History of Communiation- Relation to the Present

Connecting with the Present:

I have attached a video of Randy Pausch’s “Last Lecture” above. This relates to the history of communication because Pausch’s speech incorporates all the effective tools of rhetoric. The purpose of this speech is to one, relay all that he has learned about attaining his childhood dreams to those sitting in the audience at Carnegie Mellon and two, to record something that his children will be able to view when he is not there. His speech is dynamic, exciting, and interactive. He uses the three appeals Aristotle defined many times throughout his presentation. He establishes his credibility or ethos by proving to us that he has in fact accomplished his childhood dreams through pictures, word documents such as his published article in the encyclopedia, and huge stuffed animals. More simply, he has already built his ethos by being a well liked and brilliant computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University. The steps that he takes to achieve his dreams are logical. He does not do anything out of the ordinary and he is given the same opportunities as everyone else. The difference in his logic is that when he is turned down he tries again. He connects with his audience on an emotional level because he encourages them to be all that they can be because life is too short to wait for things to come. After listening to his speech I feel inspired which is the kind of feedback he wants- it means his persuasion has worked.
Another way that Pausch effectively communicates with us is through his body language. He uses large hand gestures and powerful facial expressions to show us that he is passionate about what he is talking about. He comes prepared to speak with a PowerPoint and props. We know as we listen to his to his words that he has spent a long time generating and organizing this speech. Though most importantly, he has spent years and years accumulating the knowledge and reason that is imperative to even give the speech. He also greatly considers the thoughts and attitudes of his audience. Most of the people who are watching him are in there twenties and thirties. He acknowledges this by making the speech whimsical and gearing it towards those who are fascinated with computer science. And although the steps he takes to achieve his dreams are fairly complex, the point he is trying to make is not. This makes his speech easy to comprehend by his children. Pausch’s speech is so engrossing that at times you cannot take your eyes off him as he becomes excited about the topics his is presenting. Without knowing how to effectively demonstrate his thoughts, his speech would have just been a bulk of superfluous jargon. Using all that he has attained about communication and rhetoric, he presents a beautiful speech. If Aristotle, Plato, Gorgias, or Cicero had never existed, how would “The Last Lecture” teach anything? Over thousands of years the study of communication and rhetoric has been polished so that those to wish to make a statement can do so powerfully and eloquently.