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Abstract
Less Abstract
Concrete
summer
hot weather
sweltering heat
congestion
traffic jam
gridlock
Abstract language refers to words that are general and nonspecific, leaving meaning open to
interpretation.
Define figure of speech. Define three types of figures of speech, and give an example of each.
Figure of speech:
Form of expression that creates a striking comparison to help the listener
visualize, identify with, and understand the speaker’s ideas
To build trust and credibility, language must be accurate.
When considering accuracy, a
speaker
must consider the meaning of
words. Explain the denotative and
connotative
meanings of
words, and give an example of each.
Denotative meaning: The literal, or dictionary, definition of a word. Sometimes more concrete
What is the difference between the active and passive voice?
The way in which words are arranged in a speech can make the speech more memorable.
What three things should speakers take into consideration when arranging their language?
Repetition: Involves repeating key words or phrases at various intervals to create a distinct
rhythm
What is the difference between anaphora and epiphora?
Anaphora is a rhetorical device in which the speaker repeats a word or phrase at the beginning
ACTIVITIES
Confidence, Conviction, and Lasting Impression (also for online courses)
Purpose: To help students identify the active voice, personal pronouns, repetition, and
parallelism in speeches.
Instructions: Ask students to review several speeches located on the Internet (try www.ted.com
or www.youtube.com). Students should be prepared to discuss their findings in class. This can be
done individually or in small groups.
Identifying Biased Language
Purpose: To help students understand how to use bias-free language.
Instructions: Class members should read the following passage. They should then be instructed
to identify biased language and choose bias-free replacements for those words. Replacement
words should not change the overall meaning of the passage. Also, students should identify the
words that imply stereotypical behavior. After each student has completed the assignment, the
instructor should ask one student to volunteer to write the biased words and their replacements
on the board.
Discussion: The instructor can ask other students if they used any other words as replacements.
Also, discuss the stereotypes that were used to describe individuals’ behaviors. You might
consider discussing with students how difficult it can be to avoid bias-free language in speech.
Read the following:
Chris Jones is an African American male medical student who went to Johns Hopkins University.
One day at the hospital, he received a page over the intercom: “Dr. Jones, please come to the ER,
stat.” When Dr. Jones arrived at the ER, he spotted a young girl screaming about a car wreck and
pointing to an old geezer and a young boy. Dr. Jones told the young girl to calm down, that she
was behaving like a child. Dr. Jones quickly approached the two patients and took control of the
situation. Although the older patient was conscious, Dr. Jones didn’t talk to him because he
thought he was probably deaf. Instead, he turned to the fragile young girl, lowered his voice,
patted her on the head, and said, “Don’t worry, all mankind will be safe with me around.” He
told her that he would perform surgery on both patients because the only other doctor available
was Katie Morris, who is a woman, and women cannot handle this amount of blood and gore.
The Meaning of
Words: Denotative and Connotative Words
Purpose: To familiarize students with denotative and connotative meaning.
Instructions: Have students identify the denotative and connotative meanings of each of the
following words. Then have them come up with five of their own words and give both meanings
for each.
girl or boy
gay or lesbian
thrifty
skinny
drugs—high
bitch
surfing
liberal
conservative
fat
Meanings Are in People, Not in Words
Purpose: To help students become aware of how much language is connotative.
Instructions: Have students answer the following questions:
What is the most beautiful word you know?
What is the softest or gentlest word?
What is the ugliest word?
What is the most frightening word?
What is the harshest or sharpest word?
What word makes you feel lonely?
What word makes you feel angry?
What is the most overused or trite word?
What word makes you feel happiest?
Discussion: As a class, discuss students’ answers, illustrating how many students provided
different words for each meaning. Make sure to discuss how each audience member will respond
differently to the words a speaker chooses to utilize, and how this ultimately affects the
speechmaking process.
Keep It Simple (also for online courses)
Purpose: To help students learn to use language concisely.
Instructions: This activity needs to be completed outside class. Have students evaluate a speaker
(either live or on the Internet) outside class. Students should identify sections in the speech
where the speaker overloads the listener with unnecessary words and long sentences. Ask
students to create a more concise way to communicate the speaker’s message. This can be a
homework assignment, and it can be used to facilitate classroom discussion.
Additional instructions: If instructors have examples (written, visual, or audio) of individuals
giving a speech or a presentation, this exercise can be done as a class during class time.
Abstract Language and Vivid Imagery
Purpose: To help students understand the difference between abstract and concrete language,
and to help them use more concrete language and vivid imagery in their presentations.
Instructions: Use the text to discuss and explain concrete language and vivid imagery. Then
have students work in small groups (four to five members) to come up with at least five
examples of each. As an aid, students can create a level-of-abstraction chart. They can also pick
five topics, and develop two or three examples of using imagery to appeal to the listeners’ senses.
Discussion: One person from each group can read his or her answers to the class. A brief
discussion can focus on the effectiveness of these examples.
Appealing to the Senses
Purpose: To help students understand how to use vivid imagery to appeal to the audience’s
senses.
Instructions: Ask students to get in groups of three to four and choose a fun speech topic, either
informative or persuasive. With respect to this speech topic, have each group generate lists of
words and phrases they could use to appeal to the following senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste,
and touch.
Discussion: This activity can be a lot of fun for students because it allows them to use their
creativity in a group context. After students have completed their lists, ask them to share them
with the class.
Identifying Our Own Biases (also for online courses)
Purpose: To encourage civic engagement; to encourage students to become aware of their own
biases; to help them avoid these biases in their speech.
Instructions: Ask students to pretend that they will be speaking at a student protest about an
issue they care about. The issue is up to each individual student, but remind them to choose one
that is appropriate and ethical. Once students have chosen an issue, have them brainstorm about
possible jargon, biases, and sexist or culturally insensitive language that they might be tempted
to utilize in the speech. Then ask students to generate alternatives for these words or phrases,
emphasizing that their language should be simple, concise, and concrete.
Discussion: Once students have completed this portion of the activity, place them in small
groups and have them discuss their individual experiences identifying and replacing biased
language.
Figures of Speech: Metaphors, Similes, and
Analogies
Purpose: To give students practice in constructing metaphors, similes, and analogies.
Instructions: Have students construct metaphors, similes, and analogies for the following:
Metaphor
Provide a metaphor for your life.
Provide a metaphor for what you think about love.
Provide a metaphor for what you think about education.
Provide a metaphor for what you think about death.
Incorporating Figures of Speech
Provide a metaphor about justice.
Simile
“Being in college is like . . . ”
“Eating apple pie is like . . . ”
Provide two similes using as.
Analogy
Use an analogy to describe some process that you engage in as a student or at your job.
Research an analogy used by a famous public figure.
Provide an analogy to help someone understand what it feels like to give a speech.
Provide an analogy to explain the bonds of friendship or brotherhood/sisterhood.
Discussion: As a class, students can share their answers with one another. Also, students can
generate other examples and create even more metaphors, similes, and analogies.
Using Descriptive Language
Purpose: To give students experience using descriptive language.
Instructions: Choose an ordinary object in the room around you. Without explicitly naming the
object, write a paragraph describing it in detail. Read your description to a classmate, and see if
he or she can guess what the object is.
This activity is especially helpful in demonstrating denotative and connotative meanings. The
activity may also provide students with an opportunity to work on effective language use by
helping them to use language that is more descriptive and vivid.
Purpose: To help students practice using figures of speech in their descriptions.
Instructions: Review the paragraph you wrote for Student Activity 1, looking for metaphors,
similes, and analogies. Have you created any? If not, try to describe the object using these terms.
Figures of Speech for the Chosen Topic
Purpose: To encourage students to think of figures of speech that will be effective in their
upcoming speech.
Instructions: Considering your speech topic, write an example of the following figures of
speech that could be used in your speech: simile, metaphor, analogy, personification,
understatement, irony, allusion, hyperbole, and onomatopoeia.
Ask students to read their figures of speech out loud to the class (or have them posted in an
online discussion board).
Editing for Conciseness
Purpose: To give students experience identifying and editing out unnecessary wordiness in their
own work.
Instructions: Select a piece of recent writing you have done—a speech, a term paper, or other
work—and edit it for conciseness. Can certain words and sentences be deleted to make the
message clearer and more concise? Try using a thesaurus to substitute simple words for unwieldy
ones.
This exercise can be used with previous speech assignments that students have worked on in
class.
Editing for
Vivid Imagery
Purpose: To give students experience identifying and editing their previous work to incorporate
vivid imagery.
Instructions: Have students list the language concepts from the chapter, including vividness,
conciseness, abstraction/concreteness, alliteration, and avoiding bias and other language barriers.
Then ask students to edit their previous writing using this list as a set of guidelines. If time
permits, you might even have students present their revised speech to the class, emphasizing the
changes that they made to the speech language.
II. GROUP ACTIVITIES
Avoiding Insensitive words
Purpose: To teach students to substitute sensitive and unbiased language for insensitive and
biased words.
Instructions: As part of a class activity, work in groups of five to generate five to ten sensitive
words for which more appropriate language can be substituted. Each group should report its
results to the class. To spur your thinking, consider the following substitutions:
Instead of saying . . . Consider . . .
janitor maintenance worker
repairman repair person
congressman senator or representative
handicap disability
To apply this exercise to real-life situations, find examples of writing or speeches that use biased
terms such as those just listed. Have the groups identify
the inappropriate terms and think of
substitutes for them.
Peer
Critique
Focusing on
Word Use
Purpose: To give students feedback on word use in their speeches; to give students experience
evaluating their classmates’ speeches for word use; to give students an opportunity to deliver
feedback in a constructive way.
Instructions: In groups of three to five classmates, read aloud from one classmate’s speech.
Evaluate how he or she has handled language in terms of the following: simplicity and
conciseness; vividness of imagery; accuracy of word usage, including connotative meanings;
transitions; sentence structure; length and completeness of sentences; and use of personal
pronouns.
This exercise is an excellent opportunity for students to practice developing effective language
for their speech assignments before they are due. By providing feedback early in the process,
students will have more knowledge about which techniques to incorporate, as well as what the
instructor will look for when evaluating language use in the actual assignment. Additionally, this
activity can help students manage speech anxiety, as they will feel more confident about speech
content. When reading a portion of a student’s speech in class, encourage the class to identify
how that student has handled the language, and provide additional feedback on how the language
could be further developed and made more effective. Remind students to be respectful and
appropriate in their criticisms.
Regional Colloquialisms
Purpose: To challenge students to identify and evaluate the appropriateness of colloquialisms
used in their region.
Instructions: In a group of four or five people, research colloquial expressions that are unique to
your region. Be prepared to discuss your findings with the class.
This activity allows students to engage in audience analysis while considering how to effectively
utilize language in their speeches. When students present their findings, ask them to discuss
whether the colloquial expression would be understood or appropriate to use in another context
or region. This exercise is fun because many students are surprised to learn that expressions they
use on a regular basis are not understood by others.
Distinguishing Oral from Written Style
Purpose: To give students experience identifying the difference between oral and written style.
Instructions: In a team of four or five people, locate online articles or magazine articles and
select a text that could be appropriately used as spoken language in a speech. Next, find a text
that would be ill-suited for use as spoken language. Report your results to the class.
Selections that are more appropriately read include writings that already have their own vivid
language (e.g., alliteration, metaphors) and that can help readers conjure their own visualizations
of what is written. Selections that are more appropriate for oral delivery include those that
require the effective use of nonverbal cues to convey the message, or more difficult or abstract
ideas that require the use of multiple channels to convey the correct meaning or message. When
students make their own selections, have them discuss their results in terms of why one form of
language is better read while another form is better heard.
Identifying and Translating Jargon
Purpose: To encourage students to identify jargon; to give students experience clearly defining
jargon or substituting similar words.
Instructions: In groups of two or three, take turns translating jargon you have learned from your
major, minor, or from another course you are enrolled in. You should first state the term and then
define it concisely, or use a simpler synonym instead. Your classmates are unlikely to understand
acronyms and specialized terms that are specific to your area of study, so make sure to get
feedback as to how successful you were in your attempt to translate for them. Because it is
important to strive for simplicity in our speech, this exercise will help you identify ways to best
communicate the specific language of a given profession or discipline.
Encourage students to keep this activity in mind when preparing their speeches for class. Jargon
should be avoided unless the audience will understand the term being used. This activity will
help students conceptualize what it means to strive for simplicity.
