Page 192 - Between One and Many The Art and Science of Public Speaking

Chapter 6 Adapting to Your Audience 159

of which are illegal on our campus. We’ve learned, consequently, that it is nec-
essary for us to check on the topics and plans of our students well before their
time to actually speak. Check with your instructor before you unintentionally
pit yourself against the law.
Legal constraints may also affect the range of topics and the positions you take
on them. For example, we recently heard a speech on why sharing music fi les on
the Internet through services such as BitTorrent should be totally free of charge.
Of course, at the time there had been a great deal of litigation on the issue, and
the courts had ruled that such unfettered distribution of music on the Internet,
without paying royalties to the artists, violated U.S. copyright laws. Thus the
speech was about a topic on which the audience had no power to effect change.

Ethical Constraints

We discussed ethical considerations for public speaking in detail in Chapter 4.
At this point, we simply want to remind you of the fact that as a speaker and as
a listener you will face ethical constraints. Although something may technically
be legal, that doesn’t make it ethical.

Nature of the Occasion

What is the nature of the occasion prompting you to speak? You may recall that
after the death of former President Ronald Reagan, his son Ron Reagan used
the opportunity of his eulogy for his father to issue a thinly veiled attack against
politicians who inject their religious preferences into political campaigns. The
younger Reagan acknowledged that his father was a deeply religious man, but
one who “never made the fatal mistake of so many politicians wearing his faith
on his sleeve to gain political advantage. True, after he was shot and nearly
killed early in his presidency, he came to believe that God had spared him in
order that he might do well. But he accepted that as a responsibility, not a man-
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date. And there is a profound difference.” Some criticized the use of a solemn
occasion such as this to raise a political issue; others applauded young Reagan’s
forthrightness at a time when the nation was watching.
You will most likely give speeches to classes during normal class times. Your
audience is a captive one. Given that unavoidable fact, you must always decide
whether your topic and presentation are appropriate to this context and occasion.
One of our students made his classmates extremely uncomfortable by discussing
his own fi rst sexual experience. Such personal disclosure is inappropriate in a
classroom setting. Similarly, vulgarity, profanity, and the like are obviously not
suitable for the class. Even excessively casual slang is probably not appropriate
for an academic environment. When you have a doubt as to the appropriateness
of your speech for your class, it is always wise to check with your instructor.

Traditions

Many speeches are governed by tradition. Whereas this is not a major factor in
most classroom speeches, it could be when you are called on to speak in situa-
tions outside the classroom. For example, many service clubs, such as Rotary or