1. Public Speaking
And how to work with it in
a rhetorical perspective
Ida Borch

2. Plan
• An introduction to rhetoric
• 30 old school slides with a distilled version of
2000 years of accumulated knowledge on how
to get your audience to agree with you
• Most of all: An appetizer
• Second of all: An awareness that
improvisation is grand - especially when based
on solid craftsmanship

3. Who am I?
• Ida Borch
• Cand.mag in rhetoric, psycho linguistics and
teaching, KU
• Associate professor at CBS in personal
branding and intercultural communication
• Owner of Orator – Retorik & Rådgivning
– Rhetoric
– Social media
– Qualitative market analysis

4. Toolbox
• Context awareness
– The Rhetorical Pentagram
• Composing awareness
– Rhetorical Canon
• Style awareness
– The three artistic proofs: Ethos, Logos, Pathos
• Argumentation awareness
– Toulmin’s model for practical argumentation
• Coaching awareness
– Constructive criticism

5. Context awareness

6. The Rhetorical Pentagram
Audience
Topic Speaker
Constraints Language

7. Composing awareness
• The Rhetorical Canon

8. The rhetorical canon
There are five phases you
will eventually go through
Inventio
when you compose text – Dispositio
both for oral and literal
contexts. You might not Elocutio
follow them in a lineary way
– but you cannot avoid Memoria
crossing each of them:
Actio

9. The anatomy of a speech
Disposition Stating the Argumentation
facts
Finale
Intro
1 2 3 4
5

10. Style Awareness

11. The three artistic proofs
You can approach your
audience in various ways. Ethos
The ancient Greek and
Romans believed that there
were three ways of Logos
appealing to an audience.
Persuasion lies in your
ability to use an adequate
Pathos
artistic proof – or stylistic
level:

12. Logos
• Appeal to the intellect
• Logical argumentation
• Used in law and science
• The most prevalent and preferred style in
academic contexts
• Advantage: derived of emotion
• Disadvantage: Heavy and potentially boring

13. Pathos
• Appeal to the emotions
• Emotional argumentation
• Used in literature and poetry and contexts that calls for
emotions (i.e. sorrow and happiness)
• Vivid language with metaphors and tropes
• Advantage: Powerful persuasive potential
• Disadvantage: Bears an immanent risk of rejecting audience –
if they do not want to share the emotions projected, the
persuasive potential is very limited

14. Ethos
• Appeal through the speaker and the speakers
integrity
• Ethos is not something the speaker has, but
something that is in the mind of the audience
• Used in every context – but very visible in politics
and literature. And popular science
• Advantage: If you (manage to) establish a credible
ethos that alone provides you with a very persuasive
potential
• Challenge: If you do not believe the man, you do not
trust his words

15. Argumentation awareness
• Practical argumentation

16. Logical cc rhetorical proof
• Logical proof: • Rhetorical ’proof’:
Syllogism Enthymeme
– Valid conclusion – Tentative
from the truth of conclusions based
its premises on probable
– Based on reason premises
– Must be true – Based on common
sense
– Can be true

17. Valid logical argument
- a valid syllogism
All men are mortal
Socrates is a man
Socrates is mortal

18. Toulmin model of argumentation
Data Claim
Warrant Qualifier
Backing Reservation

19. Socrates is mortal
Socrates is a human being
All men are mortal

20. Socrates is wildly mortal!
Socrates is a human being
All men are mortal

21. Socrates is wildly mortal!
Socrates is a human being
All men are mortal
Even though Plato
immortalized him
through his Reservation
dialogues

22. Socrates is wildly mortal!
Socrates is a human being
All men are mortal
Even though Plato
immortalized him
through his At the end of the
dialogues day, it’s a
Backing biological fact

23. Socrates is wildly mortal!
Socrates is a human being
All men are mortal
Even though Plato
immortalized him
through his At the end of the
dialogues day, it’s a
biological fact

24. Toulmins argumentmodel
• Claim
• Data Data Claim
• Warrant
Warrant Qualifier
• Qualifier
• Reservation Backing Reservation
• Backing

25. Prospect AIESEC members in the
model
It is good for You should
your career join AIESEC
One should always
make career moves
Perhaps
It’s highly
recommended by
Unless you’re way
the SDU board
behind schedule with
your studies

26. Prospect AIESEC members in the
model
We’re getting drunk You should
every weekend join AIESEC
Having fun is a
human right
Totally
And social
networking Unless you’re way
benefits relations behind schedule with
your studies

27. Important rule in argumentation
•It’s not always a logical
argument that’s the most
logical thing to use in
practical argumentation

28. Remember
• What you claim is not the most important
thing in argumentation
• How you substantiate the claim and which
data you use to support the claim is however
extremely important
• If the target group do not share the basic
assumption in the warrant, they are hardly
liable to follow your claim

29. Books….in Danish and English
• Jørgensen og Onsbergs:
– Praktisk argumentation
• Gabrielsen og Christiansen:
– Talens Magt
– Academica 2009
• Atkinson:
– Our Masters Voices
– Routledge 1984
• Steensbech Lemée & Lund
– Troværdighed – tal godt for dig
– Fydenlund