Using Language Efficiently II

Choose Concrete Words and Vivid Imagery

Help audience members grasp meaning and encourage their involvement.

1. Use Concrete Language

- Concrete language conveys meaning that is specific, tangible and definite.

- Abstract language is general or nonspecific, and leaves meaning open to interpretation.

- Politicians use abstract language to appeal to mass audience or to be noncommittal. In most speaking situations, though, listeners will appreciate concrete nouns and verbs.

Abstract                       Less Abstract                      Concrete

summer         ->           hot weather           ->     sweltering heat

congestion     ->            traffic jam            ->          gridlock

-Give listeners a mental picture.

2. Offer Vivid Imagery

- Imagery: Concrete language that uses senses of smell, taste, sight, hearing and touch to paint mental pictures.

- Modify nouns and verbs with descriptive adjectives and adverbs (Pearl Harbor   > "dark hour")

- Figures of speech: Expressions (such as metaphors, similes, and analogues) where words are used in a non-literal fashion to achieve rhetorical effect.

- Simile: Compares one things to another, using 'like' or 'as'

- Analogy: Extended metaphor or simile that clarifies an unfamiliar concept by comparing it to a more familiar one.

For example:

"Our house is on fire! The truck arrives, but we won't come out, because we're afraid the folks from next door will see that we're in that burning house. AIDS is a fire raging in our community and it's out of control!" - Minister preaching about AIDS

:)CLN