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Australians Speak Out: Persuasive Language Styles

Authors:
  • The Communication Institute

Abstract

"Australians Speak Out" assesses the rhetorical stylistic choices of public figures in a representative democracy, with reference to over 20 notable Australians from the 1890s to modern times. Included are the full texts of 15 noteworthy speeches and writing that speak to Federation, womanhood suffrage, trans-Australia communication, artistic appreciation, allied support in war, recognition of Churchill, land rights, national partnership in the Pacific, law reform, economic cooperation, transformation of the City of Brisbane, national reconciliation, gun control, non-sexist behaviour, and the coronavirus pandemic. The book examines how extraordinary public figures use ordinary words to move hearts and minds, with insights to better evaluate or prepare public communications, including digital media. It identifies 18 ways that speakers and writers choose language to find common ground with an audience. Also explored are metaphor, democratic symbols, humour, polemic, propaganda, certain choices of words, sentence structure, and other elements of style. The evaluations draw on qualitative and quantitative comparisons that integrate rhetorical, stylistic, and linguistic understandings of persuasive style. Included are detailed language studies of: Sir Samuel Griffith (chief justice 1903-19); Louisa Lawson (poet, writer, publisher, activist for women’s suffrage, 1848-1920); Alfred Deakin (prime minister, 1903-05, 1905-08, and 1909-10); Sir Robert Menzies (prime minister 1939-41 and 1949-66); John Curtin (wartime prime minister 1941-5); Gough Whitlam (prime minister 1972-5); Oodgeroo of the Noonuccal Tribe [Kath Walker] (poet, artist, author, and activist for First Nations, 1920-93); Bob Hawke (union leader, then prime minister 1983-91); Kevin Gilbert (author, artist, poet, and activist for First Nations, 1933-93); Germaine Greer (author, academic, and activist for women’s rights, born 1939-); and Michael Kirby (law reforming jurist and High Court justice 1996-2009). More recent, powerful speeches assessed include prime ministers Paul Keating on reconciliation in 1992, John Howard on arms recall after Port Arthur in 1996, Kevin Rudd on the Apology in 2008, and Julia Gillard on sexism in 2012, together with a powerful eulogy for prime minister Gough Whitlam by Noel Pearson in 2014, and an address to the nation by prime minister Scott Morrison, amid the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. The persuasive language of many other Australian public figures is also examined, including Sallyanne Atkinson, Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen, Sir Macfarlane Burnet, Fred Daly, Sir John Forrest, Malcolm Fraser, W.M Hughes, Ned Kelly, Sir James Killen, Peter Lalor, Dame Enid Lyons, Sir Ian McLennan, Dame Nellie Melba, Andrew Peacock, Sir George Reid, Susan Ryan, and more. Keywords: public discourse, persuasion, English language style, rhetorical stylistics, speech writing, leadership speaking, polemic, humour, propaganda, representative democracy, rhetorical analysis, semantics, Australian politics, Australian history
Introduction / Chapter Overview
© Rodney G. Miller 2022
electronic version reproduced
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Australians Speak Out: Persuasive Language Styles
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Cover: Image from the book Dot and the Kangaroo, date 1899 or earlier,
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Contents
Acknowledgements .................................................................................... viii
1: How to Use This Book ............................................................................. 1
2: Language for Persuasion ........................................................................ 14
3: Democratic Talk of John Curtin and Sir Robert Menzies ................... 29
4: Polemic and Propaganda ........................................................................ 37
5: Rhetorical Humour ................................................................................. 55
6: Political Words and Gough Whitlam .................................................... 63
7: Choices for Public Talk .......................................................................... 73
8: The Quiet Rhetoric of Sir Samuel Griffith ........................................... 94
9: Louisa Lawson on Womanhood Suffrage .......................................... 108
10: Alfred Deakin’s Language Strategy .................................................... 116
11: Sir Robert Menzies’s Measured Style................................................. 127
12: Action Calls of Kevin Gilbert and Oodgeroo Noonuccal .............. 138
13: ‘Revolution’ Rhetoric of Germaine Greer ........................................ 151
14: Winning on TelevisionBob Hawke ................................................. 166
15: Reform Advocacy of Michael Kirby ................................................. 180
16: Continuing to Speak OutPaul Keating, John Howard, Kevin Rudd,
Julia Gillard, Noel Pearson, and Scott Morrison ............................... 192
17: Conclusion ........................................................................................... 208
vii
18: NOTABLE SPEECHES AND WRITING .................................... 213
Sir Samuel GriffithThe Certainty of Australian Federation ................ 214
Louisa LawsonWomanhood Suffrage ................................................... 217
Sir John ForrestTrans-Australia Railway .............................................. 221
Dame Nellie MelbaGoodbye ................................................................. 225
John CurtinSpeech to America .............................................................. 226
Sir Robert MenziesEulogy for Churchill .............................................. 230
Kevin GilbertNeeds of First Nations ................................................... 233
Gough WhitlamPartnership in the Pacific after Vietnam ................... 240
Michael KirbyThe Australian Community and Anti-heroes ............... 246
Robert J. HawkeNational Economic Summit ...................................... 257
Sallyanne Atkinson–Expo ’88 Welcome Speech .................................... 265
Paul KeatingRedfern Park Speech ........................................................ 267
John HowardGun Rally ......................................................................... 273
Julia GillardMisogyny Speech ................................................................ 278
Scott MorrisonAmid the Coronavirus Pandemic ................................ 284
APPENDICES ......................................................................................... 286
Appendix 1: Glossary of Terms .............................................................. 287
Appendix 2: Tables of Counted Language Features .............................. 292
SOURCE NOTES ................................................................................... 296
BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................................................... 326
PERMISSION ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................ 352
ABOUT THE AUTHOR ........................................................................ 354
INDEX ...................................................................................................... 355
1: How to Use This Book
For a great many Australian children for more than a century, one of their earliest
encounters with persuasive language was in the popular story, Dot and the
Kangaroo,1 written by Ethel C. Pendley and published in 1899. This is a story
about a little girl lost in the Australian outback, whom a kangaroo and several
other marsupials befriend. The kangaroo gives Dot some berries that let her
understand the language of the animals.
The story contains much criticism of human mistreatment of the
environment. When Dot met the ‘knowledgeable Platypus’ illustrated on this
book’s front cover, the diminutive Platypus stood firmly on hind legs to sing a
lament that bemoaned the loss of earlier species. Perhaps this unusual and
passionate mammal, which so strongly asserted its name as Ornithorhynchus
Paradoxus’, might today bemoan the limited awareness concerning the many
Australians who have spoken powerfully in the country’s modern history, to
advocate a variety of causes that initiated social and political change.
Recently and earlier in its history, Australia has benefited from a very large
number of powerful speakers. This book assesses the persuasive language of
more than 20 Australians who have spoken out to argue imaginatively for
change. It reviews how each chooses words, sentence shape, and passage
development to argue successfully to change opinions or actions.
Persuasive Power
These were individuals who helped to mould public decision-making and life
in Australia. Their language carried persuasive power, helping to transform the
colonies of Britain into a multicultural nation on the world stage. These
informed, literate, articulate leaders, as concerned citizens, helped to shape
Australia by advocating practical expressions of truth, law, and justice.
As in their time, speaking up and speaking out remain the best assurances for
Australia or any nation to sustain a lifestyle based on such values, which are
nonetheless so often taken for granted.
Democratic Values
No nation is immune from attempts to destroy the very system that assures
the rights and freedoms we enjoy. As witnessed on 6 January 2021 at the Capitol
2
in the United States, it was the hasty barricading of internal doors leading to the
legislative chambers, where Congressional lawmakers were in session to certify
the presidential election result, the greatly outnumbered police, and some ‘dumb
luck’ that stopped a riotous mob, who were reportedly incited to kill
democratically elected lawmakers and overthrow the will of the voters.
As the former Australian prime minister Gough Whitlam said about another
difficult time in American politics, if that ‘democracy had been less free it could
scarcely have survived so traumatic an encounter.2 Inarguably, as Albert Camus
astutely observes, the best case for democracy is what it prevents.3 A concern
in this book is to better understand the ways that notable Australians have
spoken out to effect change, and thereby strengthen representative democracy.
Some earlier generations of Australians acquired in the educational system
only limited guidance about the way words were used for public communication.
Perhaps ask yourself who among the accomplished public figures mentioned in
this book’s table of contents you have heard or read in their complete text, or
whether you know what changes they helped bring to life in Australia. This book
is a window into both.
You can read it right through from beginning to end. This will take you
through some arts of language and communication. Alternatively, you can first
look to specific areas outlined in the table of contents, or at the conclusion of
this chapter, or to any of the public figures who particularly interest you. In each
case, you will progressively add to understandings of how these Australians were
effective spokespersons for their causes.
Familiar and Unfamiliar
Some will be familiar, others less so. Unfamiliar to many of us are speeches
of the nation’s founders, like Alfred Deakin,4 or Sir Samuel Griffith.5 Along with
other ‘founding fathers’, each performed leading roles in many conventions and
conversations to help make the federation of the Australian colonies a reality.
Likewise unfamiliar are many celebrations of national growth, such as former
Western Australia premier Sir John Forrest welcoming the construction of the
Trans-Australia railway.6 Important to recall also is the spirit that the nation’s
artists bring to us, represented here in the refined farewell from our first
international diva, Dame Nellie Melba.7
As each year passes, fewer people remain with us who listened to the
impassioned address in 1942 of prime minister John Curtin,8 as he appealed
directly on the radio to the people of the United States, for a stronger alliance to
fight a joint enemy in the Pacific. This further advanced a change to Australia’s
foreign policy forever, away from a subordinate dependence on the motherland
of Great Britain. Only occasionally recalled too is the persuasive language in the
speeches of Sir Robert Menzies and Gough Whitlam, who respectively
3
committed and removed Australian troops in support of the United States in
Vietnam. Through almost two decades as Australia’s longest serving prime
minister, Menzies reached ‘the hearts and minds of [his] …immediate audience’,
in the ‘essence’ of his speeches.9 Whitlam, with a speaking ability that ‘rather
awed his opponents’,10 during just a few years in the early 1970s as prime
minister, propelled a remarkable reform agenda.
The provocative address by Germaine Greer in 1971 to the Washington Press
Club11 on women’s rights, while promoting the publication of The Female Eunuch,
is now a more distant memory. Greer’s book reached a wide readership, taking
her advocacy of women’s rights to an international stage, and urging women to
experience joy in the struggle for ‘revolution’. Surprising to some might be the
powerful language of Louisa Lawson’s social activism12 that helped secure
women’s right to vote on the same terms as men in 1902, among the first women
in the world to do so.
Yet people of the First Nations were unable to vote until 1962. Unknown to
many is the advocacy for land rights by Oodgeroo Noonuccal [Kath Walker]13
and Kevin Gilbert.14 For decades, Oodgeroo persistently enlisted supporters in
the churches, education, and the community, pressuring largely resistant national
leaders to help enable some recognitions, including voting rights. Gilbert’s ability
to visualise the reality of the lives of people made clear the case to recognise land
rights for First Nations. Better known are the more recent prime ministers Paul
Keating on reconciliation15 and Kevin Rudd on the Apology.16
To empower a life-long commitment to law reform, Michael Kirby drew
upon his tremendous communication ability to work tirelessly for laws that
respect human rights. Bob Hawke’s intelligent negotiation of a consultative but
assertive ocker’ approach in person and on television helped enable his
leadership as Labor’s longest-serving prime minister. Highly regarded locally,
nationally, and internationally is the first and, for now, only woman to lead
Australia’s largest city council, Lord Mayor of Brisbane, Sallyanne Atkinson.
During two terms in office, she helped facilitate much change in how the City’s
residents viewed their way of life, here expressed in her welcome to Her Majesty
The Queen and His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh to open Expo ’88.17
More recent speeches assessed are from other prime ministers, John Howard
speaking to transform gun ownership,18 soon after the Port Arthur massacre in
1996, and Julia Gillard delivering to parliament in 2012 a powerful objection to
sexism19 that resonated around the world. Reviewed also are Noel Pearson’s
moving eulogy20 in 2014 for prime minister Whitlam, and prime minister Scott
Morrison’s address on the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.
These notable Australians, and many more, engaged other Australians to help
bring change to the nation. Some brought sea change. This is a rich legacy of
individuals using language persuasively to advance benefits for the nation. I hope
4
the illustrations of language use in this sampling of the nation’s concerns will
help stimulate future generations to explore persuasive language stylesenabling
the detailed understanding that such speech and writing deserveand further
encourage public talk that sustains commitment to democratic decision-making.
Effective Communication
People respond to talk about consequential concerns in everyday words.
How well public speech or writing motivates an audience will determine its
success. A rhetorical flourish or poetic turn of phrase often helps motivation,
emphasis, or memory. However, most audiences will include individuals
favourable to a proposition, others interested but not decided, others apathetic,
and still others opposed.
As it is believed Shakespeare did, the best speakers and writers consider a
variety of audience segments when choosing topics and language. An effective
communicator navigates differences among different individuals within an
audience to gain attention, define a problem, explore a solution or not, or
visualise a solution, or seek action.21 The effective speaker or writer is ever alert
that communication happens in the minds of listeners or readers when they
interpret the words. Anticipating these interpretations is the best guide to
sequencing topics through to choices in language and delivery. These choices
enable a speaker or writer to relate with an audience, be seen as authentic, and
move hearts and minds.
Approaching Style
Extraordinary speakers and writers project personality that empowers ideas
by engaging the emotions of an audience with a cogency that resonates. For
anyone with interest in words, the notable Australians reviewed in this book
embrace a range of national concerns and are people with diverse causes,
interests, and ideologies, whose communication abilities empowered their
success. To speak out, each developed a variety of ways to use language for
specific occasions and integrated personal qualities with subtleties in language
use to creatively stimulate and sharpen interesting ways to think about matters.
I hope you will enjoy and learn from their experience.
Drawing upon the background of a variety of approaches to language style
reviewed in Chapter Two, the approach to language style used for the
assessments in this book was to describe particular language choices and to
consider their effect on communication with an audience in a particular context.
Brought together here is much that I have learned about the ways that
extraordinary Australians used ordinary words to move people. Understanding
their successful application of principles and practices provided a foundation for
5
my teaching and research of communication, speech, and writing at Queensland
University of Technology (QUT) in Brisbane, Australia for more than a decade,
as well as for a wide range of consulting with corporate, government, and
nonprofit organisations on communication, speech, and writing, and for leading
change in universities and other organisations in Australia and internationally.
Understanding the language strategies of notable Australians who argued
successfully for change can enable anyone to find common ground with
audiences.
Public Rhetoric
While studies in government and politics address the why of rhetoric and its
impact, this book focuses on both how and why speakers and writers used
language in individual ways. Any serious discussion and study of politics should
include systematic and deeper understandings of political talk. This is one means
by which social power is obtained or shared.
Some analyses and critiques of political and government leaders by a variety
of political scientists connect leaders’ decisions with their public talk. Particularly
in Australia, New Zealand, Britain, and Europe, there is resurgent interest to
teach politics by using rhetoric as a framework for discussing political leaders
and political actions, which is especially welcome. These teacher-researchers
show in specific cases why, in a 24/7 news world, the authenticity of leaders’
public comments impact political outcomes. Commenting on an insight from
Mark Rolfe, John Kane observes that later Australian prime ministers like John
Howard mastered Australian ordinariness, with flat accents and ‘low-key tones’,
implicitly declaring ‘no essential distance between leader and led’.22
With some focus on the Westminster system, a rapidly expanding variety of
writing is now available that refers to four of the five canons of rhetoric,
touching on aspects of invention, arrangement, style, and delivery. Importantly
in 2004, a perspective setting article from Rolfe reviewed some premises in the
discussions of leadership and language, when commenting on a book by James
Curran.23 More recent was Dennis Grube’s examination of the public talk of
leaders of the public service,24 in what he calls the ‘Wash-minster’ (that is,
Washington and Westminster) systems of government, speaking truth to
power.25 In addition to his other work in Australia, Paul Corcoran (1994,26
199827) provides content and thematic analysis of references to democracy in the
concession speeches of United States presidential candidates.
Further studies include publications by Finlayson (2004,28 2007,29 201530),
Atkins et.al. (2013),31 Bennister (2012),32 Charteris-Black (2011,33 201434), Kane
and Patapan (2010),35 Martin (2014,36 201537), Rolfe (2016),38 Uhr and Walter
(2014),39 Uhr (2015),40 Young (2007a,41 2007b42) Dryzek (2010),43 and Fairclough
(2013).44 With some using approaches within Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA),
6
these analysts mainly expanded on the method of American scholars, who so
well brought into focus ‘the rhetorical presidency and presidential rhetoric’, such
as Tulis (1987,45 200746) and Medhust (1996a,47 1996b48), Ellis (1998),49 Stuckey
(2010),50 and Friedman (2012).51
Communication Goals
Public figures, including politicians, seek limited goals in a particular speech,
especially in the complex context of planned campaigns. Any speech must be
integrated with publicity, other speeches, personal appearances, advertising, and
digital efforts within the total framework of campaigns for a cause or an election.
Although especially memorable speeches will be much quoted and often
effective in highlighting an issue through to recommending the leadership
competence of a speaker, the path to effect social or political change is often
long, usually requiring many negotiations through many communications.
Even a simple rally speech might be designed only to draw attention to
certain issues, and then only for the faithful; or a TV speech might be concerned
wholly with national issues or be intended simply to give an appearance of the
speaker’s competence in an official context.52 As Dan Nimmo notes, the total
impact of any politician’s campaign, as for any speech within it, can be as simple
as obtaining publicity for the politician.53 Some business and professional people
enter the election stakes merely to seek publicity for their real business or cause.
A speech can be for very specific goals, such as to secure airtime on
broadcast media with small segments of seven to 30 seconds or so, that are
complete in themselves;54 ideal for extraction to be inserted into a short timeslot
within a news report, or more often nowadays YouTube or Twitter. When any
of these are unstated goals, an analyst faces a more complicated task in assessing
the effectiveness or otherwise of a speech.
Not only the why but how individuals use language for rhetorical literacy
have increased significance in the context of digital communications. As the
perceived importance of digital media continuously grows, concurrently, social
media companies generally find ways to minimise their responsibility for their
editorial content. There has never been a greater need to assess communication
quality and be rhetorically literate.
Persuasive Language
Surprisingly little criticism or review was published over the years about how
Australian public figures use language to persuade audiences. Description of the
early prime minister Deakin’s speaking55 and some studies of the
communications of others that are published are listed later in the source notes
and bibliography. At least until relatively recently, public figures in Australia
7
seem to have outstripped most scholars in developing detailed understanding of
persuasive language within public communications processes. More deserve
close assessment.
Whether reading public communications to speak out more effectively, or to
assess persuasive language, or to pursue interest in the documented history of
the nation, the resources are now available as never before. The increased
availability of speeches includes such anthologies as Well May We Say (2004,
2014), Men and Women of Australia! (2005, 2014), Great Australian Speeches (2009),
Stirring Australian Speeches (2004), Speaking for Australia (2004), and Australia Speaks
(1969),56 among others, with audio and video versions increasingly available on
YouTube, Speakola.com, and elsewhere online. Outstanding speeches of women
and people in First Nations thankfully are now more often recorded. Sustained
efforts are needed to uncover more of these speeches from earlier times.
Especially in recent decades, just the greater interest of Australians in ways
to speak out warrants better understanding of such speeches. Likewise, the
communication studies courses and service subjects throughout Australian
higher education that require study and proficiency in oral communication, the
focus on rhetoric among teachers and students of politics, and the continuous
teaching of public speaking and speech analysis within speaking and service
clubs, including Rostrum, as well as high school curricula, suggest a continuously
growing interest of Australians to speak up and speak out. To do so effectively
requires ever better understanding of principles and practice in using persuasive
language.
At a seminar for graduates of a Professional Speech Writing course that I
developed and taught at QUT, the late, great Australian speechwriter, Graham
Freudenberg provided valuable practical insights. Responding to a question from
a recent graduate who asked how to groom an aspiring manager for leadership,
he sensed that the graduate was really seeking advice for himself.
Freudenberg simply advised the graduate to join a suburban speaking club to
develop speaking skills and secure speaking engagements in front of community
groups in his specialty, and then, as confidence and ability increased, he
suggested moving speaking efforts into the city’s business centre.57 The
questioner’s strategic talents and communication savvy propelled his career
within a few years to become the national public affairs director for a major
mining company.
Of course, it takes time, understanding, and practice either to speak out more
effectively on matters you care about or to appreciate better the principles and
techniques public figures use to highlight or subordinate matters. A purpose of
this book is to share with you the practices that some of Australia’s most
persuasive public figures found effective.
8
Ideas into Action
Yet you might ask, given the apparently casual character of the messages that
dominate public communications today, what is the value of energy spent to
examine communications from an earlier time? In a thoughtful podcast
discussing his book on the art of political speeches from Pericles to modern
times, the former prime ministerial speechwriter in Britain, Philip Collins,
confirms the sentiment that speeches are still the main way that public figures
communicate what they think. He points out that deciding what to say in speech
writing is the way to ‘clear away really bad ideas.’58
Amid the continuous change of a 24/7 news cycle and constant social media,
notable Australians still choose to speak out directly or through Zoom at a
special event, seminar, or conference, or on the broadcast media, to propose
significant ideas or to advocate change, with YouTube and social media
delivering reach to further audiences.
Despite new risks in a digital age, the more extended public communications
in forms such as the speech, book, article, podcast, or blog do look set to persist
as core methods of communication for public discourse. They remain primary
venues for directly sharing and shaping ideas for action. In addition, they are
resources that set the agenda for many of the soundbites scavenged and
disseminated digitally, making the language choice for the original speech or
other public communication additionally important.
Whenever public figures have transitioned their public talk, from just
gathering a few people around them, to jumping onto a tree stump or another
ad hoc platform to make a stump speech,59 through the addition of newspaper
reports, to having a megaphone, to using a loudspeaker system, to radio, to
television, to YouTube, to other digital offerings, many adjustments and
tradeoffs were made. For each transition in mode of delivery, the opportunity to
be heard by more people often brought increased risks of distortion or
depersonalisation.
When broadcast media first provided access to mass audiences, public figures
soon understood the importance, ironically, of a more intimate conversational
voice on these media. The broadcaster’s guidance was that the mass audience
comprised the multiplication of many groups of two to three people or of small
groups listening.
With digital media came further opportunities for public figures. Some of
these opportunities brought risks for both the public figure and the audience.
Most obviously, the risks of interference and distortion are high in the digital age
and the already substantial sophistication of audience analysis and socio-
psychological targeting continues to grow, which should concern audiences.
9
Changes
Looking back to the late 1800s through the late 1900s in Australia, it is
tempting to describe this period of public talk as a silver age of Australian
rhetoric. Not a golden age, to be sure. There were instances of flourish and
reaching for the heights of Mount Kosciuszko, if not Olympus. Germaine Greer
once described with characteristic candour, after she read the verbatim text of
her Address to the National Press Club in Washington DC, that it struck her as silver-
tongued oratory. Delivered as all her addresses are without notes, she felt the
syntax followed the uneven progress of the working mind.60 Greer was also
intimating how speakers thoughtfully shape their words.
In recent times, pseudo-populist talk in modern politics has shunted into
squawks and squeals of outrage, which deliver a cacophony, like the noise of pigs
and chickens assembled, a kind of ‘por-cken quality of speech. Of course, there
was also plenty of argot in earlier times. Richard Denis Meagher described the
Sydney newspaper owner John Norton as a scaly scurvy contemptible viper’.
Or, there was the couplet about prime minister ‘Billy’ Hughes in 1916 that
claimed his talk was like opening a bottle of beer, such that only froth comes
out’.61 A wag might say that not much fizz from speakers is so artistic now.
Thinking to Talk
For a public figure or anyone composing any communication, the problem
is to think through issues of fact, opinion, or ideas, in relation to a particular
audience, in a specific context. Roslyn Petelin aptly describes this task as ‘an
essential key to unlocking thinking and learning.62
To address the issues that are often swirling around or implicit to any speech
or writing occasion, a problem-solving approach prompts questions to enable
the necessary choices to solve the communication problem.63 What is the goal
of the communication? What effect is sought? What are the issues to be
addressed, side-stepped, or ignored? What are the concerns of listeners/readers
and their current understandings? How are any opponents likely to respond?
Sometimes, what specific points or turns of phrase might be included?
Such questions are the guide to find direction, either to communicate or to
assess others’ communications. Addressing these concerns helps a speaker or
writer to sort out the best ideas to share with an audience. The search for key
issues that most concern people about a subject propels a process to persuade
ourselves and others about what merits attention. When engaged in this process,
people draw on reason, feelings, and imagination, to invent and arrange ideas by
finding a style for delivery that might bring the best sense of the ideas to the
forefront of others’ thinking.
10
Rhetorical Choices
By taking account of the audience’s knowledge and sophistication, a speaker
or writer decides what ideas to share, as well as what are the appeals,
conventional modes of expression, topics, words, and form of delivery that will
accentuate attention and recommend the value of the ideas. Rhetorical choices
that are available to advance a case within any given subject area were described
in classical times by Aristotle, with application and refinement of the rhetorical
system occurring ever since. Isocrates, Francis Bacon, Wayne C. Booth, and
many others have enlarged rhetorical knowledge through the ages, progressively
enabling the integration of aspects of rhetoric, stylistics, and linguistics to
understand persuasive style.64 The rhetorical canon describes invention,
arrangement, style, memory, and delivery as the available means for using the
persuasive techniques and language that are needed to understand and share
truth in the expression of ideas.
Rhetorical principles advocate making an appeal to an audience through the
speaker/writer’s personality and stance (ethos), arousal of the audience’s emotion
(pathos), and reasoning (logos).65 The conventional modes of expression that an
audience might expect, or genre, for fitting talk to a purpose and occasion were
described as deliberative discourse for persuading action or a change of mind,
judicial discourse to argue the justice of charges or claims, and epideictic discourse
as appropriate to ceremonial praise or blame.
Although these divisions of genre might be useful to help align a purpose to
an occasion and listeners, in practice the public figures reviewed here were fluid
in their use of the genres or hybrid genres to achieve specific goals. Examples of
the use of hybrid genres include Louisa Lawson’s call for womanhood suffrage,
Sir Robert Menzies’s eulogy for Churchill, and the then vice chancellor Sir
Zelman Cowen’s ceremonial welcome to new university students.
Likewise, public figures flexibly used other features of the rhetorical toolbox,
including Argumentative Figures, The Tropes, Stance Figures, or other figures.66
Whether to speak out or to evaluate language, an understanding of these features
is valuable. Many are commonly used, and often have descriptors in everyday
language to help identify, describe, or assess the pertinent rhetorical stylistic
features that point to the persuasive process at work. A brief glossary of the
language features, rhetorical, and grammatical terms used for the language
assessments in this book are noted in Appendix One.
For the individuals reviewed throughout the book, understandings inevitably
gained from underpinnings of western education and culture likely helped each
intuitively or consciously to frame many language choices. To put thoughts into
words, an individual’s ideology will certainly influence the choice of words to
frame the ideas. Stylistic analysis is an observation of these choices.
11
The following chapters review a variety of rhetorical stylistic choices to
describe the language dynamics of public figures in a representative democracy,
with reference to some notable Australians. Some share similarities in persuasive
language use, although each has distinct abilities worthy of individual
understanding. Some of the commonalities and differences in the choice of
language features are summarised in Chapter Seven.
Australians Speaking Out
The book contains detailed language studies of: Sir Samuel Griffith, 1845-
1919 (Chief Justice 1903-19); Louisa Lawson, 1848-1920 (poet, writer, publisher,
activist for women’s suffrage); Alfred Deakin, 1856-1919 (Prime Minister, 1903-
05, 1905-08, and 1909-10); Sir Robert Menzies, 1894-1978 (Prime Minister 1939-
41 and 1949-66); John Curtin, 1885-1945 (wartime Prime Minister 1941-5);
Gough Whitlam, 1916-2014 (Prime Minister 1972-5); Oodgeroo Noonuccal
[Kath Walker], 1920-93 (poet, artist, author, and activist for First Nations); Bob
Hawke, 1929-2019 (union leader, then Prime Minister 1983-91); Kevin Gilbert,
1933-93 (author, artist, poet, and activist for First Nations); Germaine Greer,
born 1939- (author, academic, and activist for women’s rights); and Michael
Kirby, born 1939- (law reforming jurist and High Court Justice 1996-2009).
The language of many other Australian public figures is also explored or
touched upon, including Sallyanne Atkinson (Lord Mayor of Brisbane 1985-91),
Sir Macfarlane Burnet (Nobel-awarded immunology researcher), Sir Roderick
Carnegie (Chairman of the mining company Conzinc Riotinto of Australia), Sir
Zelman Cowen (university Vice Chancellor, then Governor-General of Australia
1977-82), Fred Daly (federal politician 1943-75, Leader of the House of
Representatives, and cabinet minister), Sir John Forrest (explorer, first Premier
of Western Australia, and cabinet minister in the first Australian parliament),
William M. (‘Billy’) Hughes (wartime Prime Minister 1915-23), Sir James Killen
(federal politician 1955-83 and cabinet minister), Dame Enid Lyons (federal
politician 1943-51, cabinet minister, and first woman elected to the Australian
House of Representatives), Sir Ian McLennan (Chairman of the conglomerate
Broken Hill Proprietary Company), Dame Nellie Melba (opera singer), Sir Mark
Oliphant (co-discoverer of nuclear fusion, then Governor of South Australia
1971-76), Linden Prowse (workplace reform advocate), and Thomas Joseph
Ryan (Premier of Queensland 1915-9 and federal politician 1919-21).
In more recent times, powerful speeches examined are from prime ministers
Paul Keating on reconciliation in 1992, John Howard on arms recall after Port
Arthur in 1996, Kevin Rudd on the Apology in 2008, and Julia Gillard on sexism
in 2012, together with a powerful eulogy by Noel Pearson in 2014 and an address
to the nation by prime minister Scott Morrison, amid the coronavirus pandemic
in 2020.67
12
Plan of the Book
As a plan of approach to assess public communications, the book has three
sections. In the first section, this initial chapter and five chapters following
review approaches for describing rhetorical style in language, touching on some
historical context. In the second section, the next eleven chapters detail more
specifically the language styles of some notable Australians. In the third section,
a selection of speech and writing of notable Australians is available.
This first section explores the use of language for persuasion in public talk,
along with the roles of polemic, propaganda, humour, and some types of special
political vocabulary. Chapter Two reviews rhetorical stylistic approaches to
persuasive language that identify conspicuous language features with stylistic
relevancesuch as the higher frequency or absence in the occurrence of certain
types of words, sentence structures, or other significances. Chapter Three
describes the use of democracy in public talk to engage listeners, with a close
look at the language of John Curtin and Sir Robert Menzies.
Chapter Four examines some polemic and propaganda processes and how
three types of polemical strategy are used to attract attention, frame context, and
sustain persuasion. Chapter Five explores how speakers use humour to make
their presence felt. Types of humour are outlined, including how speakers use
this feature to set both the agenda and their relationship with listeners. In
Chapter Six, the use of political vocabulary in persuasion is described, focusing
on symbols, slogans, jargon, and slang. How Gough Whitlam used such political
words for persuasion is examined, with detailed review of his motion of no
confidence in the government, delivered in parliament.
The second section provides close study of the persuasive language of ten
notable speakers and writers, as well as commenting on the language of many
more. Chapter Seven examines rhetorical and stylistic choices of notable
Australians whose efforts helped transform the nation from the late 1800s
onwards. The effects of individual language choices are described, and
considerations to use language persuasively are listed. Chapter Eight details how
the early politician and later so-called ‘radical chief justice’68 Sir Samuel Griffith
developed a quiet rhetoric, including ways that his language anticipated the
emotionalism of his audience. Chapter Nine examines the rhetorical power of
Louisa Lawson’s speech for womanhood suffrage, describing the range of her
logical and emotional appeals that touched daily life. Chapter Ten explores the
confident negotiation with listeners of the early prime minister Alfred Deakin,
who artfully redefined circumstances to find common goals and construct new
accommodations and alliances.
The language of mid-to-later twentieth century and more recent public
figures is reviewed from Chapter Eleven, which examines Sir Robert Menzies’s
measured language style. This includes an assessment of his eulogy for Sir
13
Winston Churchill,69 in which he simulated the language of Churchill’s wartime
speeches as a precursor to his expanding Australia’s commitment to the Vietnam
War. Chapter Twelve outlines the persuasive approaches of Kevin Gilbert and
Oodgeroo Noonuccal [Kath Walker] to advocate recognition of land rights for
First Nations in Australia. Their contrasting styles of speech in a shared purpose
and with some similarity in stances are discussed. Chapter Thirteen looks at how
Germaine Greer reached readers in her book The Female Eunuch. Detailed analysis
of her book’s final chapter, titled ‘Revolution’, identifies Greer’s rhetorical
literacy to set a tone that engaged readers.
The campaign speeches and television appearances of national leaders in the
1983 Federal election campaign are examined in Chapter Fourteen. The
politician Bob Hawke’s ‘tele-speech’ enabled him to win campaigns and retain
the role of prime minister. Both language and nonverbal practices of Hawke and
his first opponent, the then prime minister Malcolm Fraser, are noted. For the
1984 Federal Election, Australia’s first televised leadership debate performances
of Hawke as prime minister and his Liberal challenger, Andrew Peacock, are
compared. Chapter Fifteen explores the variety and power of Michael Kirby’s
speeches and writing to advocate ongoing law reform initiatives to honour
human values.
Chapter Sixteen discusses persuasive language in speeches of more recent
former prime ministers Paul Keating on reconciliation, John Howard on arms
recall after Port Arthur, Kevin Rudd on the Apology, and Julia Gillard on sexism,
as well as Noel Pearson’s eulogy for Whitlam and prime minister Scott Morrison
on the coronavirus pandemic. The book’s Conclusion comments on the ongoing
evolution of public communication and the pertinence of understanding
persuasive language principles and practices for the digital age.70
The third section of the book, in Chapter Eighteen, contains 15 speeches
and writing of Griffith, Lawson, Forrest, Melba, Curtin, Menzies, Gilbert,
Whitlam, Kirby, Hawke, Atkinson, Keating, Howard, Gillard, and Morrison.
These texts speak to Federation, womanhood suffrage, trans-Australia
communication, artistic appreciation, allied support in war, recognition of
Churchill, land rights, national partnership in the Pacific, law reform, economic
cooperation, a city’s transformation, national reconciliation, gun control, non-
sexist behaviour, and the coronavirus pandemic.
Finally, the appendices provide: (1) a glossary, with brief descriptions or
examples of stylistic/grammatical terms; (2) tables of counted language features
in 600-word samples, comparing ten speeches of notable Australians, as well as
the social commentary style of Greer, compared with other reformist writers,
Kate Millett, George Orwell, and Ronald Segal.
296
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