Abstract
This paper aims to examine TED speeches’ mechanism and their characteristics, and to analyze two TED speeches – selected from ‘The most popular talks of all time: 25 most popular’ - based on rhetorical strategies. Three strategies utilized in this study are concerned with ‘invention’, ‘style’ and ‘arrangement’, which have been proposed by Aristotle. TED with its moto of ‘Ideas worth spreading’ is a “nonprofit organization devoted to spreading ideas, usually in the form of short, powerful talks (18 minutes or less)”. Most previous domestic and overseas studies on TED speeches, have focused on either the application of language education aiming at enhancing English competence as well as their educational effects, or the analysis of TED based on 'storytelling methods'. However little attention has been given to TED speech itself and its persuasive strategies. Our findings through this study showed that firstly, various rhetorical strategies in TED speech are required, which differs slightly from what is known about TED speech. Secondly, according to our analysis of two selected speeches, they had similarities and differences, too. They aimed to spread what speakers got to know through empirical evidence, and belonged to ‘deliberative speech’ using ‘exemplification’. Thirdly, regarding ‘style’, TED-1 took advantage of ‘questioning’, while TED-2 was organized based on storytelling methods.
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