkinson explains that, like all rhetorical devices, lists of three
are effective in many languages.

Max Atkinson
One of the interesting things about these devices is that, as far as we know, they’re not
specific to any one language - they seem to work cross-culturally. So if one thinks, for
example, of the French revolution, the slogan was 'liberty, equality, fraternity' – a list of
three. And you find that in many political environments. Hitler's slogan was 'ein Ein
Volk, ein Reich, ein Fьhrer' - one people, one empire, one leader... and you find many
political slogans have that structure.

Callum: Next, we asked Max Atkinson to talk about one of the most common and
powerful rhetorical tricks used in political speeches - a device he calls

CONTRASTS. This device simply puts together two contrasting words
or phrases. Here’s Tony Blair contrasting ‘despite’ and ‘because’ …

Tony Blair
We are not going to win despite our beliefs. We will only win because of our beliefs!

Jackie: Max Atkinson believes that politicians love this device of “contrasts”
because it is like a cue, a sign, for the audience to applaud! It tells the
audience when to clap and politicians love applause!

Max Atkinson
At a purely technical level, one of the problems audiences have, if you like, is coming in
on time. And it’s very important if a speaker wants to be applauded that he provides
audiences with very clear completion points so they know when they’ve finished and
they know when they can come in. And one of the things that these simple contrasts do
is to enable audiences to anticipate the end of the line and therefore to come in
immediately the speaker has finished.

Callum: Here’s Tony Blair again. Notice how the simple contrast between
‘despite’ and ‘because’ gives his sentence a neat shape and indicates
when the audience should respond!

Tony Blair
We are not going to win despite our beliefs. We will only win because of our beliefs!

Jackie: Let’s end our look at rhetorical tricks in political speeches by listening to
a famous speech from William Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar, which
begins with the words: Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears!
So imagine please - we’re in Ancient Rome, in the year 44 BC. Julius
Caesar, the Roman Emperor, has been murdered by Brutus, one of
Rome’s most popular politicians. It’s Caesar’s funeral. Sombre music.

Throngs of people. Brutus has made a speech to the crowd justifying
Caesar’s murder and the crowd agree.

Callum: But now Mark Antony, a young friend of Caesar, steps forward. He’s
been given permission by Brutus to speak at the funeral. He stands
beside the coffin of his murdered friend. Mark Antony wants to persuade
the crowd that Caesar was NOT a personally ambitious man and that he
was unjustly murdered.

Jackie: It’s a brilliantly persuasive speech. We’re just going to hear the opening
two lines and as you listen can you catch any rhetorical devices at work?

Mark Antony
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.

Callum: Well, Mark Antony contrasts the words 'bury' and 'praise'. And he uses
this contrast after addressing the audience by a list of three - he calls
them 'friends', 'Romans' and 'countrymen'. And Mark Antony also uses a
poetic image – 'lend me your ears' - to mean simply 'listen to me!' So we
hear three tricks in a row - a list of three, a poetic image, and a contrast.

Mark Antony (repeat)

Callum: Well, now you must be experts in political rhetoric! We've talked about
politicians and leaders making speeches, but what about the rest of us?
Maybe you have to do a presentation at school or university. Perhaps
your job sometimes involves public speaking, or you have to do a speech
for a friend's wedding or birthday.

Jackie: A lot of people really hate public speaking. And later on in the
programme, we're going to hear from Sandy Miller, who can offer expert
advice on presentations. But, first of all, let's hear from Nadim, a Syrian
student studying at the University of Newcastle in the UK. He did a
presentation about his research work and he actually won a prize for his
presentation because it was so good. But was Nadeem, like a

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