power of voice essay

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Don’t Underestimate the Power of Your Voice

Dan Bullock
Raúl Sánchez

It’s not just what you say, it’s how you say it.

Our voices matter as much as our words matter. They have the power to awaken the senses and lead others to act, close deals, or land us successful job interviews. Through our voices, we create nuances of meaning, convey our emotions, and find the secret to communicating our executive presence. So, how do we train our voices to be more visceral, effective, and command attention?

The key lies in harnessing our voices using the principles of vocalics. Vocalics primarily consists of three linguistic elements: stress (volume) , intonation (rising and falling tone), and rhythm (pacing). By combining vocalics with public speaking skills, we can colors our words with the meaning and emotion that motivates others to act.
Crank up your volume: No, we don’t mean shout. The effective use of volume goes beyond trying to be the loudest person in the room. To direct the flow of any conversation, you must overtly stress what linguists call focus words. When you intentionally place volume on certain words, you emphasize parts of a message and shift the direction of a conversation toward your preferred outcome.
Use a powerful speech style: The key to achieving a powerful speech style, particularly during job interviews and hiring decisions, is to first concentrate on the “melody” of your voice, also called intonation. This rise or fall of our voice conveys grammatical meaning (questions or statements) or even attitude (surprise, joy, sarcasm).
Calibrate your vocal rhythm with the right melody: Our messages are perceived differently depending on the way we use rhythm in our voices. Deliberately varying our pacing with compelling pauses creates “voiced” punctuation, a powerful way to hold the pulse of the moment.

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Dan Bullock is a language and communications specialist/trainer at the United Nations Secretariat, training diplomats and global UN staff. Dan is the co-author of How to Communicate Effectively with Anyone, Anywhere (Career Press, 2021). He also serves as faculty teaching business communication, linguistics, and public relations within the Division of Programs in Business at New York University’s School of Professional Studies. Dan was the director of corporate communications at a leading NYC public relations firm, and his corporate clients have included TD Bank and Pfizer.
Raúl Sánchez is an award-winning clinical assistant professor and the corporate program coordinator at New York University’s School of Professional Studies. Raúl is the co-author of How to Communicate Effectively with Anyone, Anywhere (Career Press, 2021). He has designed and delivered corporate trainings for Deloitte and the United Nations, as well as been a writing consultant for Barnes & Noble Press and PBS. Raúl was awarded the NYU School of Professional Studies Teaching Excellence Award and specializes in linguistics and business communication.

Writing Resources

Voice and analysis in your essay, the tour guide approach.

This handout is available for download in DOCX format and PDF format .

Several people have asked me what I mean when I ask for more VOICE in your essay. This is a great question, and it gets to the heart of what analysis looks like in a research paper. The goal of a research paper is to use the literature (your research) to support your own unique argument. This is different from a literature review, which simply reviews what others have said about a topic. In a research paper, there is some literature review, typically towards the beginning, but the larger goal is to DO SOMETHING with this literature to show your own take on the topic . This is analysis and it is what gives voice to your essay. One way to think about voice is to see yourself as the TOUR GUIDE of your essay.

Imagine a tour of a city. The guide's job is to take people from place to place, showing them things that make the city special. A mediocre guide might just say, "This is Westminster Abbey," "This is Big Ben," etc. They might provide facts, such as who is buried at Westminster Abbey, but they don't put any of the information in context. You might as well do a self-guided tour. This is the equivalent of a literature review: you describe all of the studies and theories, but you don't tell the reader what to do with this new knowledge. The EVIDENCE is there, but the ANALYSIS is missing.

Comic titled "The Burned-Out Tour Guide" showing a guide on a tour bus tiredly pointing and saying "And over there is some stuff I've seen, like, a million times." Credit: azilliondollarscomics.com.

On the other hand, a good tour guide doesn't just show you the buildings. Instead, they tell you about how these monuments reflect the history and culture of the city. They put the buildings into context to tell a story and give you a sense of place, time, purpose, etc. This is the equivalent of a good research paper. It takes evidence (data, observations, theories) and does something with it to communicate a new angle to your reader. It argues something, using the literature as a foundation on which to build the new, original argument.

Good tour guides (writers) insert their voice often. The voice can be heard in topic sentences , where the writer tells the reader how the paragraph fits into the larger argument (i.e., how it connects to the thesis). The voice can be heard in the analysis in the paragraphs as the writer tells the reader what has been learned and what it means for the larger argument. The voice often gets stronger as the essay progresses—especially since earlier paragraphs often contain more background information and later paragraphs are more likely to contain argument built on that background information. A good tour guide also:

Doesn't tell the reader things they already know
Doesn't over-explain or provide unnecessary detail
Doesn't rush— if they move too fast, their tour won't be able to keep up
Keeps things interesting (doesn't visit boring sites!)
Keeps things organized (no backtracking to sites they've already visited)

How to use this in your writing:

Analysis is any moment in which you tell the reader your interpretation, how ideas fit together, why something matters, etc. It is when your voice comes through, as opposed to the authors of the articles you cite.

What might analysis / tour guiding look like in a research essay?

Critique of the literature (methodological flaws, different interpretations of findings, etc.)
Resolution of contradictory evidence
Analysis of differing theories (in light of the evidence)
Incorporation of various lenses, e.g., cultural or societal influences, cross-cultural similarities or differences, etc.
Historical changes
Fusion of literature or topics that are not obviously related
Transitional language that connects pieces of the argument

Credit: Elissa Jacobs, University Writing Program

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The Power of Using your voice

A voice is a tool that transports us into the future. A future that has more possibilities and more solutions. A voice is a tool that can be used for standing up for what is right, rather than what is easy. A voice gives your opinions a platform, and gifts you with the opportunity to have perspective and knowledge on things that matter. No two voices are the same, each voice has something different to say. And in a world that needs to represent freedom and democracy, a voice is a powerful symbol of this. It is what has allowed people to protest injustice, to sing for freedom, or simply speak the truth. A voice can be a source of hope in difficult times.

Using your voice for the truth is important to create a better world. Everyone’s voice matters. It is important to not let yourself become silenced, because when a voice is not used it prevents the opportunity for a true democracy where each voice is valued in a peaceful manner. Voices convey passion and excitement; voices can convey anything, whether it’s a feeling, a place, or an idea. In a way, voices are a superpower if you know how to use it.

Voices can be used to create change. People can take anything material from you, but your voice is one of the things that cannot be taken away. Voices are meant to encourage other voices too, to unite and support each other. One of the most powerful things someone can do is to use their voice.

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The Power of Voice in "My Last Duchess"

Categories: My Last Duchess Robert Browning Voice

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Published: Jul 18, 2018

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20 Sep, 2019 |

The power of your voice.

Up with People study abroad students perform in Europe

Incredible people throughout history have used their voices to create change. Maya Angelou was a poet and an activist who used her voice in support of the Civil Rights Movement. Jazz Jennings is a teenager who got her claim to fame by becoming an American YouTube personality as an LGBT rights activist and a transgender woman.

The misconception is that you don’t have to be famous or have a million followers on Instagram to be able to empower someone or make a difference in the lives of others. There are many ways, both big and small, you can use your voice for the betterment of communities throughout the globe, despite how young or old you may be.

Express generosity, compassion, and understanding with complete strangers.

There is something spectacular that happens when a complete stranger passes you in the street and compliments your shoes or holds a door open for you for fifteen minutes because they see you coming a mile away and weirdly enough still says “thank you” instead of “you’re welcome” like you just did them the favor.

While receiving is a great feeling, giving is exponentially more rewarding. Maybe you see someone on the subway who has been crying and you tell them, “Everything is going to be okay,” even though you don’t know their true circumstances. Use your voice to express something positive to someone you don’t know. It could easily make their day, and yours, too.

Empower someone who is younger than you.

Through music, books, movies, and social media, there are many ways in which we are influenced. Whether it is how we look on the outside or what types of things we think are “cool,” there will always be outside sources in society telling us what we should and should not like. Children and teenagers are more susceptible to the influences of various media sources than adults are because their minds are still trying to figure out who they really are.

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Speaking of social media…

Since we are on the topic of social media, you can always vocalize through text, photos, or videos. We are lucky enough to be living in a digital age of fast and easy communication. It allows us to be a part of something bigger and connect with people all around the world. Whether you are advocating for environmental change or just sending out positive vibes to your followers, you can use social media for good whether you have ten friends or ten million likes.

Use your voice for forgiveness.

Did you know that holding grudges can actually be bad not only for your mental health but for your physical health too? Negative emotions can lead to increased anxiety or depression, which can ultimately increase your blood pressure and heart rate. It can also cause physical pain in your body like lower back discomfort or arthritis. Take some time to reflect on the grudges you hold in your life. Speak to those people and use the power of your voice to forgive someone. It will not only make you feel better, but it will also help provide a sense of gratitude from the person receiving your forgiveness.

There are many ways in which you can use the power of your voice for good. In what way will you use your voice today?

Video: An Experiment in Gratitude – The Science of Happiness

“Love, I was confused and made you wait I should have listened to my heart, I shouldn’t need to validate Who I love, now I’ve finally been set free Cause the person here in front of you, He’s finally, really, me.” Really Me © Up with People

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The Power of the Human Voice

Posted on August 8, 2014 by the Editor

It takes the human voice to infuse words with shades of deeper meaning. The role of the human voice in giving deeper meaning to words is crucial when one looks at the significance of denotative and connotative meanings of expressions. For example, one person can utter the following words: l am thirsty . The surface or general meaning is that the person needs some water. However, depending on the context of the utterance, in terms of the reason for such expression, the role and position of the speaker-on a deeper or connotative basis the same words could mean: Give me some water now! In which case: I am thirsty would galvanise the person receiving the order to fetch water as quickly as humanly possible.

The human voice is able to infuse words with shades of deeper meaning because that power of speech can unearth the real intentions, mood, character, identity and culture of the speaker in question. It is easy for a person to write down something and mislead his or her audience or the entire world. However, once one has an opportunity to physically interact with and listen to the person`s voice- the real emotional, physical and cultural elements of the speaker can be easily picked up and placed in their right perspective. By the same token, actors, educators, editors, politicians, religious leaders, advertisers, insurance agents, singers, writers, inspirational speakers suffuse their voices with certain words to successfully appeal to their audiences.

Verbal communication is unique to humans. Human beings are emotional creatures. The human voice is thought to convey emotional valence, arousal and intensity. Music is a powerful medium capable of eliciting a broad range of emotions. The ability to detect emotion in speech and music is an important task in our daily lives. Studies have been conducted to determine why and how music is able to influence its listeners’ moods and emotions. Results showed that melodies with the voice were better recognised than all other instrumental melodies. The authors suggest that the biological significance of the human voice provides a greater depth of processing and enhanced memory.

Think about a normal day in one’s life. How many words does a person speak? How many words do you hear? According to Caleb Lott in the article titled: The Power of the Human Voice , while there are several different numbers floating around, an average human speaks a minimum of 7000 words every day. The same writer goes on to say that the human voice is a tremendous asset which can be used to make the ordinary extraordinary. For example, the games Thomas Was Alone and Bastion use the human voice in a unique way that dynamically affects the players’ experiences of the games. This is so because a narrative-focused game is not only a powerful and amazing way to tell the story but also does so in a way that the visuals cannot convey. The writing is amazing, but without the awe-inspiring narration, the impact of the writing would be lessened.

The human voice is an amazing tool that can have a profound effect on video games. Using a narrator affects the gameplay and the experience the player remembers after walking away from the game. Think of being held in awe, listening to the radio where the mellifluous voices of one`s favourite program’s hosts awaken, mesmerise, excite or sooth one. This boils down to the fact that our visceral reactions to the ways people play form an integral part of our interactions and communication. Annie Tucker Morgan in Talk to Me: The Powerful Effects of the Human Voice says there is a reason why many people’s first instinct when they are upset is to call their mother. Mother’s love is not only enduring but it is something strong that a person finds echoing instinctively and emotionally. She goes on to explain how a University of Wisconsin -Madison study has identified a concrete link between the sound of Mom’s voice and the soothing of jangled nerves through the release of stress-relieving oxytocin -also known as the “love hormone” in the brain. Researchers say that women prefer deep male voices on the condition that those voices are saying complementary things, but also that a woman’s particular preference for the pitch of a male voice depends on the pitch of her own. Jeffrey Jacob, founder and president of Persuasive Speaking highlighted the correlation between people’s voices and their professional and personal successes. A study conducted showed that if the other person does not like the sound of one’s voice, one might have a hard time securing his or her approval.

If we do not verbalise we write down things. Is writing not something of great magnificence? If so, why can we not make a difference?

The world has never been static, so has writing. It is dynamic. It makes the world revel and reveal itself. Out went the traditional writing feather or pen, and in surged the typewriter, then the “wise” computer. Kudos, the world crooned in celebration of probably one of civilization’s amazing conquest and result.

However, this does not mean that the pen is down and out. Not at all. Neither does it mean that the pen has ceased to be mightier than the sword. Writing is writing whether by virtue of the might of the pen or the wizardry of the computer. In verbal communication one can detect the power of the human voice and the mood of the speaker through such elements of speech as intonation, speed, pause, pitch and emphasis. In the written text, register and paragraphing (for example through the use exclamations) can help detect the speaker’s intentions and emotions.

Different words mean different things to different people. How do writers hold the attention of readers? Through the beauty of words, story-telling helps us derive entertainment from reading, escape from an onerous or anxious life, and of course, understand more about of the world. Through words writers create plots that are not devoid of suspense and mystery. Watts in Writing A Novel says, “A plot is like a knitted sweater-only as good as the stitches. Without the links we have a tangle of wool, chaotic and uninteresting. We get immersed in reading because of the power of causality, the power of words. Words play a crucial role in creating a work of art like a novel. Watts in Writing A Novel says a good answer to a narrative question is as satisfying as scratching an itch.

Through writing we find courage, ammunition and inspiration to go on, in spite of all the odds, we find vision to define and refine our identities and destinies. Yes, through writing we find ourselves, our voice and verve.

J.D. Salinger came up with an interesting observation. He said “What really knocks me out is a book that, when you’re all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn’t happen much, though.” Are you not ready to knock many a reader out? Are you not ready to unleash your greatness? How many writers are sitting on their works of art?

Writers and words are good bedfellows. Pass that word. Maya Angelou, the famous author of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings says “Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with shades of deeper meaning.” A word is a unit of expression which is intertwined with sight, sound, smell, touch, and body movement. I think it is memorable (and obviously powerful) because it appeals to our physical, emotional and intellectual processes. As language practitioners, this knowledge (of the mental schema) is crucial.

What is in a word? For me, words illuminate, revel and reveal the world. Literature is literature because of words that constitute it. Patrick Rothfuss says, “Words are pale shadows of forgotten names. As names have power, words have power. Words can light fires in the minds of men. Words can wring tears from the hardest hearts.” Yet, Rudyard Kipling claims, “Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind” I think this is a very interesting observation.

Patrick Rothfuss illustrates this by declaring, “Words are pale shadows of forgotten names. As names have power, words have power. Words can light fires in the minds of men. Words can wring tears from the hardest hearts.”

The beauty of literature is in seeking and gaining an insight into the complexity and diversity of life through the analysis of how the human voice infuses words with shades of deeper meaning. For indeed the dynamic human voice can roar, soar and breathe life into different pregnant clouds of words and meanings.

14 comments on “ The Power of the Human Voice ”

Powerful essay, indeed the human voice has power to articulate emotions, ideas, perception, convictions and so much more and by so doing, breathing life into words.

Henry, thank you for your great words of encouragement.

Wonderful! Spoken words externalise how the speaker perceive the world, how the speaker feels inside…..

Francisco, thank you for stopping by!

Indeed what a wonderful piece of literature,It reminds me of my secondary education days back in the early 1980s when I did “ANIMAL FARM ” by Charles Dickens.

Mr. Mlotshwa, thank you for stopping by. Much appreciated.

Speechless! the language in this piece is just amazing.Well done Mr Ndaba

Khalaz, thank you!

this is a very nice and awesome essay. Great job! 😀

Musa, many thanks!

Ndaba is a compelling writer. An informative piec

Claire, thank you. Humbled.

Wow. This is very excellent, well-written,powerful and informative. You are a great writer. Keep writing.

Tshego, thank you for your kind words!

Silence and powerlessness go hand in hand – women’s voices must be heard

Being unable to tell your story is a living death. The right to speak is a form of wealth that is being redistributed. No wonder powerful men are furious

S ilence is golden, or so I was told when I was young. Later, everything changed. Silence equals death, the queer activists fighting the neglect and repression around Aids shouted in the streets. Silence is the ocean of the unsaid, the unspeakable, the repressed, the erased, the unheard. It surrounds the scattered islands made up of those allowed to speak and of what can be said and who listens.

Silence occurs in many ways for many reasons; each of us has his or her own sea of unspoken words. English is full of overlapping words, but for the purposes of this essay, regard silence as what is imposed, and quiet as what is sought. The tranquillity of a quiet place, of quieting one’s own mind, of a retreat from words and bustle is acoustically the same as the silence of intimidation or repression, but psychically and politically something entirely different. What is unsaid because serenity and introspection are sought and what is not said because the threats are high or the barriers are great are as different as swimming is from drowning. Quiet is to noise as silence is to communication.

The quiet of the listener makes room for the speech of others, like the quiet of the reader taking in words on the page, like the white of the paper taking ink. “We are volcanoes,” Ursula Le Guin once remarked. “When we women offer our experience as our truth, as human truth, all the maps change. There are new mountains.” The new voices that are undersea volcanoes erupt in what was mistaken for open water, and new islands are born; it’s a furious business and a startling one. The world changes. Silence is what allows people to suffer without recourse, what allows hypocrisies and lies to grow and flourish, crimes to go unpunished. If our voices are essential aspects of our humanity, to be rendered voiceless is to be dehumanised or excluded from one’s humanity. And the history of silence is central to women’s history.

Words bring us together, and silence separates us, leaves us bereft of the help or solidarity or just communion that speech can solicit or elicit. Some species of trees spread root systems underground that interconnect the individual trunks and weave the individual trees into a more stable whole that can’t so easily be blown down in the wind. Stories and conversations are like those roots.

Being unable to tell your story is a living death, and sometimes a literal one. If no one listens when you say your ex-husband is trying to kill you, if no one believes you when you say you are in pain, if no one hears you when you say help, if you don’t dare say help, if you have been trained not to bother people by saying help. If you are considered to be out of line when you speak up in a meeting, are not admitted into an institution of power, are subject to irrelevant criticism whose subtext is that women should not be here or heard.

Stories save your life. And stories are your life. We are our stories; stories that can be both prison and the crowbar to break open the door of that prison. We make stories to save ourselves or to trap ourselves or others – stories that lift us up or smash us against the stone wall of our own limits and fears. Liberation is always in part a storytelling process: breaking stories, breaking silences, making new stories. A free person tells her own story. A valued person lives in a society in which her story has a place.

Violence against women is often against our voices and our stories. It is a refusal of our voices, and of what a voice means: the right to self-determination, to participation, to consent or dissent; to live and participate, to interpret and narrate.

A husband hits his wife to silence her. A date rapist or acquaintance rapist refuses to let the “no” of his victim mean what it should, that she alone has jurisdiction over her body. Rape culture asserts that women’s testimony is worthless, untrustworthy. Anti-abortion activists also seek to silence the self-determination of women. A murderer silences forever.

These are assertions that the victim has no rights, no value – is not an equal.

Other silencings take place in smaller ways: the people harassed and badgered into silence online, talked over and cut out in conversation, belittled, humiliated, dismissed.

Having a voice is crucial. It’s not all there is to human rights, but it’s central to them, and so you can consider the history of women’s rights and lack of rights as a history of silence and breaking silence. Speech, words, voices sometimes change things in themselves when they bring about inclusion, recognition: the rehumanisation that undoes dehumanisation. Sometimes they are only the preconditions to changing rules, laws, regimes to bring about justice and liberty.

Sometimes just being able to speak, to be heard, to be believed, are crucial parts of membership in a family, a community, a society. Sometimes our voices break those things apart; sometimes those things are prisons.

And then when words break through unspeakability, what was tolerated by a society sometimes becomes intolerable. Those not impacted can fail to see or feel the impact of segregation or police brutality or domestic violence; stories bring home the trouble and make it unavoidable.

By voice, I don’t mean only literal voice – the sound produced by the vocal cords in the ears of others – but the ability to speak up, to participate, to experience oneself and be experienced as a free person with rights. This includes the right not to speak, whether it’s the right against being tortured to confess, as political prisoners are, or not to be expected to service strangers who approach you, as some men do to young women, demanding attention and flattery and punishing their absence.

Who has been unheard? The sea is vast, and the surface of the ocean is unmappable. We know who has, mostly, been heard on the official subjects; who held office, commanded armies, served as judges and juries, wrote books, and ran empires over past several centuries. We know how it has changed somewhat, thanks to the countless revolutions of the 20th century and after – against colonialism, racism, misogyny, against the innumerable enforced silences homophobia imposed, and so much more. We know that in the US, class was levelled out to some extent in the 20th century and then reinforced towards the end, through income inequality and the withering away of social mobility and the rise of a new extreme elite. Poverty silences.

Silence is what allowed predators to rampage through the decades unchecked. It’s as though the voices of these prominent public men devoured the voices of others into nothingness, a narrative cannibalism. They rendered them voiceless to refuse and afflicted with unbelievable stories. Unbelievable means those with power did not want to know, to hear, to believe, did not want them to have voices. People died from being unheard.

If the right to speak, if having credibility, if being heard is a kind of wealth, that wealth is now being redistributed. There has long been an elite with audibility and credibility, and an underclass of the voiceless.

As the wealth is redistributed, the stunned incomprehension of the elites erupts over and over again, a fury and disbelief that this woman or child dared to speak up, that people deigned to believe her, that her voice counts for something, that her truth may end a powerful man’s reign. These voices, heard, upend power relations.

A hotel cleaner launched the beginning of the end of IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s career . Women have ended the careers of stars in many fields – or rather those stars have destroyed themselves by acts they engaged in, believing that they had the impunity that comes with their victims’ powerlessness. Many had impunity for years, some for lifetimes; many have now found they no longer do.

Who is heard and who is not defines the status quo. Those who embody it, often at the cost of extraordinary silences with themselves, move to the centre; those who embody what is not heard, or what violates those who rise on silence, are cast out.

By redefining whose voice is valued, we redefine our society and its values.

International Women's Day
Domestic violence

Article contents

Language and power.

Sik Hung Ng Sik Hung Ng Department of Psychology, Renmin University of China
and Fei Deng Fei Deng School of Foreign Studies, South China Agricultural University
https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.013.436
Published online: 22 August 2017

Five dynamic language–power relationships in communication have emerged from critical language studies, sociolinguistics, conversation analysis, and the social psychology of language and communication. Two of them stem from preexisting powers behind language that it reveals and reflects, thereby transferring the extralinguistic powers to the communication context. Such powers exist at both the micro and macro levels. At the micro level, the power behind language is a speaker’s possession of a weapon, money, high social status, or other attractive personal qualities—by revealing them in convincing language, the speaker influences the hearer. At the macro level, the power behind language is the collective power (ethnolinguistic vitality) of the communities that speak the language. The dominance of English as a global language and international lingua franca, for example, has less to do with its linguistic quality and more to do with the ethnolinguistic vitality of English-speakers worldwide that it reflects. The other three language–power relationships refer to the powers of language that are based on a language’s communicative versatility and its broad range of cognitive, communicative, social, and identity functions in meaning-making, social interaction, and language policies. Such language powers include, first, the power of language to maintain existing dominance in legal, sexist, racist, and ageist discourses that favor particular groups of language users over others. Another language power is its immense impact on national unity and discord. The third language power is its ability to create influence through single words (e.g., metaphors), oratories, conversations and narratives in political campaigns, emergence of leaders, terrorist narratives, and so forth.

power behind language
power of language
intergroup communication
World Englishes
oratorical power
conversational power
leader emergence
al-Qaeda narrative
social identity approach

Introduction

Language is for communication and power.

Language is a natural human system of conventionalized symbols that have understood meanings. Through it humans express and communicate their private thoughts and feelings as well as enact various social functions. The social functions include co-constructing social reality between and among individuals, performing and coordinating social actions such as conversing, arguing, cheating, and telling people what they should or should not do. Language is also a public marker of ethnolinguistic, national, or religious identity, so strong that people are willing to go to war for its defense, just as they would defend other markers of social identity, such as their national flag. These cognitive, communicative, social, and identity functions make language a fundamental medium of human communication. Language is also a versatile communication medium, often and widely used in tandem with music, pictures, and actions to amplify its power. Silence, too, adds to the force of speech when it is used strategically to speak louder than words. The wide range of language functions and its versatility combine to make language powerful. Even so, this is only one part of what is in fact a dynamic relationship between language and power. The other part is that there is preexisting power behind language which it reveals and reflects, thereby transferring extralinguistic power to the communication context. It is thus important to delineate the language–power relationships and their implications for human communication.

This chapter provides a systematic account of the dynamic interrelationships between language and power, not comprehensively for lack of space, but sufficiently focused so as to align with the intergroup communication theme of the present volume. The term “intergroup communication” will be used herein to refer to an intergroup perspective on communication, which stresses intergroup processes underlying communication and is not restricted to any particular form of intergroup communication such as interethnic or intergender communication, important though they are. It echoes the pioneering attempts to develop an intergroup perspective on the social psychology of language and communication behavior made by pioneers drawn from communication, social psychology, and cognate fields (see Harwood et al., 2005 ). This intergroup perspective has fostered the development of intergroup communication as a discipline distinct from and complementing the discipline of interpersonal communication. One of its insights is that apparently interpersonal communication is in fact dynamically intergroup (Dragojevic & Giles, 2014 ). For this and other reasons, an intergroup perspective on language and communication behavior has proved surprisingly useful in revealing intergroup processes in health communication (Jones & Watson, 2012 ), media communication (Harwood & Roy, 2005 ), and communication in a variety of organizational contexts (Giles, 2012 ).

The major theoretical foundation that has underpinned the intergroup perspective is social identity theory (Tajfel, 1982 ), which continues to service the field as a metatheory (Abrams & Hogg, 2004 ) alongside relatively more specialized theories such as ethnolinguistic identity theory (Harwood et al., 1994 ), communication accommodation theory (Palomares et al., 2016 ), and self-categorization theory applied to intergroup communication (Reid et al., 2005 ). Against this backdrop, this chapter will be less concerned with any particular social category of intergroup communication or variant of social identity theory, and more with developing a conceptual framework of looking at the language–power relationships and their implications for understanding intergroup communication. Readers interested in an intra- or interpersonal perspective may refer to the volume edited by Holtgraves ( 2014a ).

Conceptual Approaches to Power

Bertrand Russell, logician cum philosopher and social activist, published a relatively little-known book on power when World War II was looming large in Europe (Russell, 2004 ). In it he asserted the fundamental importance of the concept of power in the social sciences and likened its importance to the concept of energy in the physical sciences. But unlike physical energy, which can be defined in a formula (e.g., E=MC 2 ), social power has defied any such definition. This state of affairs is not unexpected because the very nature of (social) power is elusive. Foucault ( 1979 , p. 92) has put it this way: “Power is everywhere, not because it embraces everything, but because it comes from everywhere.” This view is not beyond criticism but it does highlight the elusiveness of power. Power is also a value-laden concept meaning different things to different people. To functional theorists and power-wielders, power is “power to,” a responsibility to unite people and do good for all. To conflict theorists and those who are dominated, power is “power over,” which corrupts and is a source of social conflict rather than integration (Lenski, 1966 ; Sassenberg et al., 2014 ). These entrenched views surface in management–labor negotiations and political debates between government and opposition. Management and government would try to frame the negotiation in terms of “power to,” whereas labor and opposition would try to frame the same in “power over” in a clash of power discourses. The two discourses also interchange when the same speakers reverse their power relations: While in opposition, politicians adhere to “power over” rhetorics, once in government, they talk “power to.” And vice versa.

The elusive and value-laden nature of power has led to a plurality of theoretical and conceptual approaches. Five approaches that are particularly pertinent to the language–power relationships will be discussed, and briefly so because of space limitation. One approach views power in terms of structural dominance in society by groups who own and/or control the economy, the government, and other social institutions. Another approach views power as the production of intended effects by overcoming resistance that arises from objective conflict of interests or from psychological reactance to being coerced, manipulated, or unfairly treated. A complementary approach, represented by Kurt Lewin’s field theory, takes the view that power is not the actual production of effects but the potential for doing this. It looks behind power to find out the sources or bases of this potential, which may stem from the power-wielders’ access to the means of punishment, reward, and information, as well as from their perceived expertise and legitimacy (Raven, 2008 ). A fourth approach views power in terms of the balance of control/dependence in the ongoing social exchange between two actors that takes place either in the absence or presence of third parties. It provides a structural account of power-balancing mechanisms in social networking (Emerson, 1962 ), and forms the basis for combining with symbolic interaction theory, which brings in subjective factors such as shared social cognition and affects for the analysis of power in interpersonal and intergroup negotiation (Stolte, 1987 ). The fifth, social identity approach digs behind the social exchange account, which has started from control/dependence as a given but has left it unexplained, to propose a three-process model of power emergence (Turner, 2005 ). According to this model, it is psychological group formation and associated group-based social identity that produce influence; influence then cumulates to form the basis of power, which in turn leads to the control of resources.

Common to the five approaches above is the recognition that power is dynamic in its usage and can transform from one form of power to another. Lukes ( 2005 ) has attempted to articulate three different forms or faces of power called “dimensions.” The first, behavioral dimension of power refers to decision-making power that is manifest in the open contest for dominance in situations of objective conflict of interests. Non-decision-making power, the second dimension, is power behind the scene. It involves the mobilization of organizational bias (e.g., agenda fixing) to keep conflict of interests from surfacing to become public issues and to deprive oppositions of a communication platform to raise their voices, thereby limiting the scope of decision-making to only “safe” issues that would not challenge the interests of the power-wielder. The third dimension is ideological and works by socializing people’s needs and values so that they want the wants and do the things wanted by the power-wielders, willingly as their own. Conflict of interests, opposition, and resistance would be absent from this form of power, not because they have been maneuvered out of the contest as in the case of non-decision-making power, but because the people who are subject to power are no longer aware of any conflict of interest in the power relationship, which may otherwise ferment opposition and resistance. Power in this form can be exercised without the application of coercion or reward, and without arousing perceived manipulation or conflict of interests.

Language–Power Relationships

As indicated in the chapter title, discussion will focus on the language–power relationships, and not on language alone or power alone, in intergroup communication. It draws from all the five approaches to power and can be grouped for discussion under the power behind language and the power of language. In the former, language is viewed as having no power of its own and yet can produce influence and control by revealing the power behind the speaker. Language also reflects the collective/historical power of the language community that uses it. In the case of modern English, its preeminent status as a global language and international lingua franca has shaped the communication between native and nonnative English speakers because of the power of the English-speaking world that it reflects, rather than because of its linguistic superiority. In both cases, language provides a widely used conventional means to transfer extralinguistic power to the communication context. Research on the power of language takes the view that language has power of its own. This power allows a language to maintain the power behind it, unite or divide a nation, and create influence.

In Figure 1 we have grouped the five language–power relationships into five boxes. Note that the boundary between any two boxes is not meant to be rigid but permeable. For example, by revealing the power behind a message (box 1), a message can create influence (box 5). As another example, language does not passively reflect the power of the language community that uses it (box 2), but also, through its spread to other language communities, generates power to maintain its preeminence among languages (box 3). This expansive process of language power can be seen in the rise of English to global language status. A similar expansive process also applies to a particular language style that first reflects the power of the language subcommunity who uses the style, and then, through its common acceptance and usage by other subcommunities in the country, maintains the power of the subcommunity concerned. A prime example of this type of expansive process is linguistic sexism, which reflects preexisting male dominance in society and then, through its common usage by both sexes, contributes to the maintenance of male dominance. Other examples are linguistic racism and the language style of the legal profession, each of which, like linguistic sexism and the preeminence of the English language worldwide, has considerable impact on individuals and society at large.

Space precludes a full discussion of all five language–power relationships. Instead, some of them will warrant only a brief mention, whereas others will be presented in greater detail. The complexity of the language–power relations and their cross-disciplinary ramifications will be evident in the multiple sets of interrelated literatures that we cite from. These include the social psychology of language and communication, critical language studies (Fairclough, 1989 ), sociolinguistics (Kachru, 1992 ), and conversation analysis (Sacks et al., 1974 ).

Figure 1. Power behind language and power of language.

Power Behind Language

Language reveals power.

When negotiating with police, a gang may issue the threatening message, “Meet our demands, or we will shoot the hostages!” The threatening message may succeed in coercing the police to submit; its power, however, is more apparent than real because it is based on the guns gangsters posses. The message merely reveals the power of a weapon in their possession. Apart from revealing power, the gangsters may also cheat. As long as the message comes across as credible and convincing enough to arouse overwhelming fear, it would allow them to get away with their demands without actually possessing any weapon. In this case, language is used to produce an intended effect despite resistance by deceptively revealing a nonexisting power base and planting it in the mind of the message recipient. The literature on linguistic deception illustrates the widespread deceptive use of language-reveals-power to produce intended effects despite resistance (Robinson, 1996 ).

Language Reflects Power

Ethnolinguistic vitality.

The language that a person uses reflects the language community’s power. A useful way to think about a language community’s linguistic power is through the ethnolinguistic vitality model (Bourhis et al., 1981 ; Harwood et al., 1994 ). Language communities in a country vary in absolute size overall and, just as important, a relative numeric concentration in particular regions. Francophone Canadians, though fewer than Anglophone Canadians overall, are concentrated in Quebec to give them the power of numbers there. Similarly, ethnic minorities in mainland China have considerable power of numbers in those autonomous regions where they are concentrated, such as Inner Mongolia, Tibet, and Xinjiang. Collectively, these factors form the demographic base of the language community’s ethnolinguistic vitality, an index of the community’s relative linguistic dominance. Another base of ethnolinguistic vitality is institutional representations of the language community in government, legislatures, education, religion, the media, and so forth, which afford its members institutional leadership, influence, and control. Such institutional representation is often reinforced by a language policy that installs the language as the nation’s sole official language. The third base of ethnolinguistic vitality comprises sociohistorical and cultural status of the language community inside the nation and internationally. In short, the dominant language of a nation is one that comes from and reflects the high ethnolinguistic vitality of its language community.

An important finding of ethnolinguistic vitality research is that it is perceived vitality, and not so much its objective demographic-institutional-cultural strengths, that influences language behavior in interpersonal and intergroup contexts. Interestingly, the visibility and salience of languages shown on public and commercial signs, referred to as the “linguistic landscape,” serve important informational and symbolic functions as a marker of their relative vitality, which in turn affects the use of in-group language in institutional settings (Cenoz & Gorter, 2006 ; Landry & Bourhis, 1997 ).

World Englishes and Lingua Franca English

Another field of research on the power behind and reflected in language is “World Englishes.” At the height of the British Empire English spread on the back of the Industrial Revolution and through large-scale migrations of Britons to the “New World,” which has since become the core of an “inner circle” of traditional native English-speaking nations now led by the United States (Kachru, 1992 ). The emergent wealth and power of these nations has maintained English despite the decline of the British Empire after World War II. In the post-War era, English has become internationalized with the support of an “outer circle” nations and, later, through its spread to “expanding circle” nations. Outer circle nations are made up mostly of former British colonies such as India, Pakistan, and Nigeria. In compliance with colonial language policies that institutionalized English as the new colonial national language, a sizeable proportion of the colonial populations has learned and continued using English over generations, thereby vastly increasing the number of English speakers over and above those in the inner circle nations. The expanding circle encompasses nations where English has played no historical government roles, but which are keen to appropriate English as the preeminent foreign language for local purposes such as national development, internationalization of higher education, and participation in globalization (e.g., China, Indonesia, South Korea, Japan, Egypt, Israel, and continental Europe).

English is becoming a global language with official or special status in at least 75 countries (British Council, n.d. ). It is also the language choice in international organizations and companies, as well as academia, and is commonly used in trade, international mass media, and entertainment, and over the Internet as the main source of information. English native speakers can now follow the worldwide English language track to find jobs overseas without having to learn the local language and may instead enjoy a competitive language advantage where the job requires English proficiency. This situation is a far cry from the colonial era when similar advantages had to come under political patronage. Alongside English native speakers who work overseas benefitting from the preeminence of English over other languages, a new phenomenon of outsourcing international call centers away from the United Kingdom and the United States has emerged (Friginal, 2007 ). Callers can find the information or help they need from people stationed in remote places such as India or the Philippines where English has penetrated.

As English spreads worldwide, it has also become the major international lingua franca, serving some 800 million multilinguals in Asia alone, and numerous others elsewhere (Bolton, 2008 ). The practical importance of this phenomenon and its impact on English vocabulary, grammar, and accent have led to the emergence of a new field of research called “English as a lingua franca” (Brosch, 2015 ). The twin developments of World Englishes and lingua franca English raise interesting and important research questions. A vast area of research lies in waiting.

Several lines of research suggest themselves from an intergroup communication perspective. How communicatively effective are English native speakers who are international civil servants in organizations such as the UN and WTO, where they habitually speak as if they were addressing their fellow natives without accommodating to the international audience? Another line of research is lingua franca English communication between two English nonnative speakers. Their common use of English signals a joint willingness of linguistic accommodation, motivated more by communication efficiency of getting messages across and less by concerns of their respective ethnolinguistic identities. An intergroup communication perspective, however, would sensitize researchers to social identity processes and nonaccommodation behaviors underneath lingua franca communication. For example, two nationals from two different countries, X and Y, communicating with each other in English are accommodating on the language level; at the same time they may, according to communication accommodation theory, use their respective X English and Y English for asserting their ethnolinguistic distinctiveness whilst maintaining a surface appearance of accommodation. There are other possibilities. According to a survey of attitudes toward English accents, attachment to “standard” native speaker models remains strong among nonnative English speakers in many countries (Jenkins, 2009 ). This suggests that our hypothetical X and Y may, in addition to asserting their respective Englishes, try to outperform one another in speaking with overcorrect standard English accents, not so much because they want to assert their respective ethnolinguistic identities, but because they want to project a common in-group identity for positive social comparison—“We are all English-speakers but I am a better one than you!”

Many countries in the expanding circle nations are keen to appropriate English for local purposes, encouraging their students and especially their educational elites to learn English as a foreign language. A prime example is the Learn-English Movement in China. It has affected generations of students and teachers over the past 30 years and consumed a vast amount of resources. The results are mixed. Even more disturbing, discontents and backlashes have emerged from anti-English Chinese motivated to protect the vitality and cultural values of the Chinese language (Sun et al., 2016 ). The power behind and reflected in modern English has widespread and far-reaching consequences in need of more systematic research.

Power of Language

Language maintains existing dominance.

Language maintains and reproduces existing dominance in three different ways represented respectively by the ascent of English, linguistic sexism, and legal language style. For reasons already noted, English has become a global language, an international lingua franca, and an indispensable medium for nonnative English speaking countries to participate in the globalized world. Phillipson ( 2009 ) referred to this phenomenon as “linguistic imperialism.” It is ironic that as the spread of English has increased the extent of multilingualism of non-English-speaking nations, English native speakers in the inner circle of nations have largely remained English-only. This puts pressure on the rest of the world to accommodate them in English, the widespread use of which maintains its preeminence among languages.

A language evolves and changes to adapt to socially accepted word meanings, grammatical rules, accents, and other manners of speaking. What is acceptable or unacceptable reflects common usage and hence the numerical influence of users, but also the elites’ particular language preferences and communication styles. Research on linguistic sexism has shown, for example, a man-made language such as English (there are many others) is imbued with sexist words and grammatical rules that reflect historical male dominance in society. Its uncritical usage routinely by both sexes in daily life has in turn naturalized male dominance and associated sexist inequalities (Spender, 1998 ). Similar other examples are racist (Reisigl & Wodak, 2005 ) and ageist (Ryan et al., 1995 ) language styles.

Professional languages are made by and for particular professions such as the legal profession (Danet, 1980 ; Mertz et al., 2016 ; O’Barr, 1982 ). The legal language is used not only among members of the profession, but also with the general public, who may know each and every word in a legal document but are still unable to decipher its meaning. Through its language, the legal profession maintains its professional dominance with the complicity of the general public, who submits to the use of the language and accedes to the profession’s authority in interpreting its meanings in matters relating to their legal rights and obligations. Communication between lawyers and their “clients” is not only problematic, but the public’s continual dependence on the legal language contributes to the maintenance of the dominance of the profession.

Language Unites and Divides a Nation

A nation of many peoples who, despite their diverse cultural and ethnic background, all speak in the same tongue and write in the same script would reap the benefit of the unifying power of a common language. The power of the language to unite peoples would be stronger if it has become part of their common national identity and contributed to its vitality and psychological distinctiveness. Such power has often been seized upon by national leaders and intellectuals to unify their countries and serve other nationalistic purposes (Patten, 2006 ). In China, for example, Emperor Qin Shi Huang standardized the Chinese script ( hanzi ) as an important part of the reforms to unify the country after he had defeated the other states and brought the Warring States Period ( 475–221 bc ) to an end. A similar reform of language standardization was set in motion soon after the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty ( ad 1644–1911 ), by simplifying some of the hanzi and promoting Putonghua as the national standard oral language. In the postcolonial part of the world, language is often used to service nationalism by restoring the official status of their indigenous language as the national language whilst retaining the colonial language or, in more radical cases of decolonization, relegating the latter to nonofficial status. Yet language is a two-edged sword: It can also divide a nation. The tension can be seen in competing claims to official-language status made by minority language communities, protest over maintenance of minority languages, language rights at schools and in courts of law, bilingual education, and outright language wars (Calvet, 1998 ; DeVotta, 2004 ).

Language Creates Influence

In this section we discuss the power of language to create influence through single words and more complex linguistic structures ranging from oratories and conversations to narratives/stories.

Power of Single Words

Learning a language empowers humans to master an elaborate system of conventions and the associations between words and their sounds on the one hand, and on the other hand, categories of objects and relations to which they refer. After mastering the referential meanings of words, a person can mentally access the objects and relations simply by hearing or reading the words. Apart from their referential meanings, words also have connotative meanings with their own social-cognitive consequences. Together, these social-cognitive functions underpin the power of single words that has been extensively studied in metaphors, which is a huge research area that crosses disciplinary boundaries and probes into the inner workings of the brain (Benedek et al., 2014 ; Landau et al., 2014 ; Marshal et al., 2007 ). The power of single words extends beyond metaphors. It can be seen in misleading words in leading questions (Loftus, 1975 ), concessive connectives that reverse expectations from real-world knowledge (Xiang & Kuperberg, 2014 ), verbs that attribute implicit causality to either verb subject or object (Hartshorne & Snedeker, 2013 ), “uncertainty terms” that hedge potentially face-threatening messages (Holtgraves, 2014b ), and abstract words that signal power (Wakslak et al., 2014 ).

The literature on the power of single words has rarely been applied to intergroup communication, with the exception of research arising from the linguistic category model (e.g., Semin & Fiedler, 1991 ). The model distinguishes among descriptive action verbs (e.g., “hits”), interpretative action verbs (e.g., “hurts”) and state verbs (e.g., “hates”), which increase in abstraction in that order. Sentences made up of abstract verbs convey more information about the protagonist, imply greater temporal and cross-situational stability, and are more difficult to disconfirm. The use of abstract language to represent a particular behavior will attribute the behavior to the protagonist rather than the situation and the resulting image of the protagonist will persist despite disconfirming information, whereas the use of concrete language will attribute the same behavior more to the situation and the resulting image of the protagonist will be easier to change. According to the linguistic intergroup bias model (Maass, 1999 ), abstract language will be used to represent positive in-group and negative out-group behaviors, whereas concrete language will be used to represent negative in-group and positive out-group behaviors. The combined effects of the differential use of abstract and concrete language would, first, lead to biased attribution (explanation) of behavior privileging the in-group over the out-group, and second, perpetuate the prejudiced intergroup stereotypes. More recent research has shown that linguistic intergroup bias varies with the power differential between groups—it is stronger in high and low power groups than in equal power groups (Rubini et al., 2007 ).

Oratorical Power

A charismatic speaker may, by the sheer force of oratory, buoy up people’s hopes, convert their hearts from hatred to forgiveness, or embolden them to take up arms for a cause. One may recall moving speeches (in English) such as Susan B. Anthony’s “On Women’s Right to Vote,” Winston Churchill’s “We Shall Fight on the Beaches,” Mahatma Gandhi’s “Quit India,” or Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream.” The speech may be delivered face-to-face to an audience, or broadcast over the media. The discussion below focuses on face-to-face oratories in political meetings.

Oratorical power may be measured in terms of money donated or pledged to the speaker’s cause, or, in a religious sermon, the number of converts made. Not much research has been reported on these topics. Another measurement approach is to count the frequency of online audience responses that a speech has generated, usually but not exclusively in the form of applause. Audience applause can be measured fairly objectively in terms of frequency, length, or loudness, and collected nonobtrusively from a public recording of the meeting. Audience applause affords researchers the opportunity to explore communicative and social psychological processes that underpin some aspects of the power of rhetorical formats. Note, however, that not all incidences of audience applause are valid measures of the power of rhetoric. A valid incidence should be one that is invited by the speaker and synchronized with the flow of the speech, occurring at the appropriate time and place as indicated by the rhetorical format. Thus, an uninvited incidence of applause would not count, nor is one that is invited but has occurred “out of place” (too soon or too late). Furthermore, not all valid incidences are theoretically informative to the same degree. An isolated applause from just a handful of the audience, though valid and in the right place, has relatively little theoretical import for understanding the power of rhetoric compared to one that is made by many acting in unison as a group. When the latter occurs, it would be a clear indication of the power of rhetorically formulated speech. Such positive audience response constitutes the most direct and immediate means by which an audience can display its collective support for the speaker, something which they would not otherwise show to a speech of less power. To influence and orchestrate hundreds and thousands of people in the audience to precisely coordinate their response to applaud (and cheer) together as a group at the right time and place is no mean feat. Such a feat also influences the wider society through broadcast on television and other news and social media. The combined effect could be enormous there and then, and its downstream influence far-reaching, crossing country boarders and inspiring generations to come.

To accomplish the feat, an orator has to excite the audience to applaud, build up the excitement to a crescendo, and simultaneously cue the audience to synchronize their outburst of stored-up applause with the ongoing speech. Rhetorical formats that aid the orator to accomplish the dual functions include contrast, list, puzzle solution, headline-punchline, position-taking, and pursuit (Heritage & Greatbatch, 1986 ). To illustrate, we cite the contrast and list formats.

A contrast, or antithesis, is made up of binary schemata such as “too much” and “too little.” Heritage and Greatbatch ( 1986 , p. 123) reported the following example:

Governments will argue that resources are not available to help disabled people. The fact is that too much is spent on the munitions of war, and too little is spent on the munitions of peace [italics added]. As the audience is familiar with the binary schema of “too much” and “too little” they can habitually match the second half of the contrast against the first half. This decoding process reinforces message comprehension and helps them to correctly anticipate and applaud at the completion point of the contrast. In the example quoted above, the speaker micropaused for 0.2 seconds after the second word “spent,” at which point the audience began to applaud in anticipation of the completion point of the contrast, and applauded more excitedly upon hearing “. . . on the munitions of peace.” The applause continued and lasted for 9.2 long seconds.

A list is usually made up of a series of three parallel words, phrases or clauses. “Government of the people, by the people, for the people” is a fine example, as is Obama’s “It’s been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day , in this election , at this defining moment , change has come to America!” (italics added) The three parts in the list echo one another, step up the argument and its corresponding excitement in the audience as they move from one part to the next. The third part projects a completion point to cue the audience to get themselves ready to display their support via applause, cheers, and so forth. In a real conversation this juncture is called a “transition-relevance place,” at which point a conversational partner (hearer) may take up a turn to speak. A skilful orator will micropause at that juncture to create a conversational space for the audience to take up their turn in applauding and cheering as a group.

As illustrated by the two examples above, speaker and audience collaborate to transform an otherwise monological speech into a quasiconversation, turning a passive audience into an active supportive “conversational” partner who, by their synchronized responses, reduces the psychological separation from the speaker and emboldens the latter’s self-confidence. Through such enjoyable and emotional participation collectively, an audience made up of formerly unconnected individuals with no strong common group identity may henceforth begin to feel “we are all one.” According to social identity theory and related theories (van Zomeren et al., 2008 ), the emergent group identity, politicized in the process, will in turn provide a social psychological base for collective social action. This process of identity making in the audience is further strengthened by the speaker’s frequent use of “we” as a first person, plural personal pronoun.

Conversational Power

A conversation is a speech exchange system in which the length and order of speaking turns have not been preassigned but require coordination on an utterance-by-utterance basis between two or more individuals. It differs from other speech exchange systems in which speaking turns have been preassigned and/or monitored by a third party, for example, job interviews and debate contests. Turn-taking, because of its centrality to conversations and the important theoretical issues that it raises for social coordination and implicit conversational conventions, has been the subject of extensive research and theorizing (Goodwin & Heritage, 1990 ; Grice, 1975 ; Sacks et al., 1974 ). Success at turn-taking is a key part of the conversational process leading to influence. A person who cannot do this is in no position to influence others in and through conversations, which are probably the most common and ubiquitous form of human social interaction. Below we discuss studies of conversational power based on conversational turns and applied to leader emergence in group and intergroup settings. These studies, as they unfold, link conversation analysis with social identity theory and expectation states theory (Berger et al., 1974 ).

A conversational turn in hand allows the speaker to influence others in two important ways. First, through current-speaker-selects-next the speaker can influence who will speak next and, indirectly, increases the probability that he or she will regain the turn after the next. A common method for selecting the next speaker is through tag questions. The current speaker (A) may direct a tag question such as “Ya know?” or “Don’t you agree?” to a particular hearer (B), which carries the illocutionary force of selecting the addressee to be the next speaker and, simultaneously, restraining others from self-selecting. The A 1 B 1 sequence of exchange has been found to have a high probability of extending into A 1 B 1 A 2 in the next round of exchange, followed by its continuation in the form of A 1 B 1 A 2 B 2 . For example, in a six-member group, the A 1 B 1 →A 1 B 1 A 2 sequence of exchange has more than 50% chance of extending to the A 1 B 1 A 2 B 2 sequence, which is well above chance level, considering that there are four other hearers who could intrude at either the A 2 or B 2 slot of turn (Stasser & Taylor, 1991 ). Thus speakership not only offers the current speaker the power to select the next speaker twice, but also to indirectly regain a turn.

Second, a turn in hand provides the speaker with an opportunity to exercise topic control. He or she can exercise non-decision-making power by changing an unfavorable or embarrassing topic to a safer one, thereby silencing or preventing it from reaching the “floor.” Conversely, he or she can exercise decision-making power by continuing or raising a topic that is favorable to self. Or the speaker can move on to talk about an innocuous topic to ease tension in the group.

Bales ( 1950 ) has studied leader emergence in groups made up of unacquainted individuals in situations where they have to bid or compete for speaking turns. Results show that individuals who talk the most have a much better chance of becoming leaders. Depending on the social orientations of their talk, they would be recognized as a task or relational leader. Subsequent research on leader emergence has shown that an even better behavioral predictor than volume of talk is the number of speaking turns. An obvious reason for this is that the volume of talk depends on the number of turns—it usually accumulates across turns, rather than being the result of a single extraordinary long turn of talk. Another reason is that more turns afford the speaker more opportunities to realize the powers of turns that have been explicated above. Group members who become leaders are the ones who can penetrate the complex, on-line conversational system to obtain a disproportionately large number of speaking turns by perfect timing at “transition-relevance places” to self-select as the next speaker or, paradoxical as it may seem, constructive interruptions (Ng et al., 1995 ).

More recent research has extended the experimental study of group leadership to intergroup contexts, where members belonging to two groups who hold opposing stances on a social or political issue interact within and also between groups. The results showed, first, that speaking turns remain important in leader emergence, but the intergroup context now generates social identity and self-categorization processes that selectively privilege particular forms of speech. What potential leaders say, and not only how many speaking turns they have gained, becomes crucial in conveying to group members that they are prototypical members of their group. Prototypical communication is enacted by adopting an accent, choosing code words, and speaking in a tone that characterize the in-group; above all, it is enacted through the content of utterances to represent or exemplify the in-group position. Such prototypical utterances that are directed successfully at the out-group correlate strongly with leader emergence (Reid & Ng, 2000 ). These out-group-directed prototypical utterances project an in-group identity that is psychologically distinctive from the out-group for in-group members to feel proud of and to rally together when debating with the out-group.

Building on these experimental results Reid and Ng ( 2003 ) developed a social identity theory of leadership to account for the emergence and maintenance of intergroup leadership, grounding it in case studies of the intergroup communication strategies that brought Ariel Sharon and John Howard to power in Israel and Australia, respectively. In a later development, the social identity account was fused with expectation states theory to explain how group processes collectively shape the behavior of in-group members to augment the prototypical communication behavior of the emergent leader (Reid & Ng, 2006 ). Specifically, when conversational influence gained through prototypical utterances culminates to form an incipient power hierarchy, group members develop expectations of who is and will be leading the group. Acting on these tacit expectations they collectively coordinate the behavior of each other to conform with the expectations by granting incipient leaders more speaking turns and supporting them with positive audience responses. In this way, group members collectively amplify the influence of incipient leaders and jointly propel them to leadership roles (see also Correll & Ridgeway, 2006 ). In short, the emergence of intergroup leaders is a joint process of what they do individually and what group members do collectively, enabled by speaking turns and mediated by social identity and expectation states processes. In a similar vein, Hogg ( 2014 ) has developed a social identity account of leadership in intergroup settings.

Narrative Power

Narratives and stories are closely related and are sometimes used interchangeably. However, it is useful to distinguish a narrative from a story and from other related terms such as discourse and frames. A story is a sequence of related events in the past recounted for rhetorical or ideological purposes, whereas a narrative is a coherent system of interrelated and sequentially organized stories formed by incorporating new stories and relating them to others so as to provide an ongoing basis for interpreting events, envisioning an ideal future, and motivating and justifying collective actions (Halverson et al., 2011 ). The temporal dimension and sense of movement in a narrative also distinguish it from discourse and frames. According to Miskimmon, O’Loughlin, and Roselle ( 2013 ), discourses are the raw material of communication that actors plot into a narrative, and frames are the acts of selecting and highlighting some events or issues to promote a particular interpretation, evaluation, and solution. Both discourse and frame lack the temporal and causal transformation of a narrative.

Pitching narratives at the suprastory level and stressing their temporal and transformational movements allows researchers to take a structurally more systemic and temporally more expansive view than traditional research on propaganda wars between nations, religions, or political systems (Halverson et al., 2011 ; Miskimmon et al., 2013 ). Schmid ( 2014 ) has provided an analysis of al-Qaeda’s “compelling narrative that authorizes its strategy, justifies its violent tactics, propagates its ideology and wins new recruits.” According to this analysis, the chief message of the narrative is “the West is at war with Islam,” a strategic communication that is fundamentally intergroup in both structure and content. The intergroup structure of al-Qaeda narrative includes the rhetorical constructions that there are a group grievance inflicted on Muslims by a Zionist–Christian alliance, a vision of the good society (under the Caliphate and sharia), and a path from grievance to the realization of the vision led by al-Qaeda in a violent jihad to eradicate Western influence in the Muslim world. The al-Qaeda narrative draws support not only from traditional Arab and Muslim cultural narratives interpreted to justify its unorthodox means (such as attacks against women and children), but also from pre-existing anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism propagated by some Arab governments, Soviet Cold War propaganda, anti-Western sermons by Muslim clerics, and the Israeli government’s treatment of Palestinians. It is deeply embedded in culture and history, and has reached out to numerous Muslims who have emigrated to the West.

The intergroup content of al-Qaeda narrative was shown in a computer-aided content analysis of 18 representative transcripts of propaganda speeches released between 2006–2011 by al-Qaeda leaders, totaling over 66,000 words (Cohen et al., 2016 ). As part of the study, an “Ideology Extraction using Linguistic Extremization” (IELEX) categorization scheme was developed for mapping the content of the corpus, which revealed 19 IELEX rhetorical categories referring to either the out-group/enemy or the in-group/enemy victims. The out-group/enemy was represented by four categories such as “The enemy is extremely negative (bloodthirsty, vengeful, brainwashed, etc.)”; whereas the in-group/enemy victims were represented by more categories such as “we are entirely innocent/good/virtuous.” The content of polarized intergroup stereotypes, demonizing “them” and glorifying “us,” echoes other similar findings (Smith et al., 2008 ), as well as the general finding of intergroup stereotyping in social psychology (Yzerbyt, 2016 ).

The success of the al-Qaeda narrative has alarmed various international agencies, individual governments, think tanks, and religious groups to spend huge sums of money on developing counternarratives that are, according to Schmid ( 2014 ), largely feeble. The so-called “global war on terror” has failed in its effort to construct effective counternarratives although al-Qaeda’s finance, personnel, and infrastructure have been much weakened. Ironically, it has developed into a narrative of its own, not so much for countering external extremism, but for promoting and justifying internal nationalistic extremist policies and influencing national elections. This reactive coradicalization phenomenon is spreading (Mink, 2015 ; Pratt, 2015 ; Reicher & Haslam, 2016 ).

Discussion and Future Directions

This chapter provides a systematic framework for understanding five language–power relationships, namely, language reveals power, reflects power, maintains existing dominance, unites and divides a nation, and creates influence. The first two relationships are derived from the power behind language and the last three from the power of language. Collectively they provide a relatively comprehensible framework for understanding the relationships between language and power, and not simply for understanding language alone or power alone separated from one another. The language–power relationships are dynamically interrelated, one influencing the other, and each can draw from an array of the cognitive, communicative, social, and identity functions of language. The framework is applicable to both interpersonal and intergroup contexts of communication, although for present purposes the latter has been highlighted. Among the substantive issues discussed in this chapter, English as a global language, oratorical and narrative power, and intergroup leadership stand out as particularly important for political and theoretical reasons.

In closing, we note some of the gaps that need to be filled and directions for further research. When discussing the powers of language to maintain and reflect existing dominance, we have omitted the countervailing power of language to resist or subvert existing dominance and, importantly, to create social change for the collective good. Furthermore, in this age of globalization and its discontents, English as a global language will increasingly be resented for its excessive unaccommodating power despite tangible lingua franca English benefits, and challenged by the expanding ethnolinguistic vitality of peoples who speak Arabic, Chinese, or Spanish. Internet communication is no longer predominantly in English, but is rapidly diversifying to become the modern Tower of Babel. And yet we have barely scratched the surface of these issues. Other glaring gaps include the omission of media discourse and recent developments in Corpus-based Critical Discourse Analysis (Loring, 2016 ), as well as the lack of reference to languages other than English that may cast one or more of the language–power relationships in a different light.

One of the main themes of this chapter—that the diverse language–power relationships are dynamically interrelated—clearly points to the need for greater theoretical fertilization across cognate disciplines. Our discussion of the three powers of language (boxes 3–5 in Figure 1 ) clearly points in this direction, most notably in the case of the powers of language to create influence through single words, oratories, conversations, and narratives, but much more needs to be done. The social identity approach will continue to serve as a meta theory of intergroup communication. To the extent that intergroup communication takes place in an existing power relation and that the changes that it seeks are not simply a more positive or psychologically distinctive social identity but greater group power and a more powerful social identity, the social identity approach has to incorporate power in its application to intergroup communication.

Varying Tone and Style Mastery

Imagine this: a groundbreaking study by esteemed linguist Deborah Tannen found that the way we express ourselves in writing can drastically alter the reception of our ideas. In her research, Tannen uncovered that individuals who skillfully varied their essay tone and style were not only more engaging but also more persuasive. This revelation underscores a profound truth about communication—how we present our thoughts matters just as much as the thoughts themselves. In the realm of essay writing, this insight transforms into a potent tool. It empowers you to adapt your voice, making it a perfect match for different essay types and thereby enhancing your ability to convey your message effectively.

Short Description

In our article, we will explore the tone of an essay examples and their pivotal role in conveying the author's message. We'll delve into three primary essay types—APA, Chicago, and MLA—highlighting their distinctive formatting and citation styles. We'll also demystify the concept of voice in an essay and explore how this elusive element can adapt and transform, resonating differently based on the essay's type and purpose. Join us in navigating the intricate world of writing an essay outline , where each word, tone, and style choice has the potential to captivate readers and effectively convey ideas!

What Is a Tone in Essay: Its Importance in Conveying the Writer's Message

Essay tone, often referred to as the writer's voice or attitude, is a critical element in conveying the writer's message effectively. It's the emotional and stylistic quality of the writing style that shapes how readers perceive and engage with the content.

The choice of essay tone is akin to selecting the right brushstroke for a painting. It sets the mood and influences the reader's response to the text. The significance of essay tone lies in its power to:

Convey Emotion: It can infuse creative writing with emotions, making it more relatable and engaging. For instance, a narrative essay may employ a personal and emotive tone to draw readers into the author's experience.
Establish Credibility: In academic writing, a formal and authoritative tone lends credibility to the author's arguments and research. It signals to readers that the author is knowledgeable and trustworthy.
Persuade: Persuasive essays benefit from a confident and convincing tone that encourages readers to adopt the author's point of view. This tone is often assertive and backed by strong evidence.

Variety of Tones in Essays:

Essays can employ a range of tones, each suited to its specific purpose:

Formal Tone: Often used in academic writing, the formal tone is characterized by precise language, adherence to grammar and punctuation rules , and a respectful, objective approach.
Informal Tone: This tone is conversational and approachable. It's suitable for personal essays, blogs, and other content where the writer wants to connect with readers on a more personal level.
Academic Tone: Academic essays require a tone that reflects a high level of professionalism and objectivity. Clarity and a focus on evidence-based arguments are paramount.
Persuasive Tone: A persuasive essay adopts a tone that is confident, assertive, and often passionate. The goal is to convince the reader of a particular viewpoint.
Narrative Tone: Narrative essays employ a storytelling tone, drawing readers into a personal experience. This tone often incorporates elements of description and emotion.

Understanding Essay Types

In the world of academic writing, essays come in various shapes and sizes, each adhering to specific guidelines and conventions. Three of the most commonly used essay types are APA , Chicago , and MLA. Understanding these essay types and their unique characteristics is essential for crafting scholarly work that meets the expected standards.

It's important to clarify the specific style and requirements they need, as these three major styles have key differences in formatting and citation styles:

Key Differences in Formatting and Citation Styles:

APA (American Psychological Association): The APA style is widely used in professional writing, particularly in social sciences and psychology. It emphasizes clarity and conciseness, with a focus on the author's name and publication date within in-text citations. The reference page lists sources in a structured format, including the author's last name and initials, publication year, title, source, and DOI (if applicable). APA also employs a unique title page format with specific guidelines for headings and subheadings.
Chicago Style: The Chicago style is a versatile format used in history, literature, and some social sciences. It offers two citation systems: the notes and bibliography system and the author-date system. In the notes and bibliography system, footnotes or endnotes are used for citations, while the author-date system employs in-text citations. The reference list or bibliography is comprehensive, featuring detailed information about the sources used, such as publication place and publisher.
MLA (Modern Language Association): MLA style is commonly used in the humanities, including literature and language studies. It utilizes in-text citations with the author's last name and page number, promoting brevity. The Works Cited page contains full publication details, including the author's full name, source title, publisher, and publication date. MLA places a strong emphasis on clear and consistent formatting, including guidelines for headers and margins.

Importance of Adhering to Prescribed Style:

Adhering to the prescribed style for each essay type is of paramount importance in academic writing for several reasons:

Clarity and Consistency: Consistent formatting and citation styles make it easier for readers to locate and verify your sources. This enhances the credibility of your work.
Respect for Disciplinary Norms: Different academic disciplines have established specific citation styles to meet the needs and expectations of their respective communities. Adhering to these styles demonstrates your understanding of and respect for disciplinary norms.
Avoiding Plagiarism: Proper citation ensures that you give credit to the original authors of ideas, information, or phrases you incorporate into your work. This is vital for avoiding plagiarism and upholding academic integrity.
Professionalism: Employing the correct style showcases your professionalism and commitment to producing high-quality scholarly work. It also facilitates collaboration and communication within your academic field.

APA Style Essay

An APA (American Psychological Association) style essay is distinctive in its characteristics and guidelines, primarily designed for social sciences and psychology disciplines. In the realm of academic writing, understanding the nuances of tone and voice is fundamental, and this is particularly true for APA (American Psychological Association) style essays. The choice of tone and voice in an APA essay isn't merely a matter of stylistic preference; it's a crucial element that shapes the communication of your research and ideas.

Formal and Objective Tone: APA essays demand a formal tone that maintains objectivity throughout. This formality is crucial for establishing credibility and professionalism in the eyes of your academic peers and readers. It signifies that your work is grounded in rigorous research and analysis.
Precision and Clarity: Precision is key in APA essays. The language should be clear and unambiguous. Aim for clarity in your expression, ensuring that your ideas are communicated with precision. Avoid vague or convoluted language that may lead to misinterpretation.
Impersonal Voice (Third Person): One distinctive feature of APA style is the use of an impersonal voice, typically in the third person. This means that instead of saying, 'I conducted a study,' you would write, 'The study was conducted.' This choice reinforces objectivity and minimizes any personal bias or subjectivity in your writing.

Chicago Style Essay

A Chicago style essay, known for its flexibility and adaptability, is commonly employed in disciplines like history, literature, and some social sciences.

Formal and Scholarly Tone: When crafting a Chicago style essay example, maintain a formal and scholarly tone. The language should be clear, precise, and devoid of colloquialisms or slang. Academic professionalism is of paramount importance.
Authoritative Voice: To convey your arguments effectively, employ an authoritative voice that asserts the significance of your research or analysis. This voice communicates confidence in your findings and conclusions.
Clarity and Rigor: Chicago style essays format should be characterized by clarity and rigor. Avoid ambiguity and vague language. Be meticulous in your research, ensuring that all citations and references are accurate and complete.

MLA Style Essay

An MLA (Modern Language Association) style essay is widely used in humanities disciplines, such as literature and language studies.

Formal and Academic Tone: An MLA style essay maintains a formal and academic tone, suitable for scholarly discourse. The language should be precise and professional, avoiding colloquialisms or slang.
Objective and Neutral Voice: MLA style essay example requires an objective and neutral voice. Present your arguments and analyses in a balanced, unbiased manner. Avoid injecting personal opinions or emotions into the text.
Clarity and Simplicity: Clarity is central to MLA style. Express your ideas in a straightforward and comprehensible manner. Simplicity in language is preferred, making the essay accessible to a broad audience.

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Tone of an Essay Examples

Let's explore examples of different essay tones and demonstrate how they influence the reader's perception, as well as highlight the profound impact of tone on the overall effectiveness of an essay. Whether you're looking for business writing or dealing with casual colloquial language, understanding these tones is essential:

Formal Tone:

Example: 'The research findings indicate a significant correlation between A and B, suggesting a compelling link that merits further investigation.'
Influence on Perception: A formal style conveys authority, professionalism, and objectivity. Readers perceive the author as credible and the information as reliable.

Informal Tone:

Example: 'So, you won't believe it, but this study totally shows that A and B are like best friends. Seriously!'
Influence on Perception: An informal language establishes a conversational and approachable connection with readers. It can make complex topics more relatable but may be perceived as less authoritative.

Persuasive Tone:

Example: 'Without a doubt, it's imperative that we take immediate action to address this pressing issue. Our future depends on it.'
Influence on Perception: A persuasive tone instills a sense of urgency and conviction in readers. It encourages them to adopt the author's viewpoint or take action.

Narrative Tone:

Example: 'As I stood there, the sun setting behind the mountains, I couldn't help but reflect on the journey that had brought me to this moment.'
Influence on Perception: A narrative tone invites readers into a personal experience, creating an emotional connection. It can make abstract ideas more vivid and relatable.

Humorous Tone:

Example: 'You know, trying to understand quantum physics is a bit like chasing a squirrel on roller skates - entertaining, but you're not sure where it's going.'
Influence on Perception: A humorous tone adds levity and charm to the essay, making it engaging and memorable. It can break down complex subjects and ease tension.

The Impact of Tone on Overall Effectiveness:

The tone of an essay wields considerable power over its effectiveness:

Engagement: A well-chosen tone captivates readers, drawing them into the narrative or argument. Engaged readers are more likely to continue reading and absorb the essay's content.
Clarity: Tone can enhance or hinder clarity. A clear and appropriate tone ensures that the essay's message is easily understood, fostering effective communication.
Credibility: Tone shapes perceptions of the author's credibility. A tone that aligns with the essay's purpose and audience enhances the author's authority and trustworthiness.
Emotional Connection: The right tone can evoke emotions, forging a connection between the author and readers. Emotionally engaged readers are more likely to empathize with the essay's message.
Persuasion: In persuasive essays, tone plays a critical role in influencing readers' opinions and decisions. A persuasive tone can make a compelling argument more convincing, whether it's in business writing or a personal reflection in your own voice.

Voice in an Essay

While tone and voice are closely related elements in writing, they serve different purposes and convey distinct aspects of the author's communication. As already discussed, tone refers to the attitude, emotion, or mood that the author conveys through their writing.

Voice, on the other hand, is the distinctive style and personality of the author that comes through in their writing. It encompasses the author's unique perspective, individuality, and way of presenting ideas. Voice is the author's 'writing fingerprint' that sets their work apart and gives it a distinct character. It's not just about the emotional or rhetorical attitude but also about the author's stylistic choices, word selection, and sentence structure. Voice in an essay remains relatively consistent throughout an author's body of work and is what makes their writing recognizable.

Active Voice Essay

In writing, active voice is a grammatical construction where the subject of a sentence performs the action of the verb. It's a straightforward and direct way to convey information, emphasizing the 'doer' of the action. Understanding when and how to use an active voice essay is crucial for maintaining clarity and engaging your readers.

When to Use Active Voice in Essays:

1. To Emphasize the Subject's Action:

Use active voice when you want to emphasize the subject's action or the 'doer' of the action. This brings focus to the agent responsible for the action, making the sentence more engaging.
Example : 'The scientist conducted the experiment.'

2. To Improve Clarity:

Active voice typically results in clearer, more direct sentences. It eliminates ambiguity and ensures the reader can easily discern who is performing the action.
Example : 'The company announced the merger.' (Active) vs. 'The merger was announced by the company.' (Passive)

3. To Make Writing More Concise:

The active voice often requires fewer words, making your writing more concise and to the point.
Example : 'She wrote the report.' (Active) vs. 'The report was written by her.' (Passive)

Passive Voice Essay

While active voice places the emphasis on the subject performing the action, passive voice in essays shifts the focus to the action itself or the recipient of the action. Understanding when and how to use a passive voice essay is essential for conveying information with a specific emphasis.

When to Use Passive Voice in Essays:

1. To Emphasize the Action or Object:

Passive voice is useful when you want to emphasize the action, process, or the object receiving the action rather than the person or thing performing it.
Example : 'The novel was widely acclaimed by critics.' (Emphasizes the acclaim)

2. When the Doer Is Unknown or Irrelevant:

Passive voice can be employed when the identity of the 'doer' is unknown or irrelevant to the context.
Example : 'The Mona Lisa was painted in the 16th century.' (The focus is on the painting's creation, not the artist.)

3. To Maintain Objectivity:

Passive voice can contribute to an objective tone in academic or scientific writing by minimizing references to the author or researcher.
Example : 'The experiment was conducted under controlled conditions.'

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What Tone Should an Argumentative Essay Have?

An argumentative essay should typically have a tone that is assertive, persuasive, and rational. It's essential to maintain a tone that conveys confidence in your argument while respecting opposing viewpoints. Avoid overly aggressive or emotional tones. Instead, focus on presenting well-reasoned arguments supported by credible evidence and maintaining a respectful and professional tone throughout.

What Tone and Style Is Used in Academic Writing?

In academic writing, the tone and style should be formal, objective, and professional. Whether you decide towrite one yourself, you should know that academic writing is characterized by clarity, precision, and adherence to established conventions. Avoid using first-person pronouns (e.g., 'I' or 'we') and maintain a third-person perspective. Additionally, follow the specific formatting and citation style guidelines relevant to your academic discipline, such as APA, MLA, or Chicago. The goal of academic writing is to communicate research and ideas clearly and objectively to an academic audience.

As a Final Word

In the world of essay writing, your tone, voice, and style are like paintbrushes on the canvas. They set the mood, making your writing come alive. Whether you're writing an argument, sharing a story, or diving into academics, knowing when to use active or passive voice and choosing the right tone can turn your writing into something truly special. It's the blend of these elements that gives your message power, connects with your readers, and leaves a lasting impression. So, use your tone and voice wisely, and let your words leave a mark in the hearts and minds of your audience.

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Robert Browning: Poems

The power of voice in “my last duchess” anonymous 12th grade.

“My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning is a Victorian poem that demonstrates the power of voice. This poem is narrated by the Duke of Ferrara who uses his voice to gain control of those around him. He even speaks for his deceased wife, only explaining his view of the situation preceding her death. While the Duke has a voice, his former wife is encapsulated by silence and isolation. The Duke determines who is allowed to see her portrait, and decides which part of her story he wants to share. This essay will analyze the silence forced upon the Duchess, and will demonstrate how the form of the poem expresses the controlling voice the Duke maintains throughout the work.

“My Last Duchess” is a poem that demonstrates the silence enforced upon a Duchess, emphasized by the isolation created by her former husband. From the very beginning of the poem the Duchess is shown as alone and isolated: “That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall, Looking as if she were alive” (1-2). The Duchess is physically attached to the wall as a portrait, and cannot interact with those around her. She is a strict observer, watching others interact as she merely looks on. The Duke has even limited the amount of people that can see her: “But to myself they...

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The Power of Speech

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Examine speech as performance in this collection. Investigate the use of rhetorical devices as you watch these videos of speakers, who range from Winston Churchill to Josh Thomas.

In most instances, a rhetorical device is identified in each clip, but each clip may hold more than one device. See the PDF in Rhetorical devices for a list of them all.

1. the power of oratory, 2. occasion and audience, 3. types of oratory, 4. structure and reason, 5. the speaker's character, 6. appealing to the emotions, 7. the style of the speaker, 8. julia gillard addresses misogyny in parliament, 9. metaphors and imagery, 10. opening and closing lines, 11. speech as performance, 12. rhetorical devices, 13. more resources.

A speech can be a powerful public act. It can inspire people to be kind and more generous, or it can provoke people to hate and fear.

It can change the world by furthering the purposes of good or the purposes of bad. It can turn a speaker into a hero, or rouse enemies that put a speaker's life in danger.

There is an art to making a speech, just as there is an art to painting a picture or composing music. It is called the art of oratory. Understanding oratory makes it easier to analyse the effect of a speech as well as giving a speaker some skills and techniques that can help engage their audience.

In the video of Malalai Joya, watch for these elements, and see an example of 'erotema', or asking a rhetorical question, approximately 40 seconds into the video.

A speech is a performance. It belongs to a particular place and a moment of time.

It addresses a specific audience and its success depends upon the degree to which it engages this group.

To give a good speech a speaker needs a sense of decorum, so that the words and way of speaking suit the occasion. The speaker begins by asking himself or herself: 'Who is my speech for? What is its purpose? What is its theme? What does the audience expect?'

In his speech to the heroes of the American Second Ranger Battalion, President Reagan uses the rhetorical device 'tricolon', or speaking in threes. It can be heard around the 5:40 mark.

What are the three main types of oratory?

They often occur in the same speech:

Forensic oratory accuses or defends someone. It is the oratory of lawyers in court.
Deliberative oratory favours or opposes an action. It is often employed by politicians.
Display (or demonstrative) oratory is used when honouring people or to speak ill of them. It displays the speaker's eloquence and affirms the values of the day. It is used in eulogies, toasts and award ceremonies.

An interesting adaptation of types of oratory can be heard in Josh Thomas's stand-up routine. Listen also for his use of simile a little over a minute into the clip.

US President John F. Kennedy's famous speech from the Rathaus Schöneberg in Berlin is considered one of the most memorable anti-communist speeches of the Cold War.

He expresses his hopes for the reunification of Germany, and emphasises the philosophical differences between capitalism and communism.

Having determined what it is they want to say, speakers organise their ideas using different structures. It is important that they focus on a main idea and express it simply.

Speechwriters have an old saying that helps to shape a speech: 'Tell 'em what you're going to tell 'em; then tell 'em; then tell 'em what you told 'em.'

A speaker's case can be proven by logic and appeals to reason. But the line of argument must be clear to the audience and not overloaded with facts.

In this speech, President John F Kennedy makes use of a rhetorical device called an 'epiphora', or the repeating of a phrase at the end of successive lines. Listen carefully when you approach the 2:30 point.

To persuade an audience, speakers must present themselves as being trustworthy.

They should demonstrate common sense and knowledge. Speakers do well to demonstrate respect for their audience by showing a keenness to share their understanding of the truth.

Speakers gain credibility by appealing to the ethics and ideals they share with the audience.

In his first speech to parliament in 1940, the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill uses alliteration, or the repeating of the same sound, in one of his best-known sentences.

He also uses the rhetorical device 'anthypophora', in which he poses a question and then answers it. Can you work out where?

Humans make many decisions under the influence of their emotions.

Speakers can sway an audience by rousing emotions — fear, pity, sorrow, anger, envy or shame, for example. Speakers must consider the emotions that a particular audience is most likely to feel.

Finally, the delivery, or performance, of a speech influences the audience's mood and response.

Four years before he was elected President of the United States, Barack Obama addressed assembled members of the Democratic Party. He used the rhetorical device 'anamnesis', which is the quoting of an author from the past.

'Our pride is based on a very simple premise, summed up in a declaration made over two hundred years ago — "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" — that is the true genius of America.' Barack Obama, 'E pluribus unum', Democratic National Convention, Boston, Massachusetts, 27 July 2004.

An audience gets the message of a speech not only from what the speaker says but also from how it is said.

Each speaker's style is unique, but here are some common approaches:

Correct style: uses the accepted grammar and vocabulary of educated people.
Extempore: made up on the spot.
Invective: angry, attacking.
Plain, middle or grand style: plain style is direct, clear and concise and does not try to impress the audience; middle style is fancier and aims to please the audience; grand style is forceful and majestic and aims to rouse the audience.

What approach do you think former politician Pauline Hanson is using in the video? Note also her use of 'litotes', or understatement, around the 1:50 point.

Former Prime Minister Julia Gillard's 2012 address to Parliament, in which she described the Federal Opposition's criticism of her support for controversial politician Peter Slipper as being misogynistic, proved to be one her most memorable.

The speech went viral and was reported widely in international media, scoring over 2.5 million hits on YouTube.

Explore why as you watch this clip from the speech.

Texts can reveal the values, attitudes and beliefs of the speaker.

Consider this as you explore Prime Minister Tony Abbott's 2014 'Closing the Gap' speech. This annual speech is an important opportunity for the Prime Minister to direct the government's attention to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs.

A good speech evokes vivid pictures in the minds of audience members. Telling stories or relating anecdotes and using metaphors and similes are some ways of achieving this.

In a metaphor, a word or phrase that normally means one thing stands for something else. A simile compares two things. Metaphors and similes can affect the unconscious mind and can be very persuasive.

Metaphors about climbing mountains, making long journeys or realising dreams are common in political speeches.

Listen as Prime Minster Abbott uses a metaphor when referring to 2014 Australian of the Year, Adam Goodes.

Gough Whitlam is the only Australian prime minister to have been sacked from office — along with his entire government.

After learning of his dismissal, Mr Whitlam addressed the Australian public and uttered a line that has resonated throughout Australian politics since 1975.

Words can be immensely powerful and, as you will discover in this clip, the way they are delivered can add to their power.

The opening of a speech does not need to concern its subject directly. A speaker's task is to connect with the audience. In some instances, the opening sentence is a bold and memorable statement that captures the audience's attention or articulates its feelings.

A speech should end on a high note. The conclusion, or peroration, often starts with a quiet sentence that signals the approach of the end. It builds to a climax and is greeted with the audience's applause.

Listen as former prime minister Gough Whitlam engages the rhetorical device of 'antanaclasis', in which a word is repeated, but with its usual meaning or intention changed.

A poorly delivered speech will not be convincing. Speakers' projection, diction, pace, pitch, tone and timing are as vital as their body language — posture, gestures, eye contact and facial expressions.

Giving a speech is a performance. Staging, clothing and the use of props can create an effect. Memorising and practising the speech can make the words seem more spontaneous and genuine.

Speakers should never be afraid to perform with passion and in their own style.

Former prime minister Paul Keating, one of Australia's most memorable political performers, uses 'antithesis' in this speech criticising his parliamentary opponents..

In summary, speakers use many techniques to engage their audiences and make their message memorable.

The use of rhetorical devices such as arranging words to maximise their impact, or the use of figures of speech that change the expected meanings of words, are common examples.

Many rhetorical devices were identified in ancient times by the Greeks and Romans, who relied on oratory to communicate with the public. Today, many of these rhetorical devices still have Greek or Roman names.

Download the Rhetorical Devices PDF for an explanation and examples of important rhetorical devices that are commonly used to give power to speech.

13.1. UNTV: Malala speaks for silenced children

Although shot and almost killed by the Taliban for advocating education for girls, schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai has continued to champion education for all children.

Hear Malala, who nearly died of her wounds, addressing a special sitting of the United Nations on her 16th birthday. She speaks for the millions of children unable to attend school because of poverty, natural disasters and cultural attitudes. They represent the 57 million children worldwide who do not have access to schooling.

13.2. Hitting the funny bone with comedian Josh Thomas

Josh Thomas is one of Australia's favourite comedians.

What is it about his routines that keep his audience in stitches? Sit back and have a giggle as you investigate the nature of humour in this clip.

13.3. Sir Henry Parkes's Tenterfield Oration, 1889

What role did Henry Parkes play in the federation of Australia?

Listen to a re-enactment of Sir Henry Parkes's famous 1889 speech in Tenterfield, known as the Tenterfield Oration.

Note in particular the arguments Parkes used to gain political support.

13.4. Words as weapons: speech-making and democracy

Have you heard the term 'freedom of speech' or thought about how speaking in public or public speaking could be linked to freedom?

Find out how these words are linked as you listen to this audio program, which considers the importance of speaking in public to the history of democracy in the USA.

If you like this clip, visit this website for further information.

13.5. What makes a great speech?

Did you know that making a speech in public is rated as one of most people's greatest fears?

There is however an art to making a great speech.

Listen as Don Watson speech-writer for the former Prime minister Paul Keating, Michael Gurr playwright and speech-writer, and Ted Widmer foreign policy speech writer for former US president Bill Clinton, discuss the secrets to writing a great speech on The Book Show.

If you like this clip, visit Radio National for further information.

13.6. Paul Keating's 1992 Redfern speech

In 1992, PM Paul Keating delivered a speech in Redfern Park to launch Australia's program for the International Year of the World's Indigenous People.

The Redfern Park speech was significant as it was the first time a prime minister had spoken in such terms. In this extract of the speech, Keating says of the reconciliation process:

'It begins, I think, with that act of recognition. Recognition that it was we who did the dispossessing. We took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life. We brought the diseases. The alcohol. We committed the murders. We took the children from their mothers. We practised discrimination and exclusion.'

13.7. Lincoln, Morrison, King, Churchill, Keating, Obama: Great speeches of our time

ABC Local morning producer Andrea Carson talked to speech writer, author, script writer and essayist Don Watson about a selection of great speeches of our time.

Visit ABC Local to hear the interview.

13.8. Unforgettable speeches

In 2007, Radio National surveyed the nation in search of unforgettable public speeches.

Visit the ABC Radio National website to learn more about the survey.

Radio National: Enid Lyons's maiden speech to Parliament, 1943

Robert Menzies, Enid Lyons and others walk outside Parliament House

Q+A: Julia Gillard: responding to tricky questions

The 'inauguration' of Lake Burley Griffin

People sit at ceremony in front of Lake Burley Griffin

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PaMLA 2024: Translating Silence: Alternative Forms of Voice Beyond Speech

121st PAMLA Conference

Thursday, November 7 - Sunday, November 10, 2024

Margaritaville Resort | Palm Springs, California

Inspired by the conference theme “Translation in Action,” this panel seeks papers that explore conceptualizations of silence in literature not as a void but as a generative space where alternative forms of voice beyond linguistic speech might exist. Silence is a key concept in multiple fields including trauma studies, ecocriticism, and postcolonial studies. Although the key concept is often tied to literary discussions of language, panelists are encouraged to work across multiple disciplines and consider silences beyond speech, perhaps attending to other sensory modes, visual culture, and multispecies approaches.

This panel was inspired by postcolonial studies scholar Gayatri Spivak’s renowned essay “Can the Subaltern Speak?”, environmental humanists such as Bruno Latour in relation to his actor-network theory (ANT), and biosemiotics scholars such as Eduardo Kohn and Jesper Hoffmeyer. While silence is sometimes figured as a lack of speech and indeed agency, literary works often incorporate silent protagonists who express their perspectives and histories using modes of voice other than speech. In fact, some of these literary figures may not even be human and demonstrate communication through multispecies signs in the environment. This panel invites scholars to reflect on literary representations of silence and its stakes for their fields of study. Since this panel proposal works across disciplines, panelists are encouraged to situate their ideas within their respective fields in the abstract.

Some guiding questions include: What do these silences reveal or conceal within the larger political structures of these texts? How do the chosen literary texts call for an attention to and translation of silences into powerful and/or agential forms of voice? What kinds of reading methodologies are useful for interpreting and translating silences in literary texts? How do the terms of translation change when moving beyond the realm of linguistic speech? What are some forms of silence that are resistant to translation and might even be untranslatable?

Please submit a title, 50-word abstract, 250-500 word proposal, and a brief bio via the panel submission portal – https://pamla.ballastacademic.com/Home/S/19259 .

The PAMLA 2024 conference will be held in person (participation via Zoom is not possible). For more information, see https://www.pamla.org/pamla2024/ .

Distribution of Market Power, Endogenous Growth, and Monetary Policy

Yumeng Gu, Sanjay R. Singh

Download PDF (1 MB)

2024-09 | March 28, 2024

We incorporate incumbent innovation in a Keynesian growth framework to generate an endogenous distribution of market power across firms. Existing firms increase markups over time through successful innovation. Entrant innovation disrupts the accumulation of market power by incumbents. Using this environment, we highlight a novel misallocation channel for monetary policy. A contractionary monetary policy shock causes an increase in markup dispersion across firms by discouraging entrant innovation relative to incumbent innovation. We characterize the circumstances when contractionary monetary policy may increase misallocation.

Article Citation

Gu, Yumeng, and Sanjay R. Singh. 2024. “Distribution of Market Power, Endogenous Growth, and Monetary Policy,” Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Working Paper 2024-09. Available at https://doi.org/10.24148/wp2024-09

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Ryan o’connell to release essay collection (exclusive).

The book's collection will include "soul-bearing, funny, and provocative essays about overcoming one's limitations, and the ones others place on you, and leading a fully gay life."

By Lexy Perez

Associate Editor

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Ryan O’Connell is set to release a new book.

The Emmy-nominated and Writers Guild Award-winning writer, actor, and producer’s debut collection of essays was acquired by St. Martin’s Press, The Hollywood Reporter can exclusively announce. The book will be published in early 2026.

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Anyone win Powerball drawing jackpot April 3? Last night's winning numbers, lottery results

The Powerball jackpot is now estimated at $1.23 billion, with a cash value of $595.1 million. Saturday night's lottery drawing will take place at 10:59 p.m. ET, April 6, 2024. Will anyone win?

The Powerball lottery jackpot remains the game's No. 4 drawing of all-time and is now the eighth largest lottery prize in the U.S. after no one matched all six numbers on Wednesday night .

A total of nine tickets matched all five numbers except for the Powerball . Each ticket is worth $1 million.

Saturday's jackpot is currently estimated at $1.23 billion, with a cash option of $595.1 million.

Grab your tickets and let's check your numbers to see if you're the game's newest millionaire.

Here are the numbers for the Wednesday, April 3, Powerball jackpot worth an estimated $1.09 billion with a cash option of $527.3 million.

Powerball, Mega Millions: Want to win the lottery? Here are luckiest numbers, places to play

Powerball numbers 4/3/24

The winning numbers for Wednesday night's drawing were 11, 38, 41, 62, 65, and the Powerball is 15. The Power Play was 3X.

Anyone win Powerball 4/3/24? April 3 drawing jackpot results

No one matched all six numbers to win the Powerball jackpot.

Nine tickets matched all five numbers except for the Powerball worth $1 million. They were purchased in California (two), Massachusetts (two), Georgia, Maryland, New Jersey, South Carolina, and Washington.

Double Play numbers are 10, 44, 53, 60, 63, and the Powerball is 13.

Nobody matched all six numbers , and a ticket sold in Florida matched all five numbers except for the Powerball worth $500,000.

Powerball winner? Lock up your ticket and go hide. What to know if you win the jackpot

How many Powerball numbers do you need to win a prize?

You only need to match one number in Powerball to win a prize. However, that number must be the Powerball worth $4. Visit powerball.com for the entire prize chart.

What is the Powerball payout on matching 2 lottery numbers?

Matching two numbers won't win anything in Powerball unless one of the numbers is the Powerball. A ticket matching one of the five numbers and the Powerball is also worth $4. Visit powerball.com for the entire prize chart.

Powerball numbers you need to know: These most commonly drawn numbers could help you win

When is the next Powerball drawing?

The Powerball jackpot for Saturday rose to an estimated $1.23 billion with a cash option of $595.1 million, according to powerball.com .

Drawings are held three times per week at approximately 10:59 p.m. ET every Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.

How much is a Powerball lottery ticket?

A single Powerball ticket costs $2. Pay an additional $1 to add the Power Play for a chance to multiply all Powerball winnings except for the jackpot. Players can also add the Double Play for one more $1 to have a second chance at winning $10 million.

How to play Powerball

Mega Millions numbers?: Anyone win Mega Millions April 2 drawing jackpot? Winning numbers, Tuesday's results

Mega Millions winning numbers

The Mega Millions continued to rise after nobody matched all six numbers from Friday night's drawing . The current Mega Millions jackpot is worth an estimated $67 million, with a cash option of $31.0 million.

Powerball 2024 drawing jackpot winners

Here is the list of 2024 Powerball jackpot wins, according to powerball.com :

$842.4 million — Jan. 1; Michigan .

Powerball Top 10 lottery drawing jackpot results

Here are the all-time top 10 Powerball jackpots, according to powerball.com :

$2.04 billion — Nov. 7, 2022; California.
$1.765 billion — Oct. 11, 2023; California.
$1.586 billion — Jan. 13, 2016; California, Florida, Tennessee.
$1.23 billion — April 6, 2024; TBD.
$1.08 billion — July 19, 2023; California.
$842 million — Jan. 1, 2024; Michigan.
$768.4 million — March 27, 2019; Wisconsin.
$758.7 million — Aug. 23, 2017; Massachusetts.
$754.6 million — Feb. 6, 2023; Washington.
$731.1 million — Jan. 20, 2021; Maryland.

Powerball numbers: Anyone win Powerball drawing jackpot April 1? Monday's winning numbers, results

Powerball, Mega Millions history: Top 10 U.S. lottery drawing jackpot results

Here are the nation's all-time top 10 Powerball and Mega Millions jackpots, according to powerball.com :

$2.04 billion, Powerball — Nov. 7, 2022; California.
$1.765 billion, Powerball — Oct. 11, 2023; California.
$1.586 billion, Powerball — Jan. 13, 2016; California, Florida, Tennessee.
$1.58 million, Mega Millions — Aug. 8, 2023; Florida.
$1.537 billion, Mega Millions — Oct. 23, 2018; South Carolina.
$1.35 billion, Mega Millions — Jan. 13, 2023; Maine.
$1.337 billion, Mega Millions — July 29, 2022; Illinois.
$1.23 billion, Powerball — April 6, 2024; TBD
$1.13 billion, Mega Millions — March 26, 2024; New Jersey.
$1.08 billion, Powerball — July 19, 2023; California.

Chris Sims is a digital content producer at Midwest Connect Gannett. Follow him on Twitter: @ChrisFSims .

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Guest Essay

Don’t Overlook the Power of the Civil Cases Against Donald Trump

Through a cracked door, Donald Trump’s face is visible on a television screen.

By David Lat and Zachary B. Shemtob

Mr. Lat writes about the legal profession. Mr. Shemtob is a lawyer.

For months now, the country has been riveted by the four criminal cases against Donald Trump: the New York state case involving hush-money payments to an adult film star, the federal case involving classified documents, the Georgia election-interference case and the federal election-interference case. But some have been postponed or had important deadlines delayed. The only case with a realistic shot of producing a verdict before the election, the New York case, involves relatively minor charges of falsifying business records that are unlikely to result in any significant prison time . None of the other three are likely to be resolved before November.

It’s only the civil courts that have rendered judgments on Mr. Trump. In the first two months of 2024, Mr. Trump was hit with more than half a billion dollars in judgments in civil cases — around $450 million in the civil fraud case brought by the New York attorney general, Letitia James, and $83.3 million in the defamation case brought by the writer E. Jean Carroll.

For Trump opponents who want to see him behind bars, even a half-billion-dollar hit to his wallet might not carry the same satisfaction. But if, as Jonathan Mahler suggested in 2020, “visions of Donald Trump in an orange jumpsuit” turn out to be “more fantasy than reality,” civil justice has already shown itself to be a valuable tool for keeping him in check — and it may ultimately prove more successful in the long run at reining him in.

The legal system is not a monolith but a collection of different, interrelated systems. Although not as heralded as the criminal cases against Mr. Trump, civil suits have proved effective in imposing some measure of accountability on him, in situations where criminal prosecution might be too delayed, divisive or damaging to the law.

To understand why the civil system has been so successful against Mr. Trump, it’s important to understand some differences between civil and criminal justice. Civil actions have a lower standard of proof than criminal ones. In the civil fraud case, Justice Arthur Engoron applied a “ preponderance of the evidence ” standard, which required the attorney general to prove that it was more likely than not that Mr. Trump committed fraud. (Criminal cases require a jury or judge to decide beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant committed a crime, a far higher standard.) As a result, it is much easier for those suing Mr. Trump in civil court to obtain favorable judgments.

These judgments can help — and already are helping — curb Mr. Trump’s behavior. Since Justice Engoron’s judgment in the civil fraud case, the monitor assigned to watch over the Trump Organization, the former federal judge Barbara Jones, has already identified deficiencies in the company’s financial reporting. After the second jury verdict in Ms. Carroll’s favor, Mr. Trump did not immediately return to attacking her, as he did in the past. (He remained relatively silent about her for several weeks before lashing out again in March.)

Returning to the White House will not insulate Mr. Trump from the consequences of civil litigation. As president, he could direct his attorney general to dismiss federal criminal charges against him or even attempt to pardon himself if convicted. He cannot do either with civil cases, which can proceed even against presidents. (In Clinton v. Jones , the Supreme Court held that a sitting president has no immunity from civil litigation for acts done before taking office and unrelated to the office. And as recently as December, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit made clear that even if the challenged acts took place during his presidency, when the president “acts in an unofficial, private capacity, he is subject to civil suits like any private citizen.”)

It may also be difficult for Mr. Trump to avoid the most serious penalties in a civil case. To appeal both recent civil judgments, Mr. Trump must come up with hundreds of millions of dollars in cash or secure a bond from an outside company. Although he managed to post a $91.6 million bond in the Carroll case, he initially encountered what his lawyers described as “ insurmountable difficulties ” in securing the half-billion-dollar bond he was originally ordered to post in the civil fraud case. An appeals court order last week cut that bond to $175 million — but if Mr. Trump cannot post this bond, Ms. James can start enforcing her judgment by seizing his beloved real estate or freezing his bank accounts. And even though it appears that he will be able to post the reduced bond, the damage done to his cash position and liquidity poses a significant threat to and limitation on his business operations.

Furthermore, through civil litigation, we could one day learn more about the inner workings of the Trump empire. Civil cases allow for broader discovery than criminal cases do. Ms. James, for instance, was able to investigate Mr. Trump’s businesses for almost three years before filing suit. And in the Carroll cases, Mr. Trump had to sit for depositions — an experience he seemed not to enjoy, according to Ms. Carroll’s attorney. There is no equivalent pretrial process in the criminal context, where defendants enjoy greater protections — most notably, the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.

Finally, civil cases generally have fewer externalities or unintended consequences. There are typically not as many constitutional issues to navigate and less risk of the prosecution appearing political. As a result, civil cases may be less divisive for the nation. Considering the extreme political polarization in the United States right now, which the presidential election will probably only exacerbate, this advantage should not be underestimated.

David Lat ( @DavidLat ), a former federal law clerk and prosecutor, writes Original Jurisdiction , a newsletter about law and the legal profession. Zachary B. Shemtob is a former federal law clerk and practicing lawyer.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook , Instagram , TikTok , WhatsApp , X and Threads .

An earlier version of this article misstated Arthur Engoron’s title. He is a justice on the New York State Supreme Court, not a judge.

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Don't Underestimate the Power of Your Voice. Summary. Our voices matter as much as our words matter. They have the power to awaken the senses and lead others to act, close deals, or land us ...
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Life Lesson: The Power of Voice Perhaps the most profound lesson to be drawn from Maya Angelou's life is the importance of using our voice. Her words, whether in her autobiographies, poems, or ...
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We need to control the register, timbre, prosody, pace, pitch and volume of our voice. We cannot deny that there are times that the voice of the speaker has a huge impact on us, the more powerful it is, the more we want to listen. So by practicing and warming up we can improve our voice. We need to speak to be heard by everyone.
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The voice can be heard in topic sentences, where the writer tells the reader how the paragraph fits into the larger argument (i.e., how it connects to the thesis). The voice can be heard in the analysis in the paragraphs as the writer tells the reader what has been learned and what it means for the larger argument. The voice often gets stronger ...
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The Power of Using your voice. A voice is a tool that transports us into the future. A future that has more possibilities and more solutions. A voice is a tool that can be used for standing up for what is right, rather than what is easy. A voice gives your opinions a platform, and gifts you with the opportunity to have perspective and knowledge ...
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The aim of this article is to develop a theory of voice. I claim that it is productive to use 'voice' as a theoretical tool that encompasses a speaker's performance and body gestures. At the same time, this paper argues that it is insufficient to focus on the speaker. While there is recognition that voice (s) are a necessary part of a ...
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The Power Of Voice English Literature Essay. The book Their Eyes Were Watching God follows the story of Janie Crawford. It is a story not only of the main characters search for individuality, but her search for a voice of her own, and an escape from patriarchal figures of her time. Because she lives in male dominated society, her voice is often ...
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The structure of "The Last Duchess" demonstrates the manipulation and power that men held over women during the 1500's, as told by Robert Browning. "My Last Duchess" is a poem that exemplifies the power of voice. It contrasts the overbearing ramble of the controlling, manipulative Duke with the isolated and silent Duchess.
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By embracing your unique voice and infusing it into your writing, you unlock the power of expression and captivate your readers. Remember, writing is an art form that goes beyond rules and ...
The Power Of Voice English Literature Essay
It is a story not only of the main characters search for individuality, but her search for a voice of her own, and an escape from patriarchal figures of her time. Because she lives in male dominated society, her voice is often shunned and not accepted, yet she finds way of somehow evade the thinking of such a society and somehow make her voice ...
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My inner voice led me to my real friends and to one of the best experiences in my life, an exchange year in the United States. All my life I used my voice to explain, tell stories, to beg, to whine, to lead, to fight, to cry, to laugh, and to shout. It gives me power and strength so I could stay strong. Sometimes it is my inner wisdom and the ...
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The Power of Your Voice. Your voice is a powerful tool. Up with People, teaches young adults as they travel throughout their gap year to find ways to use their voice to positively impact the world. Incredible people throughout history have used their voices to create change. Maya Angelou was a poet and an activist who used her voice in support ...
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The human voice is able to infuse words with shades of deeper meaning because that power of speech can unearth the real intentions, mood, character, identity and culture of the speaker in question. It is easy for a person to write down something and mislead his or her audience or the entire world. However, once one has an opportunity to ...
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By redefining whose voice is valued, we redefine our society and its values. This essay is an extract from Rebecca Solnit's new book, The Mother of All Questions Explore more on these topics
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Conceptual Approaches to Power. Bertrand Russell, logician cum philosopher and social activist, published a relatively little-known book on power when World War II was looming large in Europe (Russell, 2004).In it he asserted the fundamental importance of the concept of power in the social sciences and likened its importance to the concept of energy in the physical sciences.
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The significance of essay tone lies in its power to: Convey Emotion: It can infuse creative writing with emotions, making it more relatable and engaging. For instance, a narrative essay may employ a personal and emotive tone to draw readers into the author's experience. ... Understanding when and how to use a passive voice essay is essential ...
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128. There has been many cases where young girls go through rape and are alway been put down for being women. Justice isn't always made but women gain self respect for themselves. In the novel The Color Purple, Alice Walker shows the reader that people should express their own identity so that they can find their own voice to gain empowerment.
English Honors The Power of a Voice Essay (pdf)
English Honors The Power of a Voice Essay. The Power of a Voice In the book Jane Eyre, Bronte uses Jane to exhibit a character who breaks societal rules and gender roles. In the book, Jane constantly goes against the rules designed for women within the Victorian era, and creates her own rules as an outlier. Even when in such a small position ...
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Tom's voice is described as "a gruff husky tenor", while Daisy's voice is described as the "kind of voice that the ear follows up and down as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again….there was an excitement in her voice that men who had cared for her found difficult to forget: a singing compulsion".
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Perhaps having voice doesn't mean a person has the power of self identity. Walker shows how others influence someone to find their own voice and gain the power they would not have before. Alice Walker uses characters like Sofia and Mary Agnes that have voice and uses the power of telling a personal story to find their own identity.
Robert Browning: Poems Essay
This essay will analyze the silence forced upon the Duchess, and will demonstrate how the form of the poem expresses the controlling voice the Duke maintains throughout the work. "My Last Duchess" is a poem that demonstrates the silence enforced upon a Duchess, emphasized by the isolation created by her former husband.
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The power of oratory. A speech can be a powerful public act. It can inspire people to be kind and more generous, or it can provoke people to hate and fear. It can change the world by furthering ...
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121st PAMLA Conference. Thursday, November 7 - Sunday, November 10, 2024. Margaritaville Resort | Palm Springs, California. Inspired by the conference theme "Translation in Action," this panel seeks papers that explore conceptualizations of silence in literature not as a void but as a generative space where alternative forms of voice beyond linguistic speech might exist.
Distribution of Market Power, Endogenous Growth, and Monetary Policy
Distribution of Market Power, Endogenous Growth, and Monetary Policy
The Power of Your Voice
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Powerball numbers 4/3/24. Wednesday night's drawing will take place at 10:59 p.m. ET. The winning numbers for Monday night's drawing were 19, 24, 40, 42, 56, and the Powerball is 23. The Power ...
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In the first two months of 2024, Mr. Trump was hit with more than half a billion dollars in judgments in civil cases — around $450 million in the civil fraud case brought by the New York ...