Public Speaking

Churchill’s War Speeches

by Chip Schroeder

The opportunity and ability to give effective war speeches is a great tool for national leaders to inspire their... more The opportunity and ability to give effective war speeches is a great tool for national leaders to inspire their nation, shore up confidence, provide optimism, and demoralize the enemy. But it is not something that every politician is capable of doing. War speeches first of all require a grave situation that no politician should hope to have his country face. With the situation dire, though, the leader must be one who can back up his words by actions. Churchill was such a man, who had never shrunk from danger: before 1940, he saw action in India, Cuba, Sudan, Southern Africa, France, Belgium, and even in the middle of London during the ‘Siege of Sidney Street’. His reputation in the government and in Britain at the beginning of the war was as a politician, sometimes rude and irresponsible, witty and precarious, but nevertheless staunch and resolute in his beliefs. When Churchill was finally elevated to the office of Prime Minister in 1940, he was well prepared to deliver war speeches that would highlight his time in office. Three of his great speeches with the tag lines, ‘we shall fight on the beaches’, ‘their finest hour’, and ‘a long, hard war’, will be studied to show Churchill’s war speeches at their best. He used these three to set a firm policy within his government, gain the confidence of the British people, and enlist the support of the United States to Britain’s war interests.

Motivation, Barriers, Threats, and Suggestions for Improving Communication Center Services and Delivery

by Jenn Anderson

Co-authored with Rose Clark-Hitt, Jennifer Butler-Ellis, & Rachel Kim

Presented at 2009 annual conference for the National Communication Association

This study explored student motivation to seek professional communication skill assistance to determine ways to... more This study explored student motivation to seek professional communication skill assistance to determine ways to increase the effectiveness of communication training or interventions. A focus group methodology was employed and theoretically guided by the Health Belief Model and Andragogy (adult learning theory). Themes identified from the focus group data provide ideas for future research as well as practical applications for both motivating students and improving communication center program interventions.

The Beauty (and Darkness- No Need for Bias Here) of Language

by Poppy Valentine

This thought paper walks through some positive and negative aspects of language- verbal, written & symbolic-... more This thought paper walks through some positive and negative aspects of language- verbal, written & symbolic- depending on their employment & interpretation. This paper also provides advise on how one can become a more effective practitioner of language.

Assessment of the Repeated Speech Performance as a Pedagogical Tool: A Pilot Study

by Mark Gring

Co-authored with Jeré Littlejohn in  Basic Communication Course Annual 12, pp. 97-124, January 2000

Epistemic and Pedagogical Assumptions in Informative and Persuasive Speaking: Disinterring the Dichotomy

by Mark Gring

Argumentation and Advocacy. 2006, vol 43, Summer, pp. 41-49

Ontological orientation and the practice of rhetoric: A perspective from the Bhagavad Gita

by Scott R. Stroud

A Racing Heart, Rattling Knees, and Ruminative Thoughts: Defining, Explaining, and Treating Public Speaking Anxiety

by Graham Bodie

PhD Thesis: Britain on the American Popular Lecture Circuit 1844-1865

by Tom F. Wright

Completed December 2009; Viva Completed February 2010

This dissertation examines an overlooked area of nineteenth-century transatlantic commentary: the performances of... more This dissertation examines an overlooked area of nineteenth-century transatlantic commentary: the performances of returning American travellers on the antebellum popular lecture circuit. It consists of case studies that consider the rhetorical character and reception history of four ‘travel lectures’ on Britain by prominent Northern male reformers during the period 1844–1865.

Oratorical culture in the antebellum North, and the popular lecture platform in particular, was widely seen as a constitutive aspect of a distinctive civic nationalism. My thesis explores what it meant for these institutional emblems of cultural independence to host performances that explored questions of Anglo-American relations and selfhood.

Furthermore, in a party political climate in which various sentiments and manners were regularly interpreted in terms of perceived ‘Anglophilia’, my work reveals what the contemporary media response to these performances can tell us about the evolution of notions of British and American cultural styles during the period.

In my opening chapter, I contend that oratorical performance and transatlantic commentary were mutually reinforcing cultural practices, and propose a reconsideration of the ‘travel lecture’ as a compelling and previously neglected instance of this interplay. Moreover, I argue that newspaper reports, accounts, and sketches of lyceum performances should be reclaimed as a rich and expressive form of the period.

In subsequent chapters on the travel lectures of Horace Mann, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Horace Greeley, and John B. Gough, I explore the rhetorical and performance strategies by which transatlantic experience was variously presented as grounds for separation from, re-engagement with, or emulation of British society. Through close readings of lecture reports, I examine the reception history of each oration, tracing the ways in which the contested symbolism of British progress, class relations, and physical and vocal ‘difference’ proved valuable for various communities of American interpreters.