Need three speeches written in manuscript form, must be 1000-1100 words, no more no less.
Each speech has to be completed by a certain date. Please read all information posted under each speech. Thank you in advance.
Eulogy Speech due 15 hours
EULOGIES
A eulogy should say something about the appropriate way to “feel” on the occasion and bear witness to the virtues exemplified in the deceased’s life so that the audience may be inspired to do or be likewise or to realize more fully how the person modeled some social role(s) (e.g., parent, president, friend, brother, spiritual leader, sister, mother) or virtue(s) (e.g. courage, honesty, gentleness, generosity). One may also comment on how the absence of the deceased will be, or should be, dealt withhow her or his memory should be traced and how the audience’s grief may best be managed. Depending on the particular person being eulogized, one may also wish to comment on her or his “place” in history.
This kind of speech falls into the broad category of “encomium” which is any speech in praise of a person (or anything elsethere is also the “vituperation” which is the opposite of the encomium). You may also consider this kind of speech if you are called upon to make a speech of introduction (e.g., introducing a recipient at an awards ceremony)where you introduce a speaker to an audience. In a way, you are attempting to portray the character (ethos) of the person you are speaking about as it relates to the occasion of the speech.
Apologia due august 15
APOLOGIA
Apologia is a kind of account offered up by a person in the form of a public speech when her or his character, reputation, and/or motives have been put into question by some admitted deed or by some charge leveled by a credible source?where the charge seems plausible because it is based in some kind of credible evidence.
An account is usually understood as what a person says to “bridge a fracture” in their social world (an apology is one such account?this is where the term “apologia” comes from). Understanding the different kinds of accounts people typically give will help one understand the strategies of apologia that have been studied by scholars in the field of speech communication. (For more information on the concept of accounts see: Marvin B. Scott and Stanford Lyman, “Accounts,” American Sociological Review 33 [1968]. The list below is abstracted from their work.)
Accounts may be understood in the context of the rhetorical concept of stasis. Stasis is a technical term for “the issue” at stake in a given controversy. In the case of a person being accused of impropriety, where he or she may choose to present an account (or is called to account), or, if more extended and formal, present the speech called an apologia, the stasis is the central point of resistance that the speech must overcome or meet if the speaker is to achieve her or his goal. Each account addresses the charge against the speaker as a different kind of issue, or stasis, as a strategy of effectively engaging the issue.
As you read the list of accounts below it will become clear to you that you already employ these “lines of defense” in everyday life, and moreover, that the different lines of defense, if accepted by one’s “judge” (one’s accuser, one’s public or any other group or individual who may form negative perceptions based on accusations of impropriety), may tend to mitigate one’s guilt to greater or lesser degrees.
Accounts may take the form of:
Denial: actor claims act in question did not occur, or that she or he was not the actor.
Definition: actor redefines act so as to mitigate guilt (e.g., borrowing not stealing).
Quality: actor mitigates seriousness of the offense by qualifying it in relation to its attendant circumstances.
Justification: act admitted but wrongfulness of the act not admitted.
Excuse: act admitted, wrongfulness admitted, but blame is shifted to other persons or circumstances capable of liability (see accident, scapegoating, defeasability)
Appeal to loyalties: the actor asserts that her or his act was permissible or even right since it served the interests of another to whom she or he owes an unbreakable allegiance of affection.
Denial of injury: the actor acknowledges that she or he did the particular act but asserts it was permissible to do the act since no one about whom the community need be concerned with was involved.
Condemnation of the condemners: the actor admits performing an untoward act but asserts its irrelevancy because others commit these and worse acts, and these others are either not caught, not punished, not condemned, unnoticed, or even praised.
Denial of the victim: the actor expresses the position that the act was permissible since the victim deserved the injury.
Scapegoating: a person will allege that her or his questioned behavior is a response to the behavior or attitudes of another.
Referral: the actor says, “I know I’m not meeting your expectations, but if you wish to know why pleases see . . .”
Accident: the actor points out the generally recognized hazards of the environment, the understandable inefficiency of the body, and the human incapacity to control all motor responses.
Mystification: an actor admits that she or he is not meeting the expectations of another but follows by pointing out that, although there are reasons for her or his unexpected actions, she or he cannot tell the inquirer what they are.
Sad tale: an arrangement of facts that highlights an extremely dismal past and thus “explain” the individual’s present state.
Defeasibility: based on the belief that all actions contain some mental elementthe components of the mental element are knowledge and will.
Biological drives: based on popular beliefs about the efficacy of the body and biological factors determining human behavior.
Plea for leniency: charge admitted, actor seeks forgiveness.
Denial of right of reproach: actor claims that the accuser has no right at this time or place to level an accusation.
Identity switching: actor asserts she or he was playing role “A” not role “B” (e.g. friend vs. lover).
Conventionalization: actor asserts that she or he did not do act “A”, rather, she or he did act “B” (see definition).
The list of accounts could be extended further, but suffice it to say that each type of account represents a line of argument that can be developed in an apologia in response to charges that the alleged or observed actions of the accused impugn her or his character, morals, or motives.
In their essay entitled “They Spoke in Defense of Themselves: On the Generic Criticism of Apologia” (Quarterly Journal of Speech 3 [1973]: 273-83) B.L. Ware and Wil A. Linkugel identify four very broad strategies that are typically employed in apologia: (1) denial; (2) bolstering; (3) differentiation and; (4) transcendence. These strategies resonate with the accounts listed above. The overview below is abstracted, quoted and paraphrased from Ware’s and Linkugal’s essay:
Denial: one may deny alleged facts, sentiments, objects, relationships. Strategies of denial are useful to the speaker only to the extent that such negations do not constitute a known distortion of reality or to the point they conflict with other beliefs held by the audience. . . . Denial consists of the simple disavowal by the speaker of any participation in, relationship to, or positive sentiment toward whatever it is that repels the audience.
Bolstering: refers to any rhetorical strategy which reinforces the existence of a fact, sentiment, object or relationship. When bolstering, a speaker attempts to identify him- or herself with something viewed favorably by the audience. Senator Edward Kennedy used this strategy in his “Chappaquiddick” speechin it he attempted to reinforce a feeling of belonging between the public and the Kennedy family.
Differentiation: serves the purpose of separating some fact, sentiment, object or relationship from some larger context within which the audience presently views that attribute. The division of the old context into two or more new constructions of reality is accompanied by a change in the audience’s meanings. . . . Quibbling over meanings of definitions is not likely to aid the accused, but strategies which place whatever it is about him that repels the audience into a new perspective can often benefit him in his self-defense. . . . Differentiation is often signaled by the accused’s request for a suspension of judgment until her or his actions can be viewed from a different temporal perspectivehistory may “prove” the legitimacy of the accused’s actions.
Transcendence: cognitively joins some fact, sentiment, object, or relationship with some larger context within which the audience does not necessarily view that attribute. . . . This strategy affects the meaning which the audience attaches to the manipulated attribute. . . . It psychologically moves the audience away from the particulars of the charge at hand is a direction toward some more abstract, general view of the accused’s characterthe accused may claim that the important issue is not whether she or he is guilty, but whether any one will even listen to her or his defense.
In sum, the selection of a strategy may be determined by case at hand, the desired outcome, and how the client wants to cope with the accusation of impropriety or the alleged “evidence” of possible wrong doing (as in the case of President Clinton). Will she or he seek forgiveness? Will she or he admit it all and bow out of public life? Will she or he deny it all and seek total restoration of her or his reputation? There is no absolute answer to any of these questions. The best one can do as a speechwriter is to prepare oneself for any eventuality and be capable of effectively employing a strategy that suits the case at hand and is sensitive to all of its complexities.
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