In fair round belly, with good capon lin❜d, With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side; -Shakespeare SPEECH COMPOSITION CHAPTER XII SPEECH PURPOSES I. SPEECH-MAKING AND ARCHITECTURE II. PURPOSES MUST BE KNOWN IN ADVANCE III. A PURPOSE WHICH PLEASES THE AUDIENCE NOT NECESSARY IV. ULTERIOR PURPOSES V. RESPONSE THE UNIVERSAL PURPOSE VI. THE FIVE GENERAL ENDS A. To Instruct B. To Convince E. To Entertain VII. THE SPECIFIC AIM OF SPEECHES I. SPEECH-MAKING AND ARCHITECTURE Speech-making may well be compared to building — speech composition to architecture. There are many illuminating parallels that can be drawn between the various problems to be solved when a building is to be built and when a speech is to be made. As there are many types of buildings designed to serve many types of building purposes, there are also many types of speeches designed to promote many types of speech purposes. There is no such thing as a speech that is a good speech for all sorts of occasions any more than there is a building that is a good building for all sorts of uses. Some buildings can be made to serve many functions and some speeches can be made to fit more than one occasion, but that does not diminish the truth of the statement that the best speeches and the best buildings are all planned and executed by competent workmen for particular occasions and locations in order to serve specific ends. The idea that a speech can be a good speech without fitting its audience, and without proper material properly treated to serve its particular purpose, is as ridiculous as the idea that a building can be a good building without fitting its site and without proper material properly treated to serve its particular purpose. Before one starts a building it is well to consider whether it is to stand on a rocky hillside or in a swamp, and whether it is to be a bird house, a heater, a factory, a garage, a store, a hospital, a church, a kennel, or a dwelling house. Before one starts a speech it is well to consider the particular audience to be addressed — its knowledge, interest, and prejudice in regard to the subject to be discussed and also exactly what the speech is expected to do with, or for, or to, that audience on the particular occasion for which it is being prepared. II. PURPOSES MUST BE KNOWN IN ADVANCE This point will bear much emphasis. There is great need of enforcing the idea that a good speech must be planned (by someone who knows how) to serve a definite function on a specific occasion. The fact that there are many practically identical occasions no more cancels the above, than the fact that the same plans may be used many times in building cancels the statement that all good buildings are consciously designed to meet certain uses. All this may seem too obvious to need such statement, but experience leads us to think not. There are people who make a great many speeches without ever asking themselves exactly what the speeches are supposed to accomplish. And of course, the speeches accomplish little or nothing. They are largely fruitless. There are professional speakers, propagandists, each of whom has a set, memorized speech, which he delivers to any audience on any occasion. The highest concern of such speakers, after such a speech is over, is for the collection of the fee and the arrangement of the next date. They are serving the cause for which they are ostensibly speaking about as effectively as a physician would serve his patients if he had one prescription which he gave to all comers regardless of their afflictions. Or, to return to the parallel of architecture, such a speaker is like an architect who has one set of plans which he sells to all clients, regardless of their building needs. III. A PURPOSE WHICH PLEASES THE AUDIENCE NOT NECESSARY In saying that a speech should fit the audience or should be planned for the particular occasion or audience, or adjusted to the audience and occasion, we do not wish to be understood as saying that a speech must have a purpose which will please the audience. There is considerable misconception on this point. The proper purpose of some speeches (as we shall see later) is to please the hearers. This is a perfectly legitimate end. But it is not the only end. When the pleasure of the audience is the real purpose of the speaker he should serve that purpose. He should serve the cause for which he is talking, whatever it is, and whatever prejudice his audience may have in regard to it. Some audiences dislike very much to hear the truth about themselves and about certain subjects. But this does not justify the speaker in changing the truth to suit their prejudices. We should not be led astray by such advice as this: "Choose a subject that your audience will like. Do not talk in favor of the repeal of the eighteenth amendment at a meeting of the W. C. T. U. Do not advocate compulsory military training at a meeting of a Peace Association." Such advice is quite wrong. If you wish to make a public speech in favor of the repeal of the eighteenth amendment, you should be anxious to make it to the W. C. T. U. and to some similar organization. This is precisely the sort of gathering that ought to hear such speeches (if they are to be made at all). Any honest advocate of compulsory military training should be glad to discuss it with such audiences as those found at peace meetings. The advice "always choose an end which will please your audience" is as immoral and unintelligent as would be the advice to a physician "always please your patient." The audience like the patient should get what is good for it. And again this truth is in no way lessened by remembering that neither the speaker nor the physician should give unnecessary pain. IV. ULTERIOR PURPOSES Often a speech is made for an ulterior purpose which cannot be classified in any rhetorical classification of speech purposes for the simple reason that such a purpose lies wholly outside of the realm of rhetoric. For instance, take the following situations: A man makes a speech before an audience on a certain subject when his real purpose in making the speech is not to affect the audience as a whole in any way, but to make such an impression upon a single man in that audience as to improve the speaker's chances of being appointed to a certain position controlled by this man; or a young man makes a speech before an audience for the purpose of making a favorable impression upon some young lady in the audience object, matrimony; or a university student makes a public speech before a general audience in the hope that members of a certain sorority or fraternity present will be so impressed that the speaker will get an invitation to join the society. It might be said, perhaps, in regard to many speeches, that the speaker's real purpose is to earn a fee and so increase his bank account. Such purposes as these are not rhetorical purposes. Directions given in this part of the text book are not designed to teach students directly how to win appointment to positions, how to be successful in courtship, or in social ambitions, or how to earn money except in so far as these ulterior purposes may be served by rhetorical ability. It is to be hoped that in most speech situations in which other things besides rhetorical results are aimed at, the final decision would be influenced |