12.2 Using Language Effectively

Learning Objectives

1. Explain what it means to use appropriate language.
2. Explain what is meant by vivid language.
3. Define inclusive language and explain why using it is important for public speakers.
4. Explain the importance of using familiar language in public speaking.

Content creators earn the title influencer because they can effectively communicate so that their followers continue watching and/or buy their product. When considering how to use language effectively in your speech, consider the degree to which the language is appropriate, clear, and inclusive. The next sections define each of these aspects of language and discuss why each is important in public speaking.

Use Appropriate Language

The way you chat with your friends is probably different than the way you speak with a professor or with a family member. We naturally adapt our language choice given who we are speaking to and the context we are speaking in. Whether you are figuring out what to watch on Hulu with friends or getting help in office hours, there are positive and negative ways of using language in any context. One of the first concepts a speaker needs to think about when looking at word choice is appropriateness. By appropriate, we mean whether the language is suitable or fitting for ourselves, as the speaker; our audience; the speaking context; and the speech itself.

Appropriate for the Speaker

To maintain authenticity, as a speaker you should use language in a speech that fits with your own speaking pattern or style. Not all language choices are appropriate for all speakers. The language you select should be suitable for you, not someone else. If you’re a first-year college student, there’s no need to force yourself to sound like an astrophysicist even if you are giving a speech on new planets. If English is not your first language, there’s no need to worry about having impeccable grammar or sounding like a native speaker. One of the biggest mistakes novice speakers make is thinking that they must use “smart-sounding” words. Remember, in spoken language, simpler tends to be the norm, so using them will probably make you uncomfortable as a speaker. Also, it may be difficult for you or the audience to understand the nuances of meaning when you use such words, so using them can increase the risk of denotative or connotative misunderstandings.

Also important here is using language that you are familiar and comfortable with. If you are not comfortable with the terminology you’ve chosen, then you might be more nervous and less confident, which will definitely have an impact on how your audience receives your speech. You may have a hard time speaking genuinely and sincerely if you use unfamiliar language, and this can impair your credibility. Furthermore, you want to make sure that the language you are using is familiar to your listeners, which leads to the next point.

Appropriate for the Audience

The second aspect of appropriateness asks whether the language you are choosing is appropriate for your specific audience. Let’s say that you’re an engineering student. If you’re giving a presentation in an engineering class, you can use language that other engineering students will know. On the other hand, if you use that engineering vocabulary in a public speaking class, many audience members might not understand you. As another example, if you are speaking about the history of communication technology to an audience of young adults, you can’t assume they will know the meaning of terms like “party line”, “operator,” or “long-distance call” which would be familiar to an audience born before the 1990s. You don’t have to avoid using these terms altogether but defining them with relevant, appropriate terms would probably be necessary. In other chapters of this book, we have explained the importance of audience analysis; once again, audience analysis is a key factor in choosing the language to use in a speech.

Appropriate for the Context

The next question about appropriateness is whether the language you will use is suitable or fitting for the context itself. The language you may employ if you’re addressing a student assembly in a high school auditorium will differ from the language you would use at a business meeting in a hotel ballroom. If you’re giving a speech at an outdoor rally, you likely will not use the same language you would use in a classroom. Recall that the speaking context includes the occasion, the time of day, the mood of the audience, and other factors in addition to the physical location. Take the entire speaking context into consideration when you make the language choices for your speech.

Appropriate for the Topic

The final consideration when evaluating your language is whether it suits your specific topic and audience. For instance, if you’re giving a presentation on the rise of social media activism, would it make sense to describe influencers as “demagogues” or “orators of the digital age”? While those terms might technically apply, they could come off as overly dramatic or even confusing. On the other hand, if your topic is something more technical—like quantum computing or CRISPR gene editing—then using precise, field-specific terminology is not only appropriate but expected. The goal is to strike a balance between sounding informed and staying accessible to your audience. That said, you may need to use a term the audience may not be familiar with, especially when using language particular to your field. In these instances, you may use definition or restatement to ensure understanding.

Avoid Obscenity

Obscenity, or indecent language, consists of curse words or pornographic references. While it may be typical to use obscene language in casual conversations with your friends, we cannot recommend using obscene language while delivering a speech. Even if you’re giving a speech related to an obscene word, you must be careful with your use of the word itself. Whether we agree with societal perceptions of obscenity, using an obscenity (intentionally or unintentionally!) will end up focusing the audience on the “bad word” and not on your message.

Use Vivid Language

After appropriateness, the second main guideline for using language is to use vivid language. Vivid language helps your listeners create strong, distinct, clear, and memorable mental images. Strong vivid language usage helps an audience member truly understand and imagine what a speaker is saying. Two common ways to make your speaking more vivid are through the use of imagery and rhythm.

Imagery

Imagery is the use of language to represent objects, actions, or ideas. The goal of imagery is to help an audience member create a mental picture of what a speaker is saying. A speaker who uses imagery successfully will tap into one or more of the audience’s five basic senses (hearing, taste, touch, smell, and sight). Three common tools of imagery are concreteness, simile, and metaphor.

Concreteness

When we use language that is concrete, we attempt to help our audiences see specific realities or actual instances instead of abstract theories and ideas. The goal of concreteness is to help you, as a speaker, show your audience something instead of just telling them. Imagine you’ve decided to give a speech on the importance of freedom. You could easily stand up and talk about the philosophical work of Rudolf Steiner, who divided the ideas of freedom into freedom of thought and freedom of action. In addition to defining what those terms mean and discussing the philosophical merits of Steiner, you should use real examples where people’s freedom to think or freedom to behave has been stifled. For example, Afghani women under the Taliban are forced to adhere to rigid interpretations of Islamic law that functionally limit their behavior. Since the Taliban return to power in 2021, Afghani women have been denied the right to attend school run and run businesses, despite often being the family’s primary breadwinner (Noack, 2025). Some beauty salon owners continue to run their business in secret to continue to support their families. This example makes things more concrete for audience members and thus easier to remember. Ultimately, the goal of concreteness is to show an audience something instead of talking about it abstractly.

Simile

The second form of imagery is simile. As you probably learned in English courses, a simile is a figure of speech in which two unlike things are explicitly compared. Speakers use similes to help an audience understand a specific characteristic being described within the speech. The following are some examples:

• The thunderous applause was like a party among the gods.
• After the revelation, she was as angry as a raccoon caught in a cage.
• Love is like a battlefield.

When we look at these two examples, you’ll see that two words have been italicized: “like” and “as.” All similes contain either “like” or “as” within the comparison. In the first example, we are connecting the type of applause being heard to something supernatural, so we can imagine that the applause was huge and enormous. Now think how you would envision the event if the simile likened the applause to a mime convention—your mental picture changes dramatically, doesn’t it?

To effectively use similes within your speech, first look for instances where you may already be finding yourself making a comparison. For example, when you say, “Her fit is giving royalty,” you can make the simile, “She was dressed like a queen.” When you find situations where you are comparing two things using “like” or “as,” examine what it is that you are comparing. In the queen example, consider what exactly about her outfit looks regal. Lastly, once you see what two ideas you are comparing, check the mental picture for yourself. Are you getting the kind of mental image you desire? Is the image too strong? Is the image too weak? You can always alter the image to make it stronger or weaker depending on what your aim is. Remember to avoid cliches and overused expressions. Figures of speech like similes and metaphors are effective for introducing new perspectives.

Metaphor

The other commonly used form of imagery is the metaphor, or a figure of speech where a term or phrase is applied to something in a nonliteral way to suggest a resemblance. In the case of a metaphor, one of the comparison items is said to be the other (even though this is literally or realistically not possible). Let’s look at a few examples:

• Love is a battlefield.
• Upon hearing the charges, the accused clammed up and refused to speak without a lawyer.
• Every year a new crop of activists are born.

In these examples, the comparison word has been italicized. Let’s think through each of these examples. In the first one, the comparison is the same as one of our simile examples except that the word “like” is omitted—instead of being like a battlefield, the metaphor states that love is a battlefield, and it is understood that the speaker does not mean the comparison literally. In the second example, the accused “clams up,” which means that the accused refused to talk in the same way a clam’s shell is closed. In the third example, we refer to activists as “crops” that arise anew with each growing season, and we use “born” figuratively to indicate that they come into being—even though it is understood that they are not newborn infants at the time when they become activists.

To use a metaphor effectively, first determine what you are trying to describe. For example, maybe you are talking about a course’s webpage, for example on Canvas, Google classroom, or Blackboard. Second, identify what it is that you want to say about the object you are trying to describe. Depending on whether you want your audience to think of the course page as good or bad, you’ll use different words to describe it. Lastly, identify the other object you want to compare the first one to, which should mirror the intentions in the second step. Let’s look at two possible metaphors:

• We fumbled our way through the maze of links and assignments on Canvas.
• We flew through the menu of links and assignments on Canvas.

While both of these examples evoke comparisons with the course catalog, the first example is clearly more negative and the second is more positive. Take a look at the second example again. The word menu might not seem like a metaphor. With long term usage, the origin of this word as a figure of speech is forgotten.

One mistake people often make in using metaphors is to make two incompatible comparisons in the same sentence or line of thought. Here is an example:

• “That’s awfully thin gruel for the right wing to hang their hats on” (Nordquist, 2009).

This is known as a mixed metaphor, and it often has an incongruous or even hilarious effect. Unless you are aiming to entertain your audience with fractured use of language, be careful to avoid mixed metaphors.

Rhythm

Our second guideline for effective language in a speech is to use rhythm. When most people think of rhythm, they immediately think about music. What they may not realize is that language is inherently musical; at least it can be. Rhythm refers to the patterned, recurring variance of elements of sound or speech. Whether someone is striking a drum with a stick or standing in front of a group speaking, rhythm is an important aspect of human communication. Think about your favorite public speaker. If you analyze his or her speaking pattern, you’ll notice that there is a certain cadence to the speech. While much of this cadence is a result of the nonverbal components of speaking, some of the cadence comes from the language that is chosen as well. While delivery is important for all aspects of speaking, it is especially important when using figures of speech like simile and metaphor. Remember to vary your rate and your volume to emphasize and enhance the impact of those comparisons.

Let’s examine four types of rhythmic language: parallelism, repetition, alliteration, and assonance.

Parallelism

When listing items in a sequence, audiences will respond more strongly when those ideas are presented in a grammatically parallel fashion, which is referred to as parallelism or parallel structure. For example, look at the following two examples and determine which one sounds better to you:

• “Give me liberty or I’d rather die.”
• “Give me liberty or give me death.”

Technically, you’re saying the same thing in both, but the second one has better rhythm, and this rhythm comes from the parallel construction of “give me.” The lack of parallelism in the first example makes the sentence sound disjointed and ineffective.

Repetition

As we mentioned earlier in this chapter, one of the major differences between oral and written language is the use of repetition. Because speeches are communicated orally, audience members need to hear the core of the message repeatedly. Repetition as a linguistic device is designed to help audiences become familiar with a short piece of the speech as they hear it over and over again. By repeating a phrase during a speech, you create a specific rhythm. Probably the most famous and memorable use of repetition within a speech is Martin Luther King Jr.’s use of “I have a dream” in his speech at the Lincoln Memorial on August 1963 during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. In that speech, Martin Luther King Jr. repeated the phrase “I have a dream” eight times to great effect. A more contemporary example is Lin-Manuel Miranda’s acceptance speech at the 2016 Tony Awards, delivered shortly after the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando. In an emotional tribute, Miranda repeated the phrase “love is love”—coincidentally repeating the word love eight times—using the cadence and rhythm of repetition to emphasize the enduring power of love in the face of hate and violence. The phrase became instantly iconic, not just for its poetic structure, but for how it captured a collective emotional truth in a moment of national grief.

Alliteration & Assonance

Another type of rhythmic language is alliteration, or using two or more words in a series that begin with the same consonant. In the Harry Potter novel series, the author uses alliteration to name the four wizards who founded Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry: Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Salazar Slytherin. There are two basic types of alliteration: immediate juxtaposition and nonimmediate juxtaposition. Immediate juxtaposition occurs when the consonants clearly follow one after the other—as we see in the Harry Potter example. Nonimmediate juxtaposition occurs when the consonants are repeated in nonadjacent words (e.g., “It is the poison that we must purge from our politics, the wall that we must tear down before the hour grows too late”) (Obama, 2008). Sometimes you can actually use examples of both immediate and nonimmediate juxtapositions within a single speech. The following example is from Bill Clinton’s acceptance speech at the 1992 Democratic National Convention: “Somewhere at this very moment, a child is being born in America. Let it be our cause to give that child a happy home, a healthy family, and a hopeful future” (Clinton, 2005). Be wary, however, of overusing alliteration which can inadvertently turn your speech into a tongue twister.

Assonance is similar to alliteration, but instead of relying on consonants, assonance gets its rhythm from repeating the same vowel sounds with different consonants in the stressed syllables. The phrase “how now brown cow,” which elocution students traditionally used to learn to pronounce rounded vowel sounds, is an example of assonance. While rhymes like “free as a breeze,” “mad as a hatter,” and “no pain, no gain” are examples of assonance, speakers should be wary of relying on assonance because when it is overused it can quickly turn into bad poetry.

Use Inclusive Language

Language can either inspire your listeners or turn them off very quickly. One of the fastest ways to alienate an audience is using non-inclusive language. Inclusive language is language that avoids placing any one group of people above or below other groups while speaking. Let’s look at some common problem areas related to language about gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and disabilities.

Gender

The first common form of non-inclusive language is language that privileges male gender. There are three common problem areas that speakers run into while speaking: using “he” as generic, using “man” to mean all humans, and gender typing jobs.

The generic “he” happens when a speaker labels all people within a group as “he” when in reality there is a mixed gender group involved. Consider the statement, “Every morning when an officer of the law puts on his badge, he risks his life to serve and protect his fellow citizens.” In this case, we have a police officer that is labeled as male four different times in one sentence. Obviously, both male and female police officers risk their lives when they put on their badges. A better way to word the sentence would be, “Every morning when officers of the law put on their badges, they risk their lives to serve and protect their fellow citizens.” Notice that in the better sentence, we made the subject plural (“officers”) and used neutral pronouns (“they” and “their”) to avoid the generic “he.”

Traditionally, speakers of English have used terms like “man,” “mankind,” and (in casual contexts) “guys” when referring to both females and males. In the second half of the twentieth century, as society became more aware of gender bias in language, organizations like the National Council of Teachers of English developed guidelines for nonsexist language (National Council of Teachers of English, 2002). For example, instead of using the word “man,” you could refer to the “human race.” Instead of saying, “hey, guys,” you could say, “OK, everyone.” By using gender-fair language you will be able to convey your meaning just as well, and you won’t risk alienating half of your audience.

The last common area where speakers get into trouble with gender and language has to do with job titles. It is not unusual for people to assume, for example, that doctors are men and nurses are women. As a result, they may say “she is a female doctor” or “he is a male nurse” when mentioning someone’s occupation, perhaps not realizing that the statements “she is a doctor” and “he is a nurse” already inform the listener as to the sex of the person holding that job. Table 12.1 “Language for occupations” lists some common gender- specific jobs titles along with more inclusive versions of those job titles.

Table 12.1 Language for Occupations

Exclusive Language	Inclusive Language
Policeman	Police officer
Businessman	Businessperson
Fireman	Firefighter
Stewardess	Flight attendant
Waiters	Wait staff / servers
Mailman	Mail carrier / postal worker

Ethnic Identity

Another type of inclusive language relates to the categories used to highlight an individual’s ethnic identity. Ethnic identity refers to a group an individual identifies with based on a common culture. For example, within the United States we have numerous ethnic groups, including Italian Americans, Irish Americans, Japanese Americans, Vietnamese Americans, Cuban Americans, and Mexican Americans. As with the earlier example of “male nurse,” avoid statements such as “The committee is made up of four women and a Vietnamese man.” Instead, say, “The committee is made up of four women and a man” or, if race and ethnicity are central to the discussion, “The committee is made up of three European American women, an Israeli American woman, a Brazilian American woman, and a Vietnamese American man.” In recent years, there has been a trend toward steering inclusive language away from broad terms like “Asians” and “Latinos” because these terms are not considered precise labels for the groups they actually represent. If you want to be safe, the best thing you can do is ask a couple of people who belong to an ethnic group how they prefer to label themselves.

Attraction Orientation and Identity

Another area that can cause some problems is referred to as heterosexism. Heterosexism occurs when a speaker presumes that everyone in an audience is heterosexual or that opposite-gender relationships are the only norm. For example, a speaker might begin a speech by saying, “I am going to talk about the legal obligations you will have with your future husband or wife.” While this speech starts with the notion that everyone plans on getting married, which isn’t the case, it also assumes that everyone will label their significant others as either “husbands” or “wives.” Although some members of the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender/transexual community will use these terms, others prefer for more gender-neutral terms like “spouse” and “partner.” Moreover, legal obligations for same-sex couples may be very different from those for heterosexual couples. Notice also that we have used the phrase “members of the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender/transexual community” instead of the more clinical- sounding term “homosexual.”

Disability

The last category of exclusive versus inclusive language that causes problems for some speakers relates to individuals with physical or mental disabilities. Table 12.2 “Inclusive Language for Disabilities” provides some other examples of exclusive versus inclusive language.

Table 12.2 Inclusive Language for Disabilities

Exclusive Language	Inclusive Language
Handicapped People	People with disabilities
Insane Person	Person with a psychiatric disability (or specify diagnosis, e.g., “person with schizophrenia”)
Person in a wheelchair	Person who uses a wheelchair
Crippled	Person with a physical disability
Special needs program	Accessible needs program / learning support program
Mentally slow, delayed	Person with an intellectual disability