© Copyright by University of SS Cyril and Methodius in Trnava Research article LEGE ARTIS Language yesterday, today, tomorrow Vol. I. No 2 2016 SPEAKING TO THE GLOBAL AUDIENCE: A CASE STUDY INTO THE MESSAGE TRANSFORMATION Yaroslava Fedoriv Fedoriv, Ya. Speaking to the global audience: a case study into the message transformation // Lege artis. Language yesterday, today, tomorrow. The Journal of University of SS Cyril and Methodius in Trnava. Warsaw: De Gruyter Open, 2016, vol. I (2), December 2016. – p. 1-36. DOI: 10.1515/lart- 2016-0009 ISSN 2453-8035 Abstract: This paper presents a pragma-rhetorical analysis of persuasive discourse performed by applying the information theory, modelling the process of public communication, and employing the classical notions of ethos, pathos, and logos in order to examine the factors that affect the communication process in the culturally and linguistically heterogeneous environment and to foreshow the meta-linguistic strategies, which could serve as global rhetorical maxims or universals. Key words: information theory, communication model, rhetorical appeals, induced perception, cross- cultural context, communication dissonance. Regardless of what form of power a society adopts, success will be with those spokespersons who will build their programme and life-course according to the understanding of the culture and the art of moral reasoning (Rozhdestvenskiy 1999). 1. Introduction The art of rhetoric has a long history of development, and it has accumulated an extensive variety of principles and precepts for structuring a public speech, choosing vocabulary, syntax, stylistic figures of speech, visualisation devices, and the tone of delivery, depending on the communication situation (time, place, and people involved in the discourse) and the rhetor's intention. It has been admitted though that successful communication cannot be ensured even if both the speaker and the audience share a linguistic and cultural background (Fedoriv 2009: 20). The problem is aggravated in a 1 ISSN 2453-8035 DOI: 10.1515/lart-2016-0009 Brought to you by | National University of Kyiv Authenticated Download Date | 11/28/17 10:19 AM multicultural or multiethnic context due to the disparity in the conceptual codes and cognitive frameworks of the message addresser and the addressee. Considering different contexts for the same public message and applying the empirical analysis as a method of obtaining the research data, this contribution focuses on the factors that affect the communication process in a heterogeneous cultural, linguistic, and attitudinal environment, aiming at outlining the meta-linguistic strategies, which could serve as global rhetorical maxims or universals. 2. Background studies 2.1. Public speaking viewed through the theory of information Public speaking is treated here a subset of a more general notion of human communication which, in its broadest interpretation, is defined as the act of conveying the intended message to the recipient. This process, ideally, might be imagined as a plain transfer of information to the audience by the speaker (Fig.1a), yet in reality it may appear not so smooth due to a variety of factors, including the listeners' discordant background knowledge about the topic, their receptivity to the message, the relationship and trust between the speaker and the audience, their interpretations that are influenced by their experiences, attitudes, perceptions, culture, and other individual and social causes, all of which might hinder public communication (Fig. 1b). 2 ISSN 2453-8035 DOI: 10.1515/lart-2016-0009 Brought to you by | National University of Kyiv Authenticated Download Date | 11/28/17 10:19 AM Figure 1. Public speaking viewed as the ideal (a) and real (b) communicative act. Picture made by the author with the use of standard Microsoft Office gallery. Thus, the interactional model of communication, rather than render a simplistic transfer of the message from the sender to the receiver (Fig. 2a), should take into account all the possible 'noise' factors that influence the message perception by the audience (Fig. 2b). 3 ISSN 2453-8035 DOI: 10.1515/lart-2016-0009 Brought to you by | National University of Kyiv Authenticated Download Date | 11/28/17 10:19 AM a) message Sender Receiver b) message Sender Receiver n o i s e Figure 2. The interactional model of public communication: a) ideal; b) incorporating the 'noise' factors. Picture made by the author with the use of standard Microsoft Office graphic tools. And yet, the latter diagram only approximates modelling public communication, as it does not comprehensively reflect all the factors influencing, and actors partaking in this complex process. In his book Communication: the study of human communication, Mortensen outlines the long history of the 'communication model' development from linear to bidirectional to multidimensional, including Aristotle's speaker-centred model dated 384-322 B.C.; De Saussure's conceptualistic circuit model of 1915; Shannon's information theory model of 1948, functional of 1951; intermediary, or gatekeeper of 1957; conceptual of 1957; Jacobsonian context-based of 1960; helical of 1967; mosaic of 1968; transactional of 1970; systemic of 1972; holographic of 1987; fractal of 1992; and ecological of 2004 (Mortensen 1972). Although this general account suggests a great variety of other communication models, most contemporary scholars in such diverse disciplines as rhetoric, linguistics, journalism, speech, and hearing sciences, agree upon the six key constituents of communication: sender, message, receiver, medium of communication, noise, and feedback, which, with respect to the bidirectionality of the process, constitute an interactive model of speech communication (Fig. 3). 4 ISSN 2453-8035 DOI: 10.1515/lart-2016-0009 Brought to you by | National University of Kyiv Authenticated Download Date | 11/28/17 10:19 AM Figure 3. Six-component model of public communication: sender, message, receiver, medium of communication, noise, and feedback. Picture made by the author with the use of standard Microsoft Office gallery. 2.2. Public speaking viewed from the rhetorical perspective On the other hand, public communication viewed from the rhetorical perspective falls under the sequential model that reflects the process of creation and delivery of a message (Федорів 2010: 10-11). According to Gronbeck, Ehninger, and Monroe's model of the speechmaking process (1988: 13) and Matsko's description of the classical fivefold model of proof (2006: 90- 91), a speaker discovers rational (logos), emotional (pathos), and ethical (ethos) proofs (pistis), arranges the proofs strategically, clothes the ideas in clear and compelling words, memorizes the things and words, and delivers the product appropriately (Table 1). 5 ISSN 2453-8035 DOI: 10.1515/lart-2016-0009 Brought to you by | National University of Kyiv Authenticated Download Date | 11/28/17 10:19 AM Table 1. The stages of the speechmaking process viewed through the classical model of proof. After Triber (2010) Invention Disposition Elocution & Memory Delivery eloquence discovery arrangement style retention pronunciation discovery by orderly elegant firm perception management of thought of those arrangement of adornment of by the mind of the voice and things, the truth, the things speech; the things and body, or verisimilitude invented. application of words, applied to conformably to of which renders proper words and invention. the dignity of the the cause sentences to words and things. probable. invention. For the purposes of the further analysis, the three rhetorical appeals mentioned above (logos, pathos, ethos) deserve a more detailed consideration. Namely, they are defined in Aristotle's Rhetoric (1982) as artistic proofs that make up the art of rhetoric. These proofs include ethos (character), pathos (emotion), and logos (logic), which provide resources of communication that are available to the public speaker or persuader. Logos has numerous definitions, but usually it refers to the words used, logical content or reasoning, or thought expressed in words. It refers to any attempt to engage the intellect, the general meaning of "logical argument." As outlined by Callaway (2012), in order to appeal to logic (logos), a speaker uses theoretical, abstract language; denotative meanings/reasons; literal and historical analogies; definitions; factual data and statistics; quotations; citations from experts and authorities; informed opinions. As a result, the speaker evokes a cognitive, rational response from the audience. Ethos refers to the trustworthiness of the sender of the message. To develop ethos, the language of the message should be correspondent to the audience and subject, with the appropriate level of vocabulary and correct grammar; the presentation should be restrained, sincere, fair minded (Ibid.). These demonstrate the author's reliability, competence, and respect for the audience's ideas and values through trustworthy and suitable use of support and general accuracy. 6 ISSN 2453-8035 DOI: 10.1515/lart-2016-0009 Brought to you by | National University of Kyiv Authenticated Download Date | 11/28/17 10:19 AM Pathos is related to the words pathetic, sympathy and empathy. As Callaway points it out, whenever we accept a claim based on how it makes us feel without fully analyzing the rationale behind the claim, we are reacting to pathos. In order to appeal to emotion (pathos), the speaker should employ vivid, concrete, emotionally loaded language; connotative meanings; emotional examples; vivid descriptions; narratives of emotional events; emotional tone; figurative language. This evokes the audience's emotional response. Appeals to pathos "touch a nerve and compel people to not only listen, but to also take the next step and act in the world" (Callaway 2012). It is estimated that, depending on the rhetorical situation, people may often be persuaded by the ethical argument in the first place; in the second place, by the pathetic argument, which takes their feelings into account; and only in the third place by the argument from logic (Fedoriv 2004: 281-283). Hence, viewing public communication through the prism of the theory of information (Fig. 3) welded with the classical model of proof (Table 1) we may render the public speaking process as follows. 1) The orator is regarded as the sender, i.e. the addresser who encodes and transmits the message – according to Cicero and Quintilian – through the rhetorical stages of invention (creation of a plan, idea, aim), disposition (choice and arrangement of the corresponding materials), elocution and eloquence (embodiment of the content in the language forms of expression), memory (a faculty of the mind, whose "operations, like the other processes of the pure intellect, can only be exhibited in speech by the means of figurative language; by images derived from the senses, and addressed to them" (Adams 1810)), and action (pronunciation, public delivery of a speech). (2) The public speech is thence the message: the information that is exchanged between the orator (the sender) and the audience (the receiver). 7 ISSN 2453-8035 DOI: 10.1515/lart-2016-0009 Brought to you by | National University of Kyiv Authenticated Download Date | 11/28/17 10:19 AM (3) The audience receives the message and decodes it into its mental reflection. (4) The medium refers to the channels in which the message is carried. Generally, messages can be carried to a receiver via oral communication, written communication, and visual communication channels. Public speaking, as a rule, is performed orally, yet its recorded samples can be presented in both written and oral (audio or video) formats. (5) Noise has a direct effect on communication because of its ability to impair accurate transmission of the message being sent. In public speaking, the noise factors may refer to the linguistic (e.g., a shared/not shared thesaurus) and extralinguistic (physical, cultural, social, etc.) environment in which the communication process is taking place. (6) Feedback refers to the interpretation of the message and depends on the audience's opinion, attitude, the level of comprehension, and perceived meaning of the message. Feedback thus completes the cycle of the communication model and introduces another rhetorical stage, that of relaxation, which implies self-analysis of the communicative successes and failures. 2.3. Public speaking in the aspect of pragmatics Our next step in approaching the research purpose will be to narrow the general definition of public speaking to the working term employed in this study. In an attempt to define public speaking, I find it pointful to quote Pocheptsov, who underlined that "the definitions themselves have only that meaning which the researcher wants to protect, study, and implement" (Почепцов 1999: 19). Thus it is expedient for our study purposes to put forward the definition of communication specified by Miller (1966: 92) as intentional: "Those situations in which a source transmits a message to a receiver with conscious intent to affect the latter's behaviors". Referring to one of Grice's central claims, Wilson and Sperber (2002: 249) claim that an essential feature of most human communication, both verbal and non-verbal, is the 8 ISSN 2453-8035 DOI: 10.1515/lart-2016-0009 Brought to you by | National University of Kyiv Authenticated Download Date | 11/28/17 10:19 AM expression and recognition of intentions. It should be noted, however, that while the production-related components of public speaking – mediated either orally or in writing and regarded through the prism of the communication model – have been extensively discussed by the researchers of public speaking (with the message including sound, lexis, grammar, stylistic arrangement, and the speaker's linguistic portrait), it is the perception-related part of the communication model that has been overlooked. The necessity to look more precisely at the receiver's interpretation of a message can be illustrated by a few well-known examples of ambiguous perceptual patterns. Perception is how we perceive things physically, mentally, emotionally, and cognitively. Our brain uses neural impulses to create experiences of vision, hearing, touch, smell, and taste. For instance, visual perception is a fused function of our eyes and brain. Depending on what prevails in our mind at a certain moment, we may see different things. Namely, the images below can be broken down into shapes and colours differently and thus show that visual perceptions may depend on what we focus first on: the background or the foreground, on specific shapes or individual features. For contrasting images, we may perceive the background as what is drawn in the dark colour and the foreground as the shapes in light colour, or vice versa. For example, Fig.4 (Schiffman 2001) is a reversible picture, which may be interpreted both as the profiles of human faces and the columns of the balcony banister. Figure 4. Ambiguous visual perceptions. Source: Schiffman (2001) 9 ISSN 2453-8035 DOI: 10.1515/lart-2016-0009 Brought to you by | National University of Kyiv Authenticated Download Date | 11/28/17 10:19 AM Other visual examples include orthographic projections of three-dimensional objects – Fig. 5a (Shiman and McLean 1991), impossible objects – Fig. 5b (Deceptology 2010), optical illusions – Fig. 5c, d (Animal ambiguity illusions 2012). Figure 5. Ambiguous visual perceptions: a) Orthographic projections of a chair. Picture available at http://www.racismnoway.com.au/teaching-resources/images/Chairs1A.JPG; b) An impossible trident. Picture available at http://www.deceptology.com/2010/08/ancient-roman-optical-illusion- from.html. c) Bear vs seal. Picture available at http://brainden.com/animal-ambiguities.htm; d) Rabbit vs duck. Picture available at http://brainden.com/animal-ambiguities.htm. It should be noted about the duck/rabbit ambiguity (Fig. 5d) that it can prove a biased nature of human perception. A test was conducted at The art of stylistics PALA 2009 conference in Roosevelt Academy, Middelburg, the Netherlands. (Fedoriv 2009: 20). The participants of the session were divided into two groups, one exposed to a picture of a duck (Fig. 6a) and the other to a rabbit (Fig. 6b). Then both groups were shown a duck/rabbit figure (Fig. 5d) and asked to write down what they saw. 10 ISSN 2453-8035 DOI: 10.1515/lart-2016-0009 Brought to you by | National University of Kyiv Authenticated Download Date | 11/28/17 10:19 AM