The last couple of days, I was doing community service in Camden. During that time, I got to hear from the thoughts and basically life stories of a lot of people. One day, there was a trip to Philly, where I got to hear the story of a thrift shop owner. I don't remember his real name, but I do remember that everyone there called him 'Papa' because he's such an important male figure in the lives of many children. Now, before we even went to his shop, we were told that Papa had ADD and would be going off all these different tangents while speaking. However, even though he was doing this, I was able to understand him perfectly. In fact, I found his story really entertaining, and I was surprised. In debate and other speaking classes that I've attended, I was taught to always be organized and to stay on topic when speaking. The way Papa spoke was almost the exact opposite. He would jump from the present to the past to the future. He would start talking about his personal experience and go completely off topic. For example, he was talking about his experience with explosives one minute and then suddenly shifted to talking about all these different kinds of bullets. His style of story telling is so different, and yet it works effectively. Do you think that it is possibly more effective?
Something else that I noticed was that he told us that he had ADD and was crazy (many times, actually). Also, he was constantly making these random references and jokes so that we would laugh and pay attention to him more. It actually took me a while to catch on to some of those jokes because of how randomly he put them in. This reminded me of the comic book presentation. As you remember the guys that were presenting it were also telling all these jokes in order to catch our attention. In fact, both speakers were trying maybe a bit too hard (all the jokes were really corny and kind of lame). However, unlike in the comic book presentation, I was actually finding Papa's jokes funnier. Of course this is just my opinion, but is there some element I didn't see?
Mary Quien
4 comments:
As usual, it just comes down to the audience. Remeber that discussion we had about Patrick Henry vs. Edwards? We decided that because Edwards was speaking at a religious revival event, his chilling, monotonous tone seemed to strike home with the audience. He instilled fear in their hearts, only enforcing God's extensive, bone-chilling power. On the other hand, Henry, a revolutionary, used passion to convey patriotic sentiments to his audience. He needed to excite his audience, to instill some sort of passion in them. He best did that by speaking out against the evils of their oppressors, providing imagery of slavery for those listening to his resounding voice.
Therefore, Papa was merely catering to our teenage interests by providing random jokes when he could. We multi-task all the time, we're easily bored, we get distracted too often: people (especially advertisers) have picked up on this. They know how to use it to their ability. About the comic book guys from Zenescope.. I actually laughed at their jokes, but then again I laugh at everything.
(Sam Maliha)
I think that understanding the way a person speaks and being able to hold a conversation with that person has a lot to do with the context and setting in which that conversation is held. For example, with Mary's example of Papa, she knew ahead of time that he would not stay on topic, and she had probably mentally prepared herself for that. On the other hand, in something like MC the debaters are supposed to be organized and clear in what they say. Going off topic or telling a random story would be seen as a negative because it is not was is expected of the speaker. (After all, it is a competition in argument and debate, and arguments are best supported in a clear and concise manner, in order to keep the audience's attention.)
The setting is important too-- the first setting was casual, while the second second is more formal.
Emily T.
Well, most of us perceive time in a linear fashion: I say this, you say that, and then this event occurs. However, people with ADD, to me, seem to perceive time more as a circle: no beginning, no end, and no particular order of time. Hence, they might jump around, leaping from one subject to another.
Certainly, there's nothing wrong with this approach. It's just different, and the problem is that most of us are used to order and perceive time linearly. Hence, talking to someone with ADD or to Dr. Manhattan can prove frustrating, because we simply cannot see the world through their perspective.
-Eric W.
I agree with Emily. Because Mary and the rest of Papa's audience knew ahead of time that he would speak in that fashion, no one was caught off guard. Thus listeners were more inclined to attempt to (if necessary) make sense of his words.
I think that because we have always been taught that our writing and speech must be organized, we are disinclined to say that Papa's "spontaneous" speech is more effective than organized speech. However, as Emily stated, since meeting with Papa was a casual experience, maybe we can say that it's more effective. In formal situations, on the other hand, if someone were to speak as Papa does, then he/she would merely receive looks of confusion or disapproval from the audience.
(Janet Lee)
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