Benet Brandreth loves language. He is the two time winner of the World Public Speaking Championship. He is a highly-regarded barrister noted for his advocacy skill.  He won the Richard Du Cann memorial prize for excellence in advocacy in 1999. Since 2005 he has been the rhetoric coach to the Royal Shakespeare Company and works with the RSC and other theatre companies on understanding the power and effect of language and argument. He sent us this fascinating piece on the Power of Language which you can read below. After his sold out masterclass at Pedlars a couple of weeks ago, he has agreed to return on September 7th, to book click HERE.  His debut novel The Spy of Venice is available to buy HERE. 

IN 2004 BARACK OBAMA  gave a speech to the Democrat National Convention that would thrust him into the political limelight. It was the first occasion on which his skill as an orator truly came to national attention. Among his lines was this:

“That is the true genius of America, a faith, a faith in simple dreams, an insistence on small miracles.”

Even in this short passage Obama shows his mastery of rhetorical technique. First, notice the repetition of “a faith”. This is a technique called diacope. It is a technique of emphasis but of a particular kind. The effect is to create a verbal stumble. Here it is intended to allow Obama to give the impression that a speech, written with a team of writers, no doubt practiced in front of the mirror a dozen times or more, is spontaneous and sincere. The diacope is a moment where Obama catches his own thought and pauses on it – not only emphasising it and what is to come to his audience but also giving the impression he is thinking about what he is saying as he speaks. To feel how it works you have to speak the line out loud both with and without the diacope and hear the difference in rhythm.

If there were any doubt this was the intended effect it is put to rest by his use of asyndeton at the end of the sentence. Asyndeton is the omission of conjunctions, that is to say dropping “buts”, “ands”, “ors” that ought to be present. There ought to be a conjunction between “simple dreams” and “an insistence on small miracles” but by dropping the “and” the impression is given that the speaker has no time for your simple conjunctions. He has been caught up by his own theme and is so eager to get it across that he abandons grammar.

Speakers who appear sincere about their speech are more persuasive. How then to convey that sincerity to the listener even in a pre-prepared speech? Diacope. Asyndeton. These are not just to beautify the language. They change the rhythm, and play with the expectations of the listener, to create an impression of sincerity. (Just as the use of scesis onomaton, sentences without verbs, as just now – “Diacope. Asyndeton.” –convey strength, urgency, conviction, and do so by their effect on the rhythm.) That is the power of language – it is not just the meaning of the words that matters. How the words are used is just as significant.

Here are some of my favourite rhetorical techniques:

Metaphor and Simile “I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.” – Martin Luther King

Of all rhetorical techniques those of metaphor and simile are among the most familiar. Not all metaphors and similes are born equal. Those that call out directly to the senses have a special emotional power. “I have a dream” by Martin Luther King is full of examples – Mississippi is a “desert state, sweltering in the heat of oppression”. The metaphor conveys an immediate, visceral impression of the oppression. We may not know what it is like to suffer discrimination in the Southern States of the US but we know what it is like to feel oppressively hot. Are the two the same? Of course not, but that is not the point. The purpose is to convey to the audience a visceral reality about the idea that is being talked about.

In the same way we see Shakespeare try to convey the abstract concept of mercy through Portia’s analogy:

“The quality of mercy is not strain’d,

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath” – Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

Mercy, the abstract and distant concept, is converted into a sensation that we are all familiar with. Or Henry V before Harfleur, trying to get across to the Burghers of the city the horrors that await them if they do not surrender:

“Therefore, you men of Harfleur,

Take pity of your town and of your people,
Whiles yet my soldiers are in my command;
Whiles yet the cool and temperate wind of grace
O’erblows the filthy and contagious clouds
Of heady murder, spoil and villany.
If not, why, in a moment look to see
The blind and bloody soldier with foul hand
Defile the locks of your shrill-shrieking daughters;”

See the hand foul with blood, feel the sticky grasp upon the women’s hair, hear the “shrill-shrieking” of the daughters. This is not an image to be ignored but one that is very real because it feels very real.

Anadiplosis

“The love of wicked men converts to fear;

That fear to hate, and hate turns one or both

To worthy danger or deserved death.” – Shakespeare, Richard II

The connection of the phrases, the next linked by repetition of the last word of the previous one, implies a rational connection as well as a linguistic one and is the power of anadiplosis. It gives the impression of inexorable logic with each idea entailing the next until one is compelled to the conclusion. Use is also made of dichotomy, which like all good rhetoric simplifies the options for the audience into only two: worthy danger or deserved death. Or, as President Bush had it when speaking to the United Nations before the Iraq War:

“Neither of these outcomes is certain. Both have been set before us. We must choose between a world of fear and a world of progress.”

Hands up for a world of fear – oh, no one?

Anaphora and Epistrophe

“I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.”

Anaphora is the repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of each sentence; epistrophe the repetition as the final word or phrase.

“I’ll have my bond!

Speak not against my bond!

I have sworn an oath that I will have my bond.” Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

It has a dual effect: first, by the repetition of the phrase or word it identifies it as important and makes it memorable. Invariably, therefore, the repeated part is significant of the overall message of the speech, as it is for Martin Luther King. Second, it serves to identify the structure of the speech. The anaphora and epistrophe indicate that these passages are all connected to the opening theme, usually as examples or instances of the point being made. In this way the listener, perhaps sub-consciously, understands that the points are connected and that the speaker is not moving on to a new argument.

One sees it in Martin Luther King’s speech, named after the anaphora: “I have a dream”: President Obama uses it, alongside polysyndeton, the use of unnecessary additional conjunctions, and tricolon, the rule of threes, in that speech to the DNC in 2004:

“That is the true genius of America, a faith — a faith in simple dreams, an insistence on small miracles; that we can tuck in our children at night and know that they are fed and clothed and safe from harm; that we can say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door; that we can have an idea and start our own business without paying a bribe; that we can participate in the political process without fear of retribution, and that our votes will be counted — at least most of the time.”

Shakespeare uses it frequently. In Sonnet 30 for example:

“When to the sessions of sweet silent thought

I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unus’d to flow,
For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night,
And weep afresh love’s long since cancell’d woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanish’d sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o’er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restor’d and sorrows end.”

Of course that sonnet also contains alliteration, the repetition of the starting letter in “sessions of sweet silent thought”, and antitheses, as when with old woes he new wails his dear time’s waste. Even expletive, which is not what you think but simply the use of a phrase, dear friend, that punctuates another to lend emphasis to what follows. You will spot others.

Litotes

Litotes is the affirmation of something by the denial of its opposite. I think of Litotes as the English Gentleman’s rhetorical technique because, if asked how he is doing, the English Gentlemen will often reply, “not bad”.

Its power lies in the way that it makes the listener think about why the speaker is addressing the issue by this strange route. It forces the listener into an active role, examining and considering the way that the position has been put. In particular it creates an anticipation that something positive will shortly be said.

President Obama uses it in the speech to the DNC in 2004:

“Tonight, we gather to affirm the greatness of our Nation — not because of the height of our skyscrapers, or the power of our military, or the size of our economy.”

The use of litotes allows President Obama to highlight things that are, understandably, part of America’s power. Inherently it then demands of the audience the question – if these are not the source of America’s power – what will this man say is?

President Obama’s use of litotes is here built upon by the use of polysyndeton. This is the opposite of asyndeton, which we saw earlier, and consists of the interpolation of conjunctions where none is needed. Here a list of three would normally only require a comma to separate the first two items but an “or” is put in instead. Doing so changes the rhythm – again try speaking the line out loud both with and without the “and” and hear the difference. The use of polysyndeton adds a rhythmic power to what is being said, a drumbeat of emphasis. It also changes the nature of the list from one that sounds complete to one that could go on ad infinitum. In the context of a listing of the possible sources of America’s power, that is no bad thing for an American politician to suggest.

I have used the Latin and Greek terms here to identify the rhetorical techniques. Those terms are themselves the subject of debate depending on which rhetorical manual you read. Is “a faith, a faith” diacope or epizeuxis? It depends on how important you consider the interruption of the definite article “a” is to the identification of the rhetorical technique. Diacope involves repetition with interruption, epizeuxis does not. It doesn’t really matter. (Unless, of course, you are using aureation, “gilding” your language by the use of classical terms to make your speech sound more learned!)

This is not an academic exercise, an attempt to give the Greek names for any of the hundreds of rhetorical techniques. The point is not to name the technique but to notice it, to notice how language operates beyond the meaning of words and simple demands of grammar. Meaning is as much about word order, pattern, rhythm and sound.

Understand not just the meaning but the power of words and your words will carry not just meaning but power too. (Which is, of course, an example of parallelism and chiasmus – symmetry of phrases coupled with an inversion that conveys an additional meaning.) ENDS.

Too book on Brandreth’s upcoming Masterclass on Classic Rhetoric click HERE.