This document provides guidance on effective communication through language and style. It discusses three main aspects: voice, style and vocabulary, and rhetoric. Voice refers to elements like rhythm, speed, pitch, and pauses. Style depends on factors like sex and culture. Effective rhetoric uses techniques like comparison, metaphor, personification, hyperbole, and antithesis to engage the audience. The document advises tailoring one's language and style to the context and audience, and emphasizes clarity, concision, and avoiding cliches or tricks.

1. LANGUAGE AND STYLE

2. „The medium is the message.”
(Marshall MacLuhan)

3. Three main aspects
Voice
Style and vocabulary
Rhetoric

4. Voice or paralanguage
Rythm
Speed
Loudness
Pitch
Pause
Different vocalisations
Expressions such as „er”, „wow”

5. Rythm and pause
Intensity and intonation (codes!)
Avoid monotony
Pause: interest and expectation
Speed
Vary your speed according to the text!
Use a code system

6. Voice quality, „loudness”,
pitch
Functions: emphasis,attention
Comfort!
Express attitude to topic
„My voice is me”. (Montágh)

7. Common problems:
„dynamic monotony”
„singing speech”
lack of emphasis
changing meaning by breaking the
sentence at wrong points
„A királynőt megölni nem kell félnetek jó lesz
ha mindnyájan beleegyeztek én nem
ellenzem. „

8. Breathing
- find your right voice!
- too types:
physiological
speaking
- posture
Expressions such as „er”, „wow”,
vocalisations

9. Style
Depends on sex and culture
Women use
- more „we” ( „I”)
- empty and exaggerating adjectives
(fantastic, exciting, great)
- personal intro phrases (I think)
- conditionals
- understatement

10. Central-Eastern European rhetoric
relies more on
„We” and communcal knowledge systems
empty and exaggerating adjectives
knowledge demonstration as opposed to
evaluation
the reader to infer hidden messages,
conlusion

11. Words
Denotation and connotation
„the company exceeded the budget”
Vs.
„the company works with a planned deficit”
Key feature: synonymy
„I’m confident, you’re insistent, he’s
obstinate” (Black)

12. Shortcomings of style
Commonplaces
The matter at hand is …
As a matter of speaking …
By and large …
It all boils down to …
We should put a time frame on it

13. Euphemism:misleading vs. softening
„We can see the light at the end of the tunnel”
Vs.
„I should think over this problem if I were you.”
Confusing images
- good striving for a more picturesque
language with problems
„In her embarrassment she felt like a fish on a hot
tin roof.”

14. Active and passive structures
lively style grammar and
vocabulary
nouns static
verbs dynamic
„After long reflection, his decision to confess
was made.” vs.
„ He reflected for ages and then finally
decided to confess.”

15. „camuflaged verbs” (to give a
lecture)
use active voice
avoid conditionals and mitigators
Updike’s literary invention

16. Stimulate attention
And that’s not all …
But first you should know a few things
Now – and this is most important …
But there is one more thing you have
to do
You might be asking yourself …
Fulfill your promises!

17. How to develop your style
Strive for clarity, avoid
uncertainty in content
reference to assumed BGK
cramming too much info into a given time
frame
multiple subordinations in sentences
sidetracks „in brackets”.

18. Be concise
„Words are like leaves;
And where they most abund
Much fruit of sense
Beneath is rarely found.”
(Alexander Pope)

19. „Amint azt az eddig leírtakban is aláhúztuk, és
amint az a közelmúltban a Miskolci
Egyetemen megrendezésre került
konferencia felszólalásaiból is kiviláglott, az
új termékek bevezetése vállalatainknál nem
tűnik előnyben részesíthető alternatívának a
jelenlegi időperiódusban.”
„A Miskolci Egyetemen tartott konferencia
hozzászólásai is alátámasztották: az új
termékek bevezetése ma nem előnyös
vállalatainknak.”

20. How to express yourself
effectively: Rhetoric
Comparison
„Business is like riding a bicycle. Either
you keep moving or you fall down.”
- Illustration more familiar quality
than the real object
- Avoid overused images (pure as a
virgin)

21. Metaphore – analogy between ideas
„A man without judgement is like a car
without brakes; but a man without
enthusiasm is like a car without a motor.”
Personification – imagine that your
subject is a human being
„Are commercial banks an endangered
species?”

22. Hyperbole – intentional exaggeration
„I believe that with the new biotechnology
we can achieve anything that can be
achieved!”
Understatement – seemingly
lessening value, merit or importance
but implying the opposite
„The disadvantages should not be
overlooked either.”

23. Irony – stating the opposite with
implied negative evaluation
„No advertisement has ever bored a
reader. That’s because it requires little
effort and less time to turn the page.”
Antithesis – contrasting two opposing
views
„They promised prosperity and delivered
misery.”

24. Climax –arrangement of words/
phrases in order of increasing power
„He who loses wealth loses much;
he who loses a friend loses more;
but he who loses his courage loses all.”
Rhetorical question
„Is language change good? The answer is
yes.”

25. Anacoluthon - a break in sentence
structure for heightened effect
„Cleopatra’s nose, had it been shorter,
could have changed the face of the world.”
Antimetabole – repetition with inverted
order of items
„Ask not what your country can do for you,
but what you can do for your country.”

26. Do not:
Use long and complicated sentences
Use long and abstract words
Lie or trick your audience
Abuse cliches
Use too many figures of speech
Hum and haw with words like Well – Hum –
I mean – you know . Keep silent.
Talk about banal generalities (Everyone
knows)