Speech-osition

I am presenting this week, so instead of writing about the readings I want to relate some thoughts about the intersection of writing composition and speech.  My undergraduate degree was in communications, Political and Public Speaking.  Even though there were only three classes where speaking was the goal, almost every class required getting up an giving presentations.  The big research projects were often papers and accompanying presentations.  In this academic context there is not as much difference in the two disciplines as one might imagine.

A formal speech reads like an essay (with pauses for applause).  Go online and read a Presidential Speech.  You will find it well organized, attentive to audience and context, internally supported by presented evidence, and written in clear prose.  This is true about speeches given by acknowledged masters of oratory like Reagan or candidate Obama, (he doesn't use his stirring, soaring style as President) and less skilled speakers like the clumsy Bush, or exceedingly verbose Clinton, who created amazing sound bites buried within interminable speeches.  In fact, President (W) Bush's speeches would get surprisingly high marks from English teachers because he was always purposeful, clear, and driving to make his point.  Presidential speeches, like essays in The New Yorker, represent the highest forms of public composition, with the same types of rhetorical considerations and attention to detail.  They communicate, and argue, and engage their audiences.  They do, however, differ in one particular and all-important detail, delivery by sound.

In an oral presentation the voice of the speaker carries a weight that is hard to match, even by the most skilled writers.  The immediacy, the subtle emphasis, the silent pause, the intonations, the give-and-take of the audience, the energy of a room full of people staring at and listening to one, create qualities impossible to capture with a pen.  These strengths, however, are mitigated by attention span, small vocabulary, sentence and paragraph complexity (read thought complexity).  Advantage here goes to the writer who engages the reader's mind directly challenging its ability to wrestle with the text until they decipher its meaning, even if they have to re-read the text many times.  The weakness of speech is the strength of writing and vice versa  Combining, the two in a meaningful way, means playing to the strengths of both. Whether assigning aural composition or preparing for conference presentations seeing the two as complimentary and friendly is an asset.