238 12.2 Using Words Well: speaker langUage and style
Using Words Effectively
12.2 List and explain three ways to use words effectively.
Although your speech will be more personal, less formal, and more repetitive
than would a paper you might write on the same topic, you will still want to
ensure that your message is clear, accurate, and memorable. Your spoken words
should be specific, concrete, simple, and correct.Use Specific, Concrete Words
If you were to describe your pet snake to an audience, you would need to do
more than say it is a serpent. Instead, you would want to use the most specific
term possible, describing your snake as a ball python or, if you were speaking
to an audience of scientists, perhaps as a Python regius. A specific word or term
such as ball python refers to individual members of a class of more general things,
such as serpent or snake.
Specific words are often concrete words, which appeal to one of our five
senses, whereas general words are often abstract words, which refer to ideas or
qualities. A linguistic theory known as general semantics holds that the more
concrete your words, the clearer your communication. Semanticists use a ladder
of abstraction, like the example shown in Figure 12.2, to model how something
can be described in either concrete or abstract language.
Specific, concrete nouns create memorable images, as in this speech deliv
ered by a Wake Forest University student:
Sometimes when I sleep, I can still hear the voices of my life—night
crickets, lions’ mating calls, my father’s advice, my friend’s laughter; I
can still hear the voices of Africa.^312.2
Quick Check
Oral versus Written Style
Written style • Less personal, having no immediate interaction between
writer and reader- More formal
- Less repetitive
Oral style • More personal, facilitating interaction between speaker and
audience - less formal
- More repetitive