9 - Ethnic style in political rhetoric

Summary

Events of the last decade have served to accentuate the importance of verbal communication in modern urban society. The way we talk, along with what we say, determine how effective we are in dealing with the public agencies, the judiciary and other bodies that increasingly affect the quality of our daily lives. A glance at recent history will show that in public situations, it is easier to get things done when everyone concerned has the same background than when backgrounds differ. This creates a serious dilemma for speakers of minority dialects who rely on their in-group strategy to enlist cooperation and mobilize support, but who find that the largely automatic persuasive strategies that they rely on at home and in their own neighborhoods, may cause serious miscommunication in public settings.

This chapter illustrates this dilemma through in depth analysis of two speech events: a black protestant religious sermon and a speech made during a public rally by a black political leader. The sermon was recorded from a radio broadcast of a service held in a San Francisco Bay Area church and is typical of a type of sermon that can be heard on public radio stations on Sundays. The main speaker is the assistant pastor of the church, and the congregation whose responses are also recorded is black. The political address was made during the late 1960s at a San Francisco public meeting, called to protest against United States policies during the Vietnam war. The speaker was a well-known, but highly controversial black community leader.