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Article published In: Language and Dialogue
Vol. 13:1 (2023) ► pp.51–80

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Invitation to respond by rhetoric or delivery

A microanalysis of orator-audience turn-takings in a Subject-Object-Verb language

 | University of York
 | University of York
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Open Access publication of this article was funded through a Transformative Agreement with University of York.

Published online: 17 February 2023
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https://doi.org/10.1075/ld.00137.cho
Abstract
English (an SVO language) and Korean (an SOV language) are polar opposites in terms of grammatical order. Studies show that rhetorical devices (RDs) are effective in generating collective audience responses in British political oratory. This article attempts to study the functions of RDs in Korean oratory and the importance of speech delivery. Through the analysis of the speaker-audience turn-taking systems, it is suggested that RDs do not function as cross-cultural universals in the invitation of audience responses but rather depend on the syntactic structure of a given language and the use of nonverbal factors. Thus, due to SOV language features, RDs do not play a predominant role in inviting audience responses in Korean oratory, whereas speech delivery is crucial.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Analytic dimensions in speaker-audience interaction
    • 1.2SVO and SOV languages
  • 2.Method
    • 2.1Data
    • 2.2Apparatus
    • 2.3Procedure
  • 3.Results
    • 3.1Synchrony and asynchrony
    • 3.2Invited and uninvited responses
    • 3.3Burst and staggered responses
  • 4.Discussion
  • 5.Conclusion
  • References
References (30)
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Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Choi, Hyangmi & Peter Bull
2023. Orators’ Nonverbal Behavior in Generating Audience Responses: Speaker-Audience Interaction in South Korean Political Speeches. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior 47:3 ► pp. 403 ff. DOI logo

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