LINGUISTIC AND EXTRALINGUISTIC CHARACTERISTICS OF TED TALKS AS MULTIMODAL ENGLISH TEXT

Abstract

This article focuses on the investigation of such linguistic phenomenon as multimodality, namely its linguistic and extralinguistic features in TED Talks. TED Talks is a conference where influential people speak to the audience about important issues that need to be addressed in our society. Speakers of the conference perform a role of ideators who are trying to get their ideas across to the people in the audience. To fulfill their objectives they resort to different techniques implementing all kind of linguistic and extralinguistic features in their strategies of drawing public attention. To realizing a full potential of a performance on stage, speaker needs to be fully prepared this means he or she needs to prepare a presentation, speech and think about his or her actions on stage. Duration of one TED Talk usually varies in a range from 10 to 15 minutes. And it's an adequate duration because of a limitation in people's attention span. Big part of the article is based on the classification of rhetorical strategies made by D. M. Katsina. The realization of these strategies can be seen in TED Talks. This classification helps us understand the basics of linguistic means which play a large part in forming a communicative intention. As well as how different parts of the sentence can be combined to create the synergy needed. Understanding the principles play a key role in oral presentation and helps us better understand how language works. With this being said, we suggest you to take a closer look at the scrutiny of linguistic and extraliguistic characteristics of TED Talks.