Linguistic and Extralinguistic Characteristics of Ted Talks as Multimodal English Text

Abstract

The article focuses on the investigation of such linguistic phenomenon as multimodality, namely its linguistic and extralinguistic features in TED Talks. TED Talks is a conference where influential people speak to the audience about important issues that need to be addressed in our society. Speakers of the conference perform a role of ideators who are trying to get their ideas across to the people in the audience. To fulfill their objectives, they resort to different techniques implementing all kind of linguistic and extralinguistic means in their strategies of drawing public attention. To realizing a full potential of a performance on stage, speaker needs to be fully prepared, which means making a presentation, a speech and thinking about their actions on stage in advance. Duration of a TED Talk usually varies from 10 to 15 minutes, which is motivated by people's generally short attention span. The article is based on D. M. Kaysina's classification of rhetorical strategies that are realized in TED Talks. This classification helps us understand the basics of linguistic means which play a large part in forming a communicative intention. As well as how different parts of the sentence can be combined to create the synergy needed. Understanding the principles play a key role in oral presentation and helps us better understand how language works.