Publicist (Oratory) Style

Publicist (Oratory) Style This is a style used in public speeches and printed publicist works, which are addressed to a broad audience and devoted to important social or political events, public problems of cultural or moral character. Such communication requires clarity in the presentation of ideas, its aim is to convince the readers/listener of the truth of the ideas expressed, and at the same time to produce an emotional impact (impression) on the audience. Thus the main features of this style are clear logical argumentation and emotional appeal to the audience. In this way the publicist style has features in common not only with the style of official or scientific works, on the one hand, but also with some elements of emotionally coloured colloquial style, on the other hand. Indeed, in this case the author has no need to make his speech impersonal (as in scientific or official style) — on the contrary, he tries to approximate his text to lively communication, as though he were talking to people in direct contact. Accordingly, the publicist style is characterized by the use of logically connected syntactic structures in their full form, i.e. complete extended sentences connected by conjunctions clearly showing the relations expressed, but at the same time, an emotional impact is achieved by the use of emotionally coloured vocabulary, just as in belles-lettres style (the style of fiction works) and in colloquial style. Publicist (oratory) style requires eloquence (красноречие), and such works are often ornamented with stylistic devices and figures of speech (see Part 3). Some authors of publicist works may prefer verbosity (многословие), others — brevity of expression, often resembling epigrams. There are various genres in which the publicist style is employed, such as public speeches, essays, pamphlets, articles published in newspapers or magazines, radio and TV commentaries, etc. The oral variant of publicist style — the oratory style proper (which is used in speeches and mass media commentaries), is especially close to spoken language in its emotional aspect. It is aimed at logical and emotional persuasion of the audience. As there is direct contact with the audience, it allows the speaker to combine effects of written and spoken varieties of language. For example, the author can use direct address (the pronoun of the second person "You"), and often begins his speech with special formulas of address to the audience: Ladies and Gentlemen! My Lords', (in the House of Lords); Mr. Chairman: Highly esteemed members of the conference.'; or. in a less formal situation — Dear Friends; or, with a more passionate colouring — My friends/ As the speaker/author attempts to reach closer contact with the audience, he may use such devices as asking the audience questions: Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, he trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him ? (Th. Jefferson) or making an appeal to the audience: Let us then, with courage and confidence, pursue our own federal and republican principles! (ibid.). On the other hand, as different from colloquial style, the vocabulary of speeches and printed publicist works is usually very elaborately chosen and remains mainly in the sphere of lofty (high-flown) style. See examples below: a) Friends and Fellow Citizens: Called upon to undertake the duties of the first executive office of our country, I avail myself of the presence of that portion of my fellow citizens which is here assembled, to express my grateful thanks for the favor with which they have been pleased to look toward me, to declare a sincere consciousness that the task is above my talents, and that I approach it with those anxious and awful presentiments which the greatness of the charge and the weakness of my powers so justly inspire (Th. Jefferson. First Inaugural Speech) b) The method which Mr. Burke takes to prove that the people of England had no such rights, and that such rights do not now exist in the nation ...is of the same marvellous and monstrous kind with what he has already said; for his arguments are, that the persons, or the generations of persons, in whom they did exist, are dead, and with them the right is dead also. (Th. Paine. Rights of Man) Like colloquial style, the publicist style is usually characterized by emotional colouring and connotations, but there is a difference. The emotional colouring of publicist style is lofty: it may be solemn (as in example a) above), or it may be ironic/sarcastic (as in example b)), but it cannot have the "lower" connotations (jocular, endearing, rude or vulgar, slangy) found in colloquial/familiar colloquial speech. The syntax of publicist style is often characterised by repetition of structures (syntactic parallelism) — a device used to rouse the audience emotionally: 'It is high time this people had recovered from the passions of war. It is high time that the people of the North and the South understood each other and adopted means to inspire confidence in each other (from a public speech made at the end of the Civil War in the USA). What do we see on the horizon? What forces are at work? Wither are we drifting? Under what mist of clouds does the future stand obscured? (from Lord Byron's speech in Parliament) Syntactic repetition may be combined with lexical repetition (periphrasis): Robert Burns exalted our race and the Scottish tongue. Before his time we had for a long period been scarcely recognised; we had been falling out of the recollection of the world ... Scotland had lapsed into obscurity ... Her existence was almost forgotten (all those different phrases simply repeat the idea "nobody knew us, Scots, before").