Minutia In Speech

This week's chapters are all about the subtleties of inclusive language and voice tactics. Unlike ideas like researching your audience, or making sure to cite your sources, I feel like these concepts in speech giving are more... sophisticated, I guess. Like now that we have established some sort of techniques, let's go ahead and refine it.

First up is using language that makes your audience feel included, and it is aptly referred to as "inclusive language." Using inclusive language allows for the audience to not only relate to what you are talking about, but to feel like a part of what you are talking about. In contrast, uninclusive (disclusive?) language will segregate your audience, and give them a sort of "Us vs. Them" mentality, which as it so happens is the exact opposite of making your audience feel included. Unless of course the Us vs. Them idea is exactly what you are going for, but I think that kind of language is reserved for dictators and religious zealots.
Anyway. use plenty of "us, we, all," and "you" language to make your audience feel included, and try to avoid using language that will create a social rift.

Next we come to the subtleties of voice usage. Well, okay, if I delivered my next speech at the top of my lungs that wouldn't be terribly subtle, but controlling our rate, pitch, and volume to speak as though we were having a conversation with a friend is no easy feat. Even if we speak reasonably well in front of an audience, chances are that we still sound a little "speechy." And for the most part, I don't necessarily see anything wrong with being "speechy," but I do consider the practice of grooming your rate, pitch and volume to be an exercise in refinement.
Also, try not to have huge, gaping pauses during your speech, and articulate and pronounce your words properly so that your audience thinks you know what you are talking about.

I felt that the videos for these chapters all focused on kind of small portions of the chapters themselves, and in that regard I suppose that I didn't find them as useful as they have been in the past. Not that I need for those videos to understand the subject material, but more that I found these chapters to be really interesting in addition to being helpful, and the videos touched on such a small portion of what the text was talking about that it was a bit deflating.

Or maybe it's just a rainy Wednesday and all I want to do is crawl into blanket fort with a plate full of warm peanut-butter chocolate-chip cookies and read comic books all evening. So it goes. Shrug.