Evolution of Public Speaking: The Hows and Whos

Some time ago, in the distant past, individuals did what they were trained to do: dancers danced, authors wrote, lawyers contended, doctors healed, corporate heads directed, and everyone lived happily ever after in their flawless little speciality. The end!

However, circumstances are different today. Presently, it appears, everybody at some point will be called upon to speak about their work, product, service, thought, or vision. What was once held for the gifted few has become ordinary. From homemakers to officials, from leaders to leading women, from talking heads to corporate heads, all should confront a group of people sooner or later in their lives.

In simple words, public speaking is the process or act of performing a presentation centred around an individual directly speaking to a live crowd in an organized, pondered way in order to inform, persuade or engage people.

The historical backdrop of public talking traces all the way back to when old Greeks thought about it as a basis to work with political discussion and support in gatherings, to convince individuals (manner of speaking.) However, from that point forward it has advanced with novel procedures and strategies to make most extreme effect.

We are not new to the way that the craft of public talking has been rehearsed over 2,500 years prior, right from the time of Aristotle to Plato to Martin Luther King Jr. to Barack Obama, etc.

However, the art of public speaking is evolving and has gotten very unique in relation to what it was in those days. For example, the reason or the method of talking openly was diverse during the Medieval Age when contrasted with that of the Modern Age or the New School time frame.

History of Public Speaking:

1. The Classical Period (500 BCE – 400 BCE)

Although public speaking training initially began in Egypt, the written piece regarding the speech came from Ancient Greece. Public speaking arose as a significant instrument because the Greeks highly valued public political interest. During the classical period, Rhetoric (an instrument to convince the audience members) was viewed as the main element of speech delivery or discourse. Aristotle was perhaps the most renowned Greek scholars, as he created definitive models for public speaking. He additionally thought of his own establishment called The Lyceum where he showed the speculations and standards of public talking.

2. The Romans:

The Roman culture of public talking is profoundly inspired by the Greek culture of training. The Roman speakers created and altered the Greek methods of public speaking. Some of the areas of study during this period was how to add humour to the speech, how to appeal to the crowd’s feelings and the use of digressions.

3. The Medieval Period (400 CE – 1400 CE)

In contrast to the Classical Period, which saw huge development and advancement in the study of communication, the Medieval Period may be viewed as the dull times of academic study in public speaking. However, St. Augustine, a Christian minister and an eminent rhetorician, continued to come up with ideas and kept on pursuing the study of urging that had originated during the Classical Period.

4. The Renaissance (1400 CE – 1600 CE)

The Renaissance period saw an increase of new intellectuals and rhetoricians who stressed more on the style of public speaking. Thoughts and ideas encompassing issues of style in speaking situations received noteworthy consideration during the Renaissance period. Petrus Ramus (1515-1572) paid extraordinary devotion to the idea of style by actually clubbing style and delivery of the five standards together.

5. The Enlightenment (1600 CE – 1800 CE)

The Enlightenment Period was viewed to be a scaffold between the past and the present. It was in this period where the elocutionary method was fostered that essentially centred around the speech delivery aspect of public speaking, like tone of voice, body language, facial expressions etc.

6. New School (From 1900s till today)

The New School viewed public speaking as a completely separate field of study. In the 21st century, because of technological advancements, various forms of public speaking have come into existence. The study of history permits one to understand the current world. As we already know, how significant public speaking is, we wouldn’t have been illuminated by this whole idea of speaking, if it was not introduced to us by the ancient scholars.

The foundation of public speaking has been set down hundreds and thousands of years ago and is still predominant and followed today. History of public speaking has been set apart by great orators like John F. Kennedy, Winston Churchill, Martin Luther King Jr. and many more.

Hence, history of public speaking is not only simply restricted to speeches of great leaders, but also shows how their words profoundly affect humanity and how their words and hypotheses are as yet being rehearsed till today. Huge gratitude to Aristotle, the father of Public Speaking for his three ideologies that still readies us to develop such profound skill sets that have withstood the historian eras to date.

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