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Файл:Discourse Strategies in Use. Учебное пособие
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Table 2 – Agreement and disagreement (continues)
It really looks like that.
I won’t deny that.
That’s a fine way of putting it.
That’s a good point.
That’s just what I was thinking.
On the surface of it really is … but …
Well, I’m not so sure.
Well, I wouldn’t go quite that far…
I wouldn’t say that exactly.
It might be right but …
3.2 Practical assignments
1) Were there any situations in your life when you didn’t dare to start a
conversation with a person? Describe one of them (if you had one).
2) TASK 1: What 3 “situational” excuses can you think over to start a
conversation?
- in the library
- on board a ship during the sea voyage
- at a birthday party
- in the Internet café
- in the circus before the performance
- at the bookstall
- walking along the street
- near the monument to some famous person
- in the sports club
- on seeing a person returning from the fishing trip
TASK 2: Think over 3 situations on the analogy for your fellow-students to invent
“situational” excuses for starting a conversation.
3) TASK 1: Start a conversation with a compliment:
- to a young girl
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- to a young woman with twins
- to a shop-assistant
- to a film-star
- to an old lady with a cat
TASK 2: Think over 3 compliment-starts for a conversation and ask your fellow
students to guess whom you are addressing to with such a conversation beginning.
4) While holding a conversation the speaker and the listener change their roles. Both
of them should be active in supporting each other with facts and questions and giving
adequate reactions to them. It’s very important to be an active listener. An active listener
doesn’t keep silence but reacts enthusiastically to the speakers utterances with questions
and comments.
Ex: - I bought a new car yesterday!
- Oh! Congratulations! I see you like it very much! What car model is it? (What
color is it?)
TASK 1: React as an active listener to the following phrases:
- I don’t like my new teacher of Geography!
- Jenny found such a lovely puppy in the street!
- I am going to visit my relatives in Spain this summer.
- John got into some trouble again!
- This dress doesn’t suit me.
- I read such an interesting article in this newspaper.
- Frank broke his right leg during the competitions.
- We are going to the concert hall.
- We lost this football match!
- I am so nervous about my exams!
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TASK 2: Think over 3-5 utterances on the analogy for your fellow-students to react
The speaker
The listener
1. asks for opinion
1. gives his / her opinion
2. re-asks for opinion
2. details the opinion and checks for
understanding
3. agrees / disagrees with the opinion of
the listener;
4. expresses his opinion.
as active listeners.
5) What information dialogues can be heard?
- at the theatre box-office
- at the ticket-office (railway station)
- at the baker’s
- at the University
- at the hospital
6) Make up opinion micro-dialogues on the topics given below following the plan
(table 3):
Table 3 – Plan
Topics for your dialogues:
- a film you watched together
- a design of a house
- a present for your common friend
- a country you want to visit together
- a course of lectures you want to attend together
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7) How will you start a conversation with every of these strangers? What can you
talk about? (picture 4)
Picture 4 – Conversation with a stranger
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4 Rhetorical Strategy
4.1 Theory
Rhetorical strategy is used to make your speech emphatic, sincere, captivating and,
of course, persuasive. But the most important function of this strategy is to attract and hold
the listener’s attention. Rhetorical techniques are used practically everywhere: in our
everyday dialogues of domestic character and in public speeches; in argumentative
persuasive discourse and in a manipulative one. They make our speech to be wellorganized and comprehensible. Now we will speak about rhetorical techniques irrespective
of the discourse type they are observed in.
Rhetorical means are known to us since the ancient times, that is, since the times of
ancient Greece and the Roman Empire. When an ancient student was to pass his exam in
Rhetorical Art, a white sheet was placed in some square, and the student was to prove it
being black in front of the crowd. Ancient students did it with the help of rhetorical means
we are going to talk about.
The most effective rhetorical means are considered to be the following ones:
1) Logical stress. Logical stress can completely change the intentional meaning of
your utterance. It can emphasize the necessary element of your utterance and distract the
listener’s attention from the intentionally “unwanted” ones.
Let’s change the meaning of the following utterance with the help of logical
stressing:
Ex: I want you to get this job.
I want you to get this job. (Not your mother or sister, but I!)
I want you to get this job. (Did you doubt it?)
I want you to get this job. (I can give it to John, but I want you to get it!)
I want you to get this job. (But not to loose it!)
I want you to get this job. (Exactly this job and not any others!)
I want you to get this job. (Only job and nothing else!)
While putting logical stress where necessary you can manipulate with the attention
and intentions of listeners, as while the attention of listeners is drawn to the stressed words
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and phrases, it is distracted from the rest ones. The simple illustrative example of this
mechanism may be the following one:
Ex: How many kinds of animals did Moses take into his Ark?
Many listeners try to remember the number of animals, but actually it wasn’t Moses
who built the Ark. It was Noah!
Similar to logical stress is syllabic pronunciation, when the speaker pronounces
some word or a group of words stressing every syllable. A very emphatic effect is created!
Ex: I am going to take part in congressional E-LEC-TION!
2) Rhetorical question is considered to be one of the strongest rhetorical figures. It
is an affirmative or negative statement which only assumes the form of a question. The use
of the interrogative form performs an expressive function since it implies direct
appellation to the listener’s opinion. The speaker never doubts what kind of answer to his
question can be expected, and the conclusion is left with the listener.
Ex: Once a famous Russian lawyer defended a poor old woman who had stolen a
bun. The public prosecutor claimed the crime to be petty but still breaking the foundations
of the Russian Empire (against all the odds it was a crime!). A famous Russian lawyer
replied: “The Russian Empire overcame the Tartar invasion, the wars with Turks and
Frenchmen. Will the Russian Empire be able to overcome the loss of one bun?” The old
woman was given a verdict of “not guilty”.
3) Repetition. It’s the most important rhetorical figure of all. Here we can speak
about:
The repetition of the main idea. Your main idea should be repeated no less than 3
times during your speech. But the repetition of your idea shouldn’t be observed in one and
the same wording as it makes the listener suspect the speaker of drumming this idea into
his or her head.
Ex: Our party will help everybody who needs it (in the beginning of a speech)! We’ll
try to support everybody who needs our help (in the middle part of a speech)! Our party
won’t leave you to the mercy of fate (in the end of the speech)!
Anaphora. It is the use of identical words at the beginning of two or more
contiguous sentences. The expressive purpose of anaphora is to imprint the elements,
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emphasized by repetition, in the listener’s memory, to impart a peculiar kind of rhythm to
the speech and to increase the sound harmony of your speech (thus drawing the listener’s
attention).
Ex: Like an earlier generation, America is answering new dangers with firm
resolve. Like an earlier generation, America is pursuing a clear strategy with our allies to
achieve victory (President Bush).
Epiphora. It is recurrence of identical elements in the end of two or more contiguous
utterances. Epiphora contributes to rhythmical regularity of speech, making prose
resemble poetry (thus having a great attractive and persuasive impact!).
Ex: Our hope is for better Britain. Our action is for better Britain. Our life is for
better Britain (Howard).
Syntactical parallelism means a more or less complete identity of syntactical
structures of two or more contiguous utterances. Parallelism is often accompanied by the
lexical identity of one or several members of each sentence. In this case parallelism serves
as a syntactical means of making the recurring parts prominent, more conspicuous than
their surroundings. Given above examples of anaphora and epiphora are also the examples
of parallelism.
4) Inversion. Any kind of deviation from the usual order of words in the sentence is
called inversion. It is placing a part of the sentence into a position unusual for it for the
purpose of emphasis. The initial position of a word or a phrase which do not usually
occupy this position makes them prominent and emphatic.
Compare: They went away. – Away they went.
5) Gradation. It means such an arrangement of ideas (notions) in which what
precedes is inferior to what follows. The first element is the weakest; the subsequent
elements gradually rise in strength.
Ex: I’m sorry. I am so very sorry. I am so extremely sorry.
6) Enumerative row. It is a group of ideas given in the form of enumeration with
the help of words First (firstly); Second (secondly); Third (thirdly); etc.
Ex: Firstly, we should lower our taxes; secondly, we should make our education
available for all groups of citizens; thirdly, we should help our pensioners (Howard).
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7) Antithesis. It is a confrontation of two notions which underlines the radical
difference between them.
Ex: It’s not about talking: it’s about doing.
4.2 Practical assignments
1) State the type of rhetorical figures in the following cases. What effect does their
use produce in every case?
1. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was
the age of foolishness… (Dickens)
2. The book has a power, so to speak, a very exceptional power; in fact, one may
say, without exaggeration it is the most powerful book of the month… (Leacock)
3. If this belief from heaven be sent?
If such be Nature’s holy plan,
Have I not reason to lament
What man has done of man? (Wordsworth)
4. I wake up and I’m alone, and I walk round Warley and I’m alone, and I talk with
people and I’m alone, and I look at his face when I’m home and it’s dead… (Braine)
5. Never in my life have I faced a sadder duty. It will always be with me. (Dreiser)
6. Supposing his head had been held under water for a while. Supposing he had been
shot. Supposing this way, that way, the other way. (Dickens)
7. Firstly, I don’t want to speak about it now; secondly, I don’t want to hear about it
now; thirdly, I don’t want to think about it at all! (Jerome)
2) TASK 1: Put a logical stress on every element of the following utterances (one
after another) thus changing their meaning. Explain how the meaning changed.
- I want to buy this doll for my daughter.
- John is my husband.
- She wrote that letter to her friend.
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TASK 2: Think over 3 examples of sentences for your fellow-students to change
their meaning with the help of logical stress.
3) TASK 1: Make utterances with antithesis confronting the following notions,
phenomena and ideas:
- love and hate
- black and white
- sweet and bitter
- happiness and grief
- men and women
- cleverness and stupidity
- day and night
- beauty and ugliness
- good and evil
- lie and truth
TASK 2: Think over 3 examples of confronted notions, phenomena and ideas for
your fellow-students to make sentences with antithesis.
4) TASK 1: You are given the epiphoric ends of the sentences. Make up the
beginnings of the sentences using at least 3 of them.
- …this is my country (3)!
- …wonderful (3)!
- …your friend (3)!
TASK 2: Think over 3 examples of epiphoric ends for your fellow-students to
complete them.
5) TASK 1: You are given the anaphoric beginnings of the sentences. Make up the
endings of the sentences using at least 3 of them.
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- All I want is (3)…
Howard: It's not about talking and promising. It's about doing and
delivering!
Speech in Loughborough
“In two days' time, people will go to the polls.
They can vote to keep things as they are. Or they can vote for a positive
change.
If they do, on Friday May the sixth, they will wake up to a brighter day for
our country.
Think about it: the first day of a government that starts taking action on the
things that matter to our country; a government that never stops taking action
on the things that matter.
It's not about talking: it's about doing.
It's not about promising: it's about delivering.
It's about helping the people who do the right thing; the people who play
by the rules; who work hard and who help themselves.
It's about action to clean up our hospitals so that people have the security
of knowing they'll get better not worse when they go in for treatment.
How? We'll put matron back where she belongs: in charge.
It's about action to make our streets safe so that pensioners no longer feel
- Never in my life I (3)…
- Undoubtedly (3), …
TASK 2: Think over 3 examples of the anaphoric beginnings for your fellow-
students to complete them.
6) Read the speech given below. What rhetorical figures were used in it? Is the
rhetorical strategy of this speech successful?
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