Speech Evaluation

Speech Evaluation

Introduction

The purpose of this paper is to expand the boundaries of our knowledge by evaluating General David Petraeus's, Military farewell retirement address in relevance to the effectiveness of the oral speech. The aim of the paper is to evaluate the effectiveness of the speech as an oral presentation. To develop the true understanding of the topic, the paper initially explains the concept of oral communication effectiveness, and later it evaluates the speech of General David Petraeus.

Discussion

Spoken language, more importantly speeches, is the most effective human communication because it relies on extra-linguistic elements such as: gestures, and additional sounds to words. These elements enrich speaking extra linguistic adding emotion, communication effectiveness and strength of expression (DeVito, 2005).

In addition to the ability to prepare and make speeches you have to learn to critically analyze the performances of others. From an educational point of view, a critical analysis of speeches not only provides an analysis of the speaker, where his speech was good and what is not, but it also allows you to, criticism, casting techniques to understand the speeches that you would like to apply. Analysis of the speech depends on the context (analysis of the effectiveness of informative demonstration speech is different from the analysis of the effectiveness of speech, which pushes the action) (Wolfram & Schilling, 1998).

Forms of address or address forms are stylistic features of speech. Stylistic features reflect a speaker's lexical choices. Whether a speaker addresses a colleague as Mr. Baker, Bill, or dude reflects a stylistic feature of speech. The use of certain address forms may also indicate setting. When speakers move from one speech situation to another, speech participants—and thus stylistic features such as address forms—change. Stylistic features related to address forms include terms of endearment and diminutives. Terms of endearment express affection. Diminutives imply smallness, familiarity, or affection. The ways in which speakers address one another provide insight into social relations, cultural orientation, and regional influences. Address forms serve as individual and plural markers in language, for these forms reveal aspects of the speaker's identity and the participant's identity in a particular speech situation. Whether in real life or in imaginative literature, forms of address reflect identity (Scherer & Giles, 1979).

Researchers gave a very comprehensive definition of speech: Culture of speech - is a set of such an organization and language features that are spoken in a particular situation, subject to the modern language standards and ethics of communication allow the greatest effect in achieving communicative goals. In this definition, it is important that it should provide the greatest effect is not at all (which is impossible), but in certain situations and for the intended (but not all) communication problems, and that this should be carried out in compliance with the modern language standards and ethics communication (Weber, 1990).

So a speech is good or bad, cannot be solved without taking into account its situation, the speaker set (writing) communication problems, but it sure is a speech in which he observed modern linguistic ...