Identify all the cases of repetitions and triples in this speech.
Keys to success in public speaking
The second key
Repetition
1. Listen to the example. How different is it from the previous cases of repetition?
| Audio 2a |
2. Study this case of repetition coming from Margaret Thatcher’s “The Lady's Not For Turning”.
| Audio 2b |
"Of course our vision and our aims go far beyond the complex arguments of economics, but unless we get the economy right we shall deny our people the opportunity to share that vision and to see beyond the narrow horizons of economic necessity. Without a healthy economy we can’t have a healthy society and without a healthy society the economy won’t stay healthy for long."
3. Study the following example. What are its peculiarities?
"The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence." -- Carl Sagan
4. Listen to the example coming from William Jefferson Clinton’s Address to the Russian Duma.
| Audio 2 c |
"The world faces a very different Russia than it did in 1991. Like all countries, Russia also faces a very different world."
5. Listen to the example coming from John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address. (Try to remember this popular quotation which will never lose its topicality for every nation).
| Audio 2d |
“And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."
Triple (group of three)
| Another figure of speech, favored by many speakers is the group of three. It is also common in academic writing. There are a lot of theories why it is so popular. Some specialists allude to geometry claiming that the triangle is the most stable figure. Others refer to the Bible. Are you ready to challenge these hypotheses? What do you think is the origin of this popularity? |
These are the cases of the combination of groups of three with different forms of repetition.
1. Listen to the following example from Elizabeth Dole’s 1999 San Diego Stump Speech, combining a triple with a repetition.
| Audio 2e |
"Drugs don't just destroy their victims; they destroy entire families, schools, and communities."
Listen to the following example from Malcolm X.
| Audio 2f |
"Much of what I say might sound bitter, but it's the truth. Much of what I say might sound like it's stirring up trouble, but it's the truth. Much of what I say might sound like it is hate, but it's the truth."
| When including a triple in your speech do not forget about the intonation and a pause before the last element [↑, ↑ and || ↓]. |
An Ideal Husband
Watch a video episode from the film "An Ideal Husband" (1999) in which Sir Robert Chiltern addresses Parliament on the Proposed Canal Project
| Video 2a |
Identify all the cases of repetitions and triples in this speech.
Lord Chiltern: Since I last addressed this House on the subject, I have had the opportunity to investigate this scheme more thoroughly and to grasp fully the ramifications of our lending it support. I have to inform the House that I was mistaken in my original perceptions, and that I have now taken a rather different view.
I find that now I must agree with my right honourable friend that this is indeed an excellent scheme, a genuine opportunity -- an opportunity particularly if you happen to be a corrupt investor, a corrupt investor with nothing but self-interest at heart .
For now it is my utter conviction that this scheme never should have had or should ever have any chance of success. It is a fraud, an infamous fraud at that. Our involvement would be a political fraud of the worst possible kind.
This great nation has long been a great commercial power. Now it seems there exists a growing compulsion to use that power merely to beget more power. Money merely to beget more money , irrespective of the true cost to the nation's soul. And it is this sickness, a kind of moral blindness, commerce without conscience, which threatens to strike at the very soul of this nation. And the only remedy that I can see is to strike back and to strike now!
As we stand -- as we stand at the end of this most eventful century , it seems that we do, after all, have a genuine opportunity, one honest chance to shed our sometimes imperfect past to start again, to step unshackled into the next century and to look our future squarely and proudly in the face.
Group project
“When written in Chinese, the word crisis is compounded of two characters – one represents danger, and the other represents opportunity.”
John F. Kennedy (1917-1963), 35th US President
Each of you is to write a sentence about positive aspects of a crisis to contribute to this “joint venture”. Use one the following figures of speech:
- a rhetorical question;
- a question with a short answer, followed by a full one;
- inversion (language awareness 2);
- a triple;
- a repetition (anaphora or epistrophe - key 1);
- a repetition (anadiplosis or antimetabole – key 2);
- a sentence with the view to explaining, reinforcing, exemplifying (language awareness 3);
- a sentence with the view to weighing things up and not giving in (language awareness 4).
One of you is to be in charge of coordination and will be responsible to connect the sentences in a logic sequence (language awareness 1-4).
Read the article.
К.ф.н., доцент кафедры английского языка №2
Багдасарова Н.А.