Figure 1.1: Aristotle Bust - Nat'l Archaeological Museum
In the beginning of this chapter, we discussed how public speaking is an important skill because we live in a democratic society, thereby providing us the opportunity to express our ideas and ideals through public discourse (public speaking); verbally expressing ideas publicly is a Greek tradition. However, only adhering to the Greek tradition excludes other cultures' public speaking traditions, which are just as important. In this section we explore the Greek tradition as well as other public speaking traditions.
Greek Tradition
Aristotle, a student of Plato, formalized the tradition of public speaking with his work Rhetoric. In Rhetoric, Aristotle claimed that there were three types of situations requiring speeches: deliberative, epideictic, and judicial (i.e. policy changes, memorializing/celebrating an individual, arguing for a guilty or innocent verdict). Aristotle also stated that there are three important factors that must be addressed when delivering a speech: ethos, pathos, and logos. Ethos is the audience's perception of a speaker's credibility. Pathos is "the emotional constitution of the audience" (Shields, 2022, sec. 13). Logos is the entirety of the speech. We continue to utilize and apply all three aspects of Aristotle's Rhetoric today. In the table below, we see how to apply Aristotle's Rhetoric:
Table 1.1 - Aristotle's Rhetoric Explained
Ethos
trustworthiness of speaker
knowledge of speaker
concern for well-being of audience
Pathos
audience's feeling towards speaker
audience's feeling toward situation
audience's change in feeling through speech
Logos
language choices
evidence in speech (examples, data, stories)
arrangement of ideas (main points) in speech
We will employ the use of ethos, pathos, and logos when we focus on persuasive speaking later in this text.
Since women were not allowed in public spaces in ancient Greece, they were not allowed to participate in public speaking. Therefore women's voices were often not heard or minimized. Yet we cannot assume that Greek women did not influence public speaking. For example, one of the most important eulogies - a speech given at a funeral - was Pericles' Funeral Oration. However, a few important Greek philosophers and/or historians suggest that Pericles was an unskilled writer and, therefore, would not have been able to craft such an effective speech. Thus they attributed the creation of the Funeral Oration to his wife Aspasia (Dangour, 2021). There is no way to be sure; however, Socrates, by way of Plato, suggests that Aspasia wrote the speech. Socrates also attributes Aspasia with helping him improve his own communication skills.
Cicero (106 - 43 BC), who was born a couple hundred years after Aristotle added to the European tradition of public speaking with his manuscript De Republica, De Oratore, and De Inventione. All of these books contributed to the discipline of public speaking. Where Aristotle identified the three factors necessary to be an effective speaker, Cicero identified the five aspects in the speech-making process often referred to as the five cannons of rhetoric (see Table 1.2): invention, disposition, style, delivery, memory (Valenzano & Braden, 2015).
Table 1.2 - Cicero's Canon's Explained
Invention
Creating the arguments or main points
Disposition
Organization of the arguments or main points
Style
Language choices (formal vs. informal)
Delivery
Way in which a speech is verbally presented
Memory
Ability to recall information without having to use notes
As the popularity of Christianity grew in Europe, priests adopted, deleted, or expanded on many of the Greek and Roman rhetorical traditions. St. Augustine's manuscripts demonstrate a shift in rhetorical traditions. Augustine, born in 354 in northern Africa, traveled to Rome and Milan to teach rhetoric; however, while in Milan, he converted to Christianity. At this point he began focusing on how effective public speaking - or preaching - was necessary for teaching the scriptures to Christians (Golden, Berquist, Coleman, Sproule, 2004). Augustine continued to expand on the tradition of public speaking, but adapted an approach that focused less on style. Much of what we learn in this course is based on the Greco-Roman tradition of public speaking, which is a Euro-centric understanding of public speaking, but other cultures throughout World history have privileged different aspects of public speaking.
Differences in Public Speaking Traditions
Since public speaking is the performance of one person speaking in front of a group of people, it implies that ideas of the individual are more important than the ideas of the group. While this is not necessarily the case, cultures in which the ideas and will of the group are more important than the individual tend to have fewer public situations and their criteria for effective speeches is different (Power & Galvin, 1997).
Muslim
While Christianity was growing in Europe and various converts were building upon the work of the Greek and Roman traditions, a Muslim rhetorical tradition was growing and flourishing in the Middle Ages. Medieval Muslim preachers had a formula for a well-delivered speech; delivery criteria was explicitly stated (Jones, 2012). "There is a corporeal component of rhetorical eloquence, which the khatib displays through the control of his body: calmness of limbs, steady gaze, and so on" (p. 87). In addition to the importance of body movement - or lack thereof - and eye contact, "clarity, concision, and appropriate style and register were essential for the effective preaching of jihad" (p. 107).
New Guinea
In New Guinea, public speaking serves many purposes. Contemporaries believed that New Guinean speech was derivative of those found in Africa (Rumsey, 1986). Yet Harris (2007) stated that New Guinean public speaking functions as art, political agency, and social agency. Harris further quoted Bob Connolly's description of New Guineans, "I don’t think any culture anywhere has produced such a concentration of people with quite extraordinary oratorical ability" (para. 12). It seems that public speaking events were often places in which group relationships were tested (Rumsey).
Native North Americans
We have so far read about how European traditions of public speaking inform our current public speaking curriculum. Yet prior to Europeans arriving in the Americas, Native Americans had their own public speaking traditions. Unfortunately, our understanding of Native Americans' oratory is incomplete due to the fact that most of their speeches were performed within in the context of negotiations between whites and these speeches were recorded by whites (Yagelski, 1995). When one culture writes about another culture, they write about that "other" culture from their own perspective, which is then filtered through their own worldviews. However, we can gain some insight into Native American public speaking traditions.
Yagelski notes Strickland's research with, "public speaking figured into Cherokee life in several vital ways: storytelling provided a means for transmission of myths and cultural knowledge; persuasive speeches were delivered in open meetings during which important tribal decisions were made; sarcasm was sometimes used as a means of public punishment" (p. 69). Furthermore, indigenous people of the plains were socially required to belong to smaller "clubs" or groups within their tribes and both men and women were required to utilize public speaking while participating in activities. According to Monroe (2014), the plateau Indians of the Pacific Northwest employed several rhetorical devices: personal experience as evidence, "high affect techniques in retelling that experience" (p. 22), arranging the story in a way to create the most suspense, and concluding with the thesis. Again, keep in mind, that the Native Americans primarily used oratory to convey all information; therefore, there are limited indigenous written documents detailing their rhetorical traditions.
Douglas-Pryce (2025) critiques the Eurocentric focus in public speaking histories, highlighting neglected contributions from diverse cultures like ancient India and Native America in the following chapter, Questioning and Decentering the History of Public Speaking(opens in new window) This author emphasizes the importance of acknowledging non-Western rhetorical traditions to empower underrepresented voices and promote inclusivity in communication education.
References
Dangour, A. (2021). Aspasia of Miletus – queen of the Athenian salon. Greece high definition. Retrieved from greecehighdefinition.com [www.greecehighdefinition.com]
Douglas-Pryce, J. (2025, March). 1.1: Questioning and Decentering the History of Public Speaking. Social Sci LibreTexts. socialsci.libretexts.org
Golden, J. L., Goodwin, F. B., Coleman, W. E., Sproule, J. M. (2004). The rhetoric of Western thought: From the Mediterranean world to the global setting (8th ed.). Dubuque, IA: Kendall-Hunt.
Harris, R. (2007). The glory of oratory. Cultural Survival Quarterly Magazine. Retrieved from culturalsurvival.org [www.culturalsurvival.org]
Jones, L. G. (2012). Rhetorical and discursive strategies of persuasion in the khutba (ch. 3). In The power of oratory in the Medieval Muslim world. Cambridge University Press.
Monroe, B. (2014). Defining principles of plateau Indian rhetoric (ch. 2). In Plateau Indian ways with words: The rhetorical tradition of the tribes of the inland Pacific Northwest. University of Pittsburg Press.
Power, M. R. and Galvin, C. (1997). The culture of speeches: Public speaking across cultures. Culture Mandala: The Bulletin of the Centre for East-West Cultural and Economic Studies The Bulletin of the Centre for East-West Cultural and Economic Studies, 2(2). Retrieved from researchgate.net [www.researchgate.net]
Rumsey, A. (1986). Oratory and the politics of metaphor in the New Guinea Highlands*. In Semiotics - Ideology - Language (T. Threadgold et. al., Eds.). Sydney: SASSC.
Shields, C. (2022). Aristotle. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Edward N. Zalta, Ed.). Retrieved from plato.stanford.edu [plato.stanford.edu]
Valenzano, J. M. and Braden, S. W. (2015). The Speaker: The tradition and practice of public speaking. Communication Faculty Publications, Paper 16. Retrieved from plato.stanford.edu [ecommons.udayton.edu]
Yagelski, R. (1995). A rhetoric of contact: Tecumseh and the Native American Confederacy. Rhetoric Review, 14(1). Retrieved from JSTOR.
