Public Speaking and the New Oratory by Fiona Rossette-Crake

Author:Fiona Rossette-Crake
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030220860
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Final position

Given information

New information (tonic syllable)

The given information is generally a referent that has been mentioned in the previous discourse, for example in the sentence just before. Beginning the sentence in this way creates a bridge between the sentence and the previous discourse, and the audience has no time to lose its bearings. The audience is eased into the new information, which is framed by the given information.

This pattern is exemplified in the line already quoted from Steve Jobs’ speech. In “Today, Apple is going to reinvent the phone”, the newsy part of the sentence is “reinvent the phone”, and the verb “reinvent” carries the tonic syllable. It is preceded by given information: the subject “Apple” has been explicitly referred to earlier in the sequence. In addition, the sentence begins with the adverbial “today”, whose position was discussed at the end of the previous chapter. As already noted, adverbial complements are best placed in sentence-initial position, in front of the subject, so as not to interrupt the unit <Subject + Verb>. This is also the most natural position for adverbials because they generally provide a spatial or chronological frame for the sentence. And in public address, they are particularly effective in sentence-initial position when they contain a deictic, as in “today”.

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