Argumentative speech is a type of communication where one or more parties advocate their ideas or opinions. It can be formal or informal and relies on context and audience. It provides an opportunity to examine ideas and can have a substantial effect on the mass psychology of the general public.
Argumentative speech is a specific type of communication, but often defined broadly. Speech is defined as the social or public use of written or spoken language, or in other words, communication between two or more parties. Within the general definition of speech, several types of speech apply. These are also sometimes called rhetorical modes and perform different functions in general speech.
Although many people who hear the word “argument” think of a heated and vitriolic conflict or emotional exchange, in general, the word simply means support for an idea. Argumentative discourse as a mode of rhetoric is speech that mainly consists of one or more parties advocating their ideas or opinions. This is in contrast to other types of discourse, including narrative, expository, or descriptive discourse.
Many different types of rhetoric or argumentative discourse develop and manifest themselves in different ways. Some are more formal, where speakers or writers carefully expand on a basic idea with supporting key ideas that are often based on technical research. Other types of argumentative discourse may be broader and rely more on intuitive or emotional arguments than on specific factual findings. It also includes many different types of diction and presentation. In more formal places, the wording used for argumentative speech can be very sophisticated and technical, where in less formal situations, dialect and slang can be used liberally.
Different types of argumentative speech also rely heavily on their physical or social context. An example is the various applications of argumentative discourse to different fields or sectors of a society. For example, argumentative speech in a court or legislative parliament is very different from the same types of speech in corporate boardrooms. The discourse relating to the legal field contrasts sharply with the discourse in other fields in which less technical language is often applied. Another type of context involves the relationship between the speaker or writer and the audience, where some examples of this talk occur between live people in a room with a human audience, and others occur in the form of published work distributed to readers, as in editorial newspapers and similar texts.
In general, the use of this type of speech provides an opportunity for readers or listeners to examine the various ideas being discussed. Persuasive or coercive arguments are often effective in reaching large numbers of people within a target audience. Widely disseminated topics can often have substantial effects on the mass psychology of the general public, whether measured or not. Examining arguments and rhetoric or argumentative discourse also gives listeners or readers a good idea of how this rhetorical form is treated in a given society.
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