final essay

Tong Zhou (Babe)

English 101

Second Draft

05/25/2019

Lidia Yuknavitch’s Persuasive Speech

Lidia Yuknavitch, gave one of the most moving inspirational yet humorous and memorable talk. The twelve minutes talk gives hope to social misfits who find the world awkward for them and those who ruin themselves and would want to correct themselves up again. Through the inspirational session, the speaker was not shy to use numerous examples of times she found this world a hostile place for her an aspect that made me reflect the experiences in my life. Additionally, the delivery of the content was perfectly done to ensure that people who fell in her category identify with the experiences. Linda employs eloquent non-verbal cues and paralanguage all aimed at effective delivery.

Through the talk, the speaker lays reasons why she thinks she is a misfit. First, she tells the audience that she missed the opportunity of being a wife, a daughter and the scholar she aspires to be. This is from her abusive parenting and the death of her child. Secondly, from her misfortunes, she develops prolonged grief that left her homeless and frustrated in life. Thirdly, the tells of a time when she knew she would be pushed out of WW Naughton room for wearing black pants. Additionally, Lidia speaks of an education life where she was sent out of school and went to jail a couple of times all making her perceive the world negatively. All this evidence pointed to her main theme of the talk, the pain f being a misfit yet she made it from the experiences to become a teacher, a writer and a mother. From her narrated experiences it is only reasonable to conclude her planned theme of the talk.

Watching the video by Lidia Yuknavitch one identifies with every experience she tells of and her consequent conclusion. She narrates with vividness and authenticity connecting with the feelings of her immediate audiences and people like me who have watched the video now. The fact that she is able to tell her stories in the position of the audiences, they are able to understand her and her message in their simplest terms. By speaking from her experience her content is well understood as it is assumed she has a mastery of the experience and the subject talked about. Another aspect that makes her credible to her audience is by stating her credentials and experience in writing and teaching.

While Lidia was presenting she also used another aspect of persuasive communication, that of appeal to emotions. This is the capturing of the emotion of the audience to evoke both sympathy and empathy. She used personal experiences such as the loss of her child, failure to maintain a marriage, being homeless, getting suspended from school and being jailed twice in her life. What makes one sympathize with her is that she failed to be the scholar she wanted to and the social life that we all aspire to have in our future lives. All these appeals to the emotions of her audience made them more receptive to her speech.

Finally, the delivery of the speech was with one more other facilitative aspect, the mastery of paralanguage. This entails the rate of speaking, words per minute, the breathiness of her speech, the use of pauses and the varying of tone while speaking. For instance, while transiting from one point, she varied the tone to signal another new issue. Secondly, she used pauses to make important points.

Reference

https://www.ted.com/talks/lidia_yuknavitch_the_beauty_of_being_a_misfit#t-140084

" Lidia Yuknavitch. (2016). The beauty of being a misfit. Retrieved from;

https://www.ted.com/talks/lidia_yuknavitch_the_beauty_of_being_a_misfit#t-140084