Changes in Public Speaking from Ancient Greece to Modernity Research Paper

Changes in Public Speaking from Ancient Greece to Modernity - Research Paper Example While crowds today may reach into the billions, speakers today are equipped with microphones, television, internet, and radio to reach the people. In Greece, the speaker not only had to have the passion for his subject but also had to have the ability to remember long quotes and ideas and to be able to amplify their voice for a long enough time to get their ideas across. Today, speakers can depend on note cards and prepared speeches, while Greeks had to rely solely on their memories. Today, unlike then, speakers are also not required to write their own speeches, and in fact, may not know the material until they step in front of a microphone. Effective speaking requires that the speaker be clear in what they are saying, and look and act convincingly. Eye movement, gesturing, even the subtle shifts of the person talking are all subject to interpretation by the listeners. While the movement of the speaker has mattered throughout history, it is only contemporarily that it can be shown, again and again, allowing an endless reinterpretation of meaning. Speaking before recording allowed the speaker to speak with passion, and while mistakes were still not desired, they were more forgivable. A grammatical mistake, for example, would be corrected in the speech was actually written down. Today, those same errors are lauded over the speaker and are used as ways to discredit them. Greeks did not permit women to speak publicly, and also had a unique way of stopping people who were not interesting enough. If the speaker lost the attention of the people, they were physically dragged off of the stage by the watchers. Today, we are required to sit politely by and let them finish out their speech or change the channel on the television. Public speaking was one of the most important skills an Athenian had. According to Nancy Harper: For many years, the Athenian could not hire a professional to speak for him in court. Each Athenian jury consisted of several hundred persons, and the citizen, whether the accuser or the accused, had to use his ability as a public speaker to persuade a majority of the jury to believe in his side of the case. Because lawsuits were common in Athens, legal speaking became the central concern of early communication instruction. (Warren 2)