So before we get into the course material,
I think we should reflect on what it is that ceremonial speeches actually do.
Now, like many questions in rhetoric we start with Aristotle.
He defined three basic types of speeches, deliberative, forensic and epideictic.
Now deliberative speeches generally took place in the assembly and
they dealt with policy persuasion.
Forensic speeches took place in courts and they dealt with legal accusation and
defense.
And epideitic speeches, he argued, took place at festivals and
dealt with value based praise and blame.
Now, we've updated these categories but we still pretty much use them.
Most public speaking courses have three main speeches.
Informative, persuasive and ceremonial.
And hey, what do you know,
that's the basic organization of this public speaking specialization.
So in persuasive speeches we use agreement to persuade audiences, great, okay.
Informative, we use explanations to inform the audience, okay that makes sense.
Then we get to ceremonial, well what does this one mean now?
We ceremonialize the audience?
That doesn't sound right.
Ceremonial indicates a place rather than an action, and
that place varies greatly, right?
We do ceremonial speeches at awards ceremonies, funerals, weddings,
keynote addresses, introductory speeches, and so on and so forth.
So if place isn't the determining factor, what is?
Well, the rhetorician Celeste Condit suggested that epideictic rhetoric,
which is our ceremonial speaking, can be understood as performing three basic
functions for audiences and speakers.
And that's a good place to start.
So what are these three functions?
Defining and understanding, creating and sharing community,
and displaying and entertaining.
So let's go ahead and move through each one of these.
So to begin with, speakers define values and
help the audience better understand those values.
So commencement speakers do this all the time.
The talk show host Oprah Winfrey had a famous commencement speech back
in 2007 and the key theme was find your calling.
Her speech walked through examples and ideas to explain what that meant.
Now as a community we see self determination and fulfillment,
which were in the speech, as common values.
Her speech was successful insofar as it helped people better understand those
values.
And I would say not cognitively understand those values,
but better understanding them emotionally.
Okay, so that's one.
Next, speakers can create community that the audiences can share.
So a conferences keynote speech or a business awards ceremony gives
speakers the chance to identify the key values driving a community.
So Allen Pearlman was a speech writer at Kraft Foods.
And he had this great example in his book on public speaking and
he was talking about a dedication ceremony.
So the speaker in this case was dedicating a new greenhouse.
But really the greenhouse was just a reflection of the corporate communities
commitment to food safety.
That was the aspect of the community that the speaker was highlighting.
Hey, we're a food safety community.
So the speech is successful insofar as the audience sees that as a good
reflection of their community.
So then finally, speakers engage in display rhetoric in a ceremonial
speech for the enjoyment of the audience.
Well that raises the question, what are we enjoying in these moments?
Condit would suggest eloquence, okay?
It doesn't mean that every speech has to have grandiose language.
But the most moving ceremonial speeches typically involve some type of eloquence.
Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech is display rhetoric.
It's moving for its message, but it's enjoyable as well as a work of eloquence.
Now, these three functions are not mutually exclusive, a speech isn't one or
the other of these functions, they often coincide.
One of history's most famous speeches is Pericles' funeral oration.
Delivered during the Peloponnesian war, the speech defines the unique traits of
Athens, encourages an Athenian aesthetic community and does so in an eloquent way.
That's all three functions in that one speech.
So an informative speech might explain new information.
A persuasive speech might develop a new argument.
But ceremonial speaking often takes existing values and beliefs and
helps us renew our commitment to them.
Now, that requires an appreciation for
how our speech will fit into the rhetorical situation that we step into.
And we are going to take that up in the next lecture.
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