What Is A Ceremonial Speech

11

Speaker at a graduation

Words take incredible power.
They tin make people's hearts soar,
or they can make people's hearts sore.
– Dr. Mardy Grothe
psychologist and writer

The category of speeches that you are most likely to have to give is ceremonial speeches. Ceremonial speaking, originally called epideictic oratory, includes graduation speeches, wedding ceremony speeches, eulogy speeches, after-dinner speeches, award speeches, toast speeches, and tribute speeches. The biggest affair that these have in common is that they have a heavy emphasis on pathos-emotion. When listening to a ceremonial spoken communication, an audition expects to feel something and to feel a part of something. To reach that, a skilful ceremonial speech will include identification, narration, and magnification.

In many ways, special occasions are the punctuation marks of life.
They are the rituals that draw the states together
in celebration of some person or issue
Teri and Michael Adventure
communication scholars

This chapter will look at identification, magnification, and narration and how they office in ceremonial speeches to aid you fix to construct a speech communication of your own.

Speech of Introduction
Award Spoken communication
Acceptance Voice communication
Graduation Speech communication
Tribute Speech (Can be to a person, occasion, or monument)
Eulogy Spoken language
After Dinner Speech
Toast Spoken communication

Identification

In all speeches, the audition should feel similar you are considering their needs, this is especially truthful in a ceremonial speech. In a ceremonial speech, your audience in some fashion becomes part of the oral communication. To achieve this, you should use a lot of phrases like "we" and "our." In the graduation speech communication by Matthew McConaughey, he uses "we," and "y'all" words over 400 times–that is a lot of identification!

Identification

He uses "you" almost 250 times and "nosotros" 170 times in a 45-infinitesimal oral communication

You lot guys and girls, and young men and women are the reason I'thou here.
I'thousand really looking frontwards to talking with yous all this night.
You heard my dad played football hither.
I idea about what you would want, I thought about what you might need.
I also thought about what I want to say and what I need to say. Hopefully, nosotros're both going to exist happy on both
It means yous got an educational activity. Information technology ways y'all have more cognition in a specific subject, vocation. It means you may have more than expertise in what your degree is in. But what's it worth in the chore market out there today?
Then, while we're here, and they're going to encounter the jumbotron, let'south make it a place where nosotros break a sweat. Where we believe, where nosotros enjoy the process of succeeding in the places in means that nosotros are fashioned to.

Fun fact: Matthew McConaughey is a professor of practice at the Moody College of Advice at the University of Texas at Austin. https://moody.utexas.edu/kinesthesia/matthew-mcconaughey

Include Phrases That Provide Identification
We Our Us Mutual	Together Shared United Unified

More Examples of Identification

Here are a few ways that my students used identification in their speeches.

The Survivor Tree, an Elm, still stands as a witness of that mean solar day as a symbol of our resilience. The same kind of resilience all Americans have when faced with a tough obstacle to overcome. Tribute to OK City Memorial

My grandpa Jack is like the wind. We can't come across him but nosotros tin experience him. He is e'er with us.
Lily, Tribute to Grandpa Jack

Today, we gather here to honor a famous, and beloved man, Stanley Martin Lieber. We all knew him as Stan Lee
He brought u.s.a. together
He may be gone but we will not forget what for he did for us.
David Lester, Tribute to Stan Lee

An empty chair

Tip for Identification

When I exercise one-on-one speech consultations. I pull upward 2 or iii empty chairs so I ask the person who I am coaching to tell me who is sitting in the chair and listening to their spoken communication. I ask them to evidence me how that person is included in the spoken communication. I read parts of their speech out loud with them thinking about people in those chairs and then nosotros talk almost how we can reword some things to make sure those folks feel included.

Magnification

In addition to identification, ceremonial speeches should incorporate magnification. Magnification is where yous take an attribute of a person, and yous magnify it and brand it seem larger than life. It is where you lot highlight a positive aspect of a person or group. This works best if y'all tap into values that the audition share.

These are the nigh common magnification themes:

Triumph over obstacles
Unusual accomplishment
Superior performance
Unselfish motive
Benefit to gild
The greatness of a simple thing
Celebrate heroic acts and deeds

It is easiest to understand how these piece of work in a spoken language past way of example. Watch the following speeches to empathise how magnification can exist accomplished.

Magnification is where you brand an activity larger than life. Notice how Oprah Winfrey elaborates on the action of Rosa Parks and makes it large and heroic.

I grew up in the South, and Rosa Parks was a hero to me long before I recognized and understood the ability and bear on that her life embodied. I remember my father telling me about this colored woman who had refused to surrender her seat. And in my child'southward heed, I idea, "She must be really big." I idea she must be at least a hundred feet alpine. I imagined her being stalwart and stiff and carrying a shield to agree dorsum the white folks.

…And then I thanks again, Sis Rosa, for not only confronting the one white human who[se] seat yous took, non only against the bus driver, not merely for against the law, only for confronting history, a history that for 400 years said that yous were non even worthy of a glance, certainly no consideration. I cheers for not moving.

And in that moment when you resolved to stay in that seat, you lot reclaimed your humanity, and you gave u.s.a. all back a piece of our ain.

Before Mohammad Ali passed, he struggled with tremors. In this eulogy oral communication, Former President Clinton describes watching him light the Olympic flame. The mere act of walking was a simple thing that was fabricated keen past the circumstances.

Finally subsequently all the years that we have been friends, my enduring image of him is similar a trivial reel in iii shots: the boxer I thrilled to as a male child, the man I watched accept the last steps to lite the Olympic Flame when I was president, and I'll never forget information technology, I was sitting there in Atlanta, by then we knew each other, by then I felt that I had some sense of what he was living with, and I was still weeping similar a infant, seeing his hands shake and his legs shake and knowing past God he was gonna make those concluding few steps, no affair what it took.T he flamewould be lit.The fightwould be won.The spiritwould be affirmed. I knew it would happen.

Narration- Tell a Story

In addition to identification and magnification, ceremonial speeches should include stories.

a cute puppy

This example is from a University of Arkansas educatee speech and he is telling the story of picking out his outset dog. Notice how the small details help to describe united states of america in and help us to encounter the event unfold. I left this sample in spoken communication format so you could see how it was written on his manuscript to accept a feeling for the rhythm of the spoken language. (/// slanted lines, signal a break…the more lines, the longer the pause)

Information technology was a dainty twenty-four hour period and I tin can still motion-picture show you running towards me
when I really effort that is

Equally nosotros approach the house,///

three niggling girls

accompanied by their begetter

open a shed door to the side of the property

I rode my Heelys /// down a small

//concrete sidewalk

Excited to encounter the little balls of fluff

My parents said to pick a good one

And then I picked you /// because you bit my shoe.

Bryan Stevenson, author of But Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption gave this credence speech when winning the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction and NonFiction. Detect how his use of narration makes u.s. feel something about his grandmother and then we carry those feelings every bit he talks about racial justice.

I had a very shut relationship with my grandmother. My grandmother was the daughter of people who were enslaved. Her parents were born into slavery in Virginia in the 1840s. She was built-in in the 1880s, and the only thing that my grandmother insisted that I know about her enslaved father is that he learned to read before emancipation, and that reading is a pathway to survival and success. So I learned to read. I put books and words in my head and in my heart, so that I could get to the places that she needed me to go.

I'thousand thinking well-nigh my grandmother tonight, because she had these qualities virtually her. She was like lots of African American matriarchs. She was the real force in our family. She was the end of every argument. She was too the beginning of a lot of arguments! She was tough, and she was strong but she was also kind and loving. When I was a little boy, she'd give me these hugs, she'd squeeze me so tightly I could barely exhale. And and so she'd come across me an hour later and she'd say, "Bryan, do you however feel me hugging you?" And if I said no, she would assault me again!

Did you find the magnification (the greatness of a elementary thing) in learning to read and in hugging?

Did you notice his use of identification by saying, "She was like lots of African American matriarchs?"

Speaking of identification, check out how he uses "we"

We need to alter the narrative in this state near race, and poverty. We're a country that has a difficult time dealing with our shame, our mistakes. We don't do shame very well in America, and because of that we allow a lot of horrific things to go unaddressed.

Read the whole speech here:

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/awards-and-prizes/article/67546-is-this-the-greatest-book-award-acceptance-spoken language-ever.html

You can use identification, magnification, and narration in all your speeches, only these iii elements are especially important in ceremonial type speeches. Maya Angelou said, "People will forget what you said, people will forget what yous did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

Key Takeaways

Call up This!

Identification means to relate to your audience.
Magnification means to find traits nearly the person yous are talking near and magnify them.
Narration means to tell a story to assistance your audience experience something.
Ceremonial speeches should always include identification, magnification, and narration.

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References

Albanese, A. (2015). Is this the greatest book award credence speech ever? Publisher's Weekly. https://www.publishersweekly.com/prisoner of war/by-topic/industry-news/awards-and-prizes/article/67546-is-this-the-greatest-book-award-acceptance-speech-ever.html

Clinton, B. ( 2020). Nib Clinton'due south eulogy for Muhammad Ali. [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feGjy5bKMb0 Standard YouTube License.

Gamble, T. & Gamble, M.W. (1998). Public Speaking in the Historic period of Variety. Allyn and Bacon.

Justis, T. (2019). Photo of graduation speaker, Anna Francis Chandler.

Lester, D. Tribute to Stan Lee. University of Arkansas.

McConaughey, M. (2016). Matthew McConaughey Academy of Houston Speech. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmCTQ_mkzHU

Rigsby, R. (2017). The about inspiring speech: The wisdom of a third-form dropout will change your life. [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/sentinel?five=Bg_Q7KYWG1g Standard YouTube License.

Samovar, L. A., & McDaniel, Due east. R. (2007). Public speaking in a multicultural social club. Los Angeles, CA: Roxbury.

Saylor Academy (2012). Stand up speak out: The practise and ethics of public speaking. Saylor University.

Snippe, E. (2016). 101 quotes to inspire speakers. Angelou, One thousand. Quote. https://speakerhub.com/weblog/101-quotes

Thibodeau, P.H and Boroditsky, L. (2011). Metaphors we think with: The function of metaphor in reasoning. Stanford University.

Winfrey, O. (2010). Oprah eulogy [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/sentry?v=5cfhtfNfIPE&t=1s Standard YouTube License.