Comedy and Controversy: Scripting Public Speech

This study investigates how speakers adapt their use of disfluencies in public versus private speech settings. Existing studies suggest systematic differences in disfluency rates, depending on who we are communicating with, how interactive the communication is, how difficult the topic is, whether the interaction is broadcast or not, and whether the speech is pre-scripted or not. We aim to improve this understanding through analysis in the Slovenian language, using data from the Training Corpus of Spoken Slovenian ROG-Artur. We investigate whether quantitative differences in the use of disfluency exist between private and public speech, and aim to explain these differences by investigating the relationship between disfluency functions and the physical, social, cognitive, and other factors influencing communication behavior. Our results revealed significant differences in disfluency patterns: disfluencies, in general, are more frequent in private speech, whereas filled pauses, unrepaired pronunciations and blocks, are more common in public speech. We group disfluency functions into two general categories. In contextual analysis, we interpret that speakers reduce disfluencies in public speech due to its high relevance, formal expectations, partial pre-scripting, time constraints and advanced speaker skills, while the higher frequency of filled pauses, unrepaired pronunciations and blocks in public speech reflect the impact of longer dialog turns, time constraints and emotional stress. The findings of this study should be interpreted with caution, given the interpretative nature of qualitative analysis and the potential confounding effect of the involvement of different speakers in the public and private speech samples.

The article is devoted to studying preamble role in the composition of public political speech. The study is conducted by the material of A. Merkel’s public addresses of 2015-2016. The author analyses the politician’s preambles, provides their classification. According to the addressee factor, the researcher identifies “internal” and “external” public speeches, in which she establishes the frequency of preambles, describes the specificity of their usage from the viewpoint of efficient verbal influence on the audience. The comparative analysis of both speech types allows concluding on the prevalence of a certain preamble in public political speech depending on the orientation to “internal” or “external” audience.

This paper examines the role and significance of Interpersonal language meta-function in understanding and constructing language use and functions among language users in a business context in English and Central-Kurdish languages. In analyzing entrepreneurs’ public speeches, the researchers employ the descriptive and qualitative approach with the content analysis. The instrument used in this study is to examine the qualitative exploratory data among entrepreneurs’ public speech in business discourse in English and Central-Kurdish. The paper attempts to answer the following questions; What is the dominant mood type among the entrepreneurs in English and Central-Kurdish in business discourse? How does the use and selection of the personal pronoun by entrepreneurs in English and Central-Kurdish influence the interpersonal meta-function? and lastly, What are the frequency and occurrence of Attitudinal mode in the public speech of entrepreneurs concerning Type and possible Polarity? The findings show the information about the distribution of the results in regard to the mood types, the use and selection of personal pronouns and the frequencies of each attitudinal mode in an entrepreneur’s public speech in English and Central Kurdish quantitatively. The study reveals that the prominent type of mood is declarative mood, besides the use and selection of the Personal Systems play a significant role in which the speaker expresses his attitude, influence and maintaining friendship and intimacy with the audience. The dominant personal pronoun is first personal system and the positive Affect mode exceeds other attitudinal modes both in English and Central-Kurdish.

In his contribution on “Homo politicus”, Prof. Siep deals with the human being as a political, religious and historical creature from the point of view of philosophy. He makes it clear that the zoon politicon in Aristotle is inextricably linked to the definition of human beings as reason and language talent (zoon logon echon). He points out that nowadays the Aristotelian tradition of homo politicus can be supported by scientific and cultural insights. Furthermore, the author also refers to the results of modern brain and behavioral research, which explores the physiological basis of specifically human abilities and deficiencies. In the following, the author goes into the anthropological basics - in particular the reduction of instincts and human language, which enables exchange between rational beings. He makes it clear that public speech was already the language of political beings in antiquity, if it is based on the equal co-determination of everyone, then, according to Aristotle, one speaks of a "polity", which means that one has arrived at democracy. If one also wants to designate other forms of government as “political”, the author believes that the term must be broadened, which in his opinion is made possible by referring to the monopoly on the use of force. The monopoly on the use of force requires legitimation. This leads the author to Max Weber's "Concept of the Political" and its forms of domination. Finally, he raises the question of consensus and dissent in a democracy, how individuals and groups with different views can agree in a 'public speech'.

The article examines the use of clichéd expressions in the political speech in Bulgaria and Romania. Basic theoretical concepts about the essence of the cliché as semantics and as a structure are analyzed. Linguists’ views on the differences and similarities between stamp, cliché and pattern are presented. On the basis of excerpted material from the public speech in the two Balkan countries, conclusions are drawn related to the use of the cliché in the political speech which is more specific than its use in other spheres of communication. In public political speech, the cliché develops some additional specifics, subject to the pragmatics of political communication. The discrepancy between the political speech expressed through clichés and the reality it names and creates is considered a particular problem. The article supports the idea that this is one of the reasons why the cliché has become a convenient speech strategy in political speech, because this is how correct grammatical constructions are created which, however, are often devoid of content power or convey the content of the statement unconvincingly and without stylistic coloring. It is also possible to hypothesize that all these features of the cliché make it a convenient communication strategy and part of the political jargon in both countries.

The article reports an empirical inquiry into the rhetorical use of master/counter juxtapositions in narrating an ongoing scene of political action. Drawing on the studies of institutional interaction, it investigates the institutional setting of public political speeches, focusing on the empirical example of Donald Trump’s public speech in the rally after the election results and just before the violent invasion of the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021. My research approaches master/counter positioning as a multilayered relational constellation of identifications mobilized in the telling and deployed strategically for specific institutional purposes. I am interested in counter-narratives as interpretative discursive frames superimposed on surrounding socio-material circumstances to refute an alternative (pre-existing and prevailing) interpretation of reality. My take on the concept as a multifaceted rhetorical resource subsumes the aspects of an act of contestation, a breach of cultural orders, and a mission towards emancipation, albeit in a slightly modified version of the conventionalized definitions. In the context of political interaction, that is, in institutional activities connected to ongoing processes in policy-making and governance, counter-narratives are world-breaking but they are also world-making in a decidedly concrete consequential manner, firstly, by building on institutional continuities, virtues, and legitimacies, and secondly, by addressing recipients as co-actors, projecting identifications on them and expecting them to assume a role in the political participation field at hand. Applying tools from small story research, membership categorization analysis, epistemic governance and narrative positioning analysis, I explore the purposeful evocation of contrastive storylines in political rhetoric. The article aims to shed light on the argumentative use of counter-narratives in a political line of action.

The article is devoted to the analysis of communicative strategies and tactics of realization of pragmatic effect using humorous statements in English-language public political speech. Both verbal and non-verbal means of expressing humor are used to increase the impact on the audience. Expressive language means, in particular vocabulary aimed at humiliation and insult of the addressee, play an important role in the speech of politicians. Humor allows to manage the situation in political communication, creating a situation of misunderstanding, deliberately contributing to the wrong statement of the opponent, provoking an undesirable reaction of the audience. Communicative strategies in public speeches are common among political representatives when presenting their election campaign and delivering campaign speeches. This is due to the desire to influence society, the plans, values and consciousness of the audience, involving various techniques of manipulation. According to communicative situation speakers use certain type of strategies to achieve some goals in communication more efficient. Every strategy is realized in speech through communicative tactics, which implement various language techniques aimed to change opinions of the addressee about politicians. The most common strategy is aims to reduce the importance of a political opponent., embodying the implicit or explicit expression of a negative attitude towards the situation or person. Less common strategy used by politicians is focused on creating the opposite effect, when the manipulator gets the sympathy of the recipient through the creation of a positive image. The most expressive strategy is to give speeches vigor and spectacularness. Sarcasm is one of the means to express communicative tactic implicitly to achieve manipulative influence. The most effective tactics used by politicians are accusations, condemnation, insults, distancing, presentations, ‘friend or foe’ differentiations, appeal to emotions. The article includes detailed analysis of strategies and tactics that form the basis of pragmatic political speech in the examples of English public discourse.

The article examines the metaphor power related to the impact of public political speeches on the audience. The purpose of the study is to identify the potentially hidden speech impact of public discourse in order to understand the intentions of the speech messages authors. To that end, the aspects of metaphors under analysis include their density in the text, their intensity, functions and positions in the compositional structure of the text. The study tests the method of comprehensive analysis of metaphor power, which is based on the calculation of the corresponding indices MDI (Metaphor density index), MII (Metaphor intensity index), MfTI (Metaphor functional typology index) and MStI (Metaphor structural index). Each index is based on a mathematical formula: MDI reflects the average number of metaphors per a hundred words of the text; MII demonstrates the medium intensity of metaphors (new or conventional metaphors dominating the text); MfTI shows which functions are mainly performed by metaphors in the text; MStI represents the compositional parts of the text where the metaphors are concentrated. The hypothesis about the possibility of using such quantitative methods is tested on the material of three texts of public speeches by the political leaders of Russia, USA and China. The analysis shows that the greatest speech impact is achieved by the speech of the President of China distinguished by the highest metaphor density (4.07), and, the values of MfTI (2.23) MStI (2.51) indicate the intention to restructure the socio-political concepts, as well as to introduce a new content into his countrys domestic and foreign policy. This method for identifying the metaphor power can be used to investigate the potential impact of political speeches and can become an important tool for analyzing various aspects of the metaphor use in discourse.

The syntactic features of spoken Lithuanian are still under-researched due to insufficient data bases, limited technologies, and research methodologies. During the last years, the "Corpus of Spoken Lithuanian" (developed at Vytautas Magnus University; 225,000 words; 80 hours of digitalized audio recordings) has been syntactically annotated, and this has enabled complex automatized syntactic analysis. In the present paper, one of the first such studies is presented and its results are discussed. The corpus linguistics methodology has been employed.The paper deals with the frequency and basic types of attributive clauses in spoken Lithuanian language. The results of the study have highlighted that attributive clauses tend to be more frequent (up to 15% of all subordinate clauses) in public speech, and they are significantly less frequent (up to 7% of all subordinate clauses) in private spontaneous speech.The position of a subordinate clause after the head noun is unmarked and the most frequent in public speech and spontaneous private speech. Consequently, 65% and 88% of all attributive adjectives followed the head noun in private spontaneous speech and in public speech. Since in Lithuanian the word order is not so strict, in private spontaneous speech constructions with a subordinate clause before the head noun are used.The analysis of subordinating conjunctions and relative pronouns has revealed that in public speech the link between a subordinate clause and an independent clause tends to be expressed by the relative pronoun "kuris", "kuri" (‘which’). Namely, in public speech, this pronoun is employed in 85% of all attributive clauses. The number of relative pronouns in private spoken speech reaches only 30%, whereas the subordinating conjunction "kur" (‘where’) has been used in the majority of attributive clauses (51%).The findings of the study reveal the main tendencies in the distribution and frequency of attributive clauses and suggest that the usage of attributive clauses depends, to a large extent, on the register of spoken language.

ObjectiveIntestinal permeability and psychological stress have been implicated in the pathophysiology of IBD and IBS. Studies in animals suggest that stress increases permeability via corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH)-mediated mast cell activation....

Common rationales for free speech are offered in legal writing across many countries, even though their laws regulating speech differ markedly. This article suggests another way of thinking about speech, based on particular qualities of speech which help to explain why public speech – or at least public speech perceived as valuable for cultural, political or other purposes – is frequently thought of as a conversation. That often appears as the ideal, but a conversational conception can limit what is seen to be at stake in the control of speech. Instead of imagining public speech as open exchange that leads to agreement, here a slightly different vision is offered based more on the articulation of incommensurable world views and dissent. Implications of such an approach are considered for scholarly understanding, particularly of defamation law – an area of law commonly seen as important for the range and style of public speech.

Repeated or chronic exposure to stressors is associated with changes in neuroendocrine responses depending on the type, intensity, number and frequency of stress exposure as well as previous stress experience. The aim of the study was to test the hypothesis that salivary cortisol and cardiovascular responses to real-life psychosocial stressors related to public performance can cross-adapt with responses to psychosocial stress induced by public speech under laboratory setting. The sample consisted of 22 healthy male volunteers, which were either actors, more precisely students of dramatic arts or non-actors, students of other fields. The stress task consisted of 15 min anticipatory preparation phase and 15 min of public speech on an emotionally charged topic. The actors, who were accustomed to public speaking, responded with a rise in salivary cortisol as well as blood pressure to laboratory public speech. The values of salivary cortisol, systolic blood pressure and state anxiety were lower in actors compared to non-actors. Unlike non-actors, subjects with experience in public speaking did not show stress-induced rise in the heart rate. Evaluation of personality traits revealed that actors scored significantly higher in extraversion than the subjects in the non-actor group. In conclusion, neuroendocrine responses to real-life stressors in actors can partially cross-adapt with responses to psychosocial stress under laboratory setting. The most evident adaptation was at the level of heart rate responses. The public speech tasks may be of help in evaluation of the ability to cope with stress in real life in artists by simple laboratory testing.

Background: Developing speaking skills has always occupied a prominent place in foreign languages programmes. But nowadays, mastering public speaking has become an urgent need for Philology majors. It is therefore timely to research the communicative strategies used in public speeches and suggest the model for teaching public speaking to undergraduate students. Purpose: The purpose of the article is to characterise public speeches as samples of English persuasive speaking and develop the model for teaching public speaking to Philology majors. Results: Public speaking employs persuasion as a key communication strategy. The persuasive strategy is realized through argumentative techniques (explaining logically the subject matter and encouraging the communication partner to accept necessary ideas), emotional techniques (creating the appropriate atmosphere and affecting the audience emotionally), value-based techniques (used to convince the audience by providing an assessment of the event). The article differentiates the types of public speeches (inspiring speeches, propaganda, persuasive speeches) in the political and mass media contexts. In the process of training, students are supposed to master effective argumentative, emotive and value techniques as well as relevant verbal, nonverbal and paraverbal communication means to produce public speeches in English. Discussion: Public speeches have been identified as effective material to teach persuasive speaking to Philology majors. The model of teaching public speaking to undergraduate students has been discussed.

The article presents the programme and methodology of experimental phonetic research for the interplay of lexico-grammatical, prosodic and paralinguistic means in English public speeches of charismatic leaders. The relevance of the work is dictated by the need to develop methods, as well as conceptual and terminological apparatus for conducting interdisciplinary research at the intersection of linguistics, psychology, sociology, political science, physiology, etc. The author puts forward a programme of experimental research into the interplay of verbal and non-verbal means in the public speech of charismatic speakers, consisting of seven consecutive steps. The criteria for selecting and forming a corpus of experimental material, in particular, public speeches of American and British political and religious leaders, are presented; the principles of auditory analysis of the language material by auditors-informants are substantiated; the key intonational parameters of the auditory analysis of prosodic characteristics of charismatic leaders’ public speeches by auditors-phoneticians are determined; a number of typical features for analysing verbal means in speeches of charismatic public figures are developed; the most significant non-verbal means of charisma actualisation are identified; the methodology of acoustic analysis of charismatic speech characteristics is introduced. The author of the article provides an example of generalisation and presentation of the results of an interdisciplinary study of the interplay between verbal and non-verbal means in charismatic personalities’ public speeches on the basis of classical methods of experimental phonetic research of invariant models and variant realisations of emotionally coloured expressions, taking into account the results of non-verbal means accompanying non-verbal ones from the point of view of the modern speech energetics theory. An example of graphical representation of intonation means, documentation of the interplay of lexical-semantic, syntactic, stylistic and paralinguistic means on the material of Boris Johnson’s speech is also proposed.

Creating the Other in Online Interaction: Othering Online Discourse Theory