After having learned of the eight
Topics of Invention, I become conscious of its usage in many General Conference
talks. Until recently, I never knew the
leverage they yield in teaching or conveying a message.
In analyzing President
Uchtdorf’s talk, I picked up a small handful of topics used—though being a novice
myself, I am sure he used more.
President Uchtdorf arranged
and organized his arguments for maximum impact. In addition, the use of
anecdotes, scripture, as well as catchy one-liners helped make the story
develop and become memorable.
To express the need to find
proper mediums of truth, comparison is used first in President
Uchtdorf’s talk as he differentiates an online search with his well-trained
doctors.
Then, he clearly and
explicitly defines the right questions to ask oneself to “ponder our progress and evaluate how things are working
for us”. He asks roughly ten rhetorical questions.
Division of church members is touched on next. Within the
whole membership, he says there are those who find themselves “immeasurably enriched” by the gospel, but also says there
are those who find “membership in the Church sometimes isn’t quite what they
had hoped for”.
After asking whether we
[church members] make the Gospel too complicated, he then touches on cause
and effect by pointing out that too many programs can cause burdens.
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| The Lily of Truth |
To support his claim,
President Uchtdorf uses the metaphor of the “Lily of Truth” to represent the
Gospel. He also tells a quilt anecdote pointing out the need to “simplify”. Scriptures
are used in support as well.
President Uchtdorf then
shifts his talk slightly toward individual growth and explains the degrees
in becoming greater than who we are today.
Applying to the supernatural,
he closes with a brief testimony of how living the Gospel works for him.
Whether he consciously used
these tactics or whether they felt intuitive as a skilled speaker and teacher, President
Uchtdorf successfully opened up General Conference with a rousing speech and an inspired message.
I talked about this in my own post, but I think arrangement of speech can have as much impact or amplify that impact of people's messages. If President Uchtdorf had rearranged his stories or used any of the topics of invention in a different place in his talk, the talk would have had a completely different feel.
ReplyDeleteWow, Kelly: I love how many you were able to identify! I do, however, appreciate your penultimate comment. If rhetoric is just the naming of oral devices already used, does one truly need to study rhetoric to be a good logographer?
ReplyDeleteWow, Kelly: I love how many you were able to identify! I do, however, appreciate your penultimate comment. If rhetoric is just the naming of oral devices already used, does one truly need to study rhetoric to be a good logographer?
ReplyDelete