Essay Sample with Ashton Kutcher Speech Analysis

Ashton Kutcher teen choice awards speech

This is a speech Ashton Kutcher receives in a Teen Choice award and he decides to come down and advise his audience on what happens in Hollywood. The audience in his speech is teens who are in the crowd and other viewers viewing the video and he speaks as motivation speaker although his approach is rhetorical. He addresses three main things in this speech and these include opportunity then the next thing is being sexy and the last thing is about living life. The primary purpose of this speech is to teach the audience about the best way to approach different things in life especially their careers but the speech is based on some rhetoric aspects or elements. The speech has targeted both genders since both genders are in search of success in their careers. Also, the speech does not target some specific job occupations but all occupants of different careers can be motivated by the speech.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

The first point on what opportunity is and how we take opportunity is defined to us by the speaker in a rhetoric manner that most people take opportunity as hard work. Then the speaker goes to the next most rhetoric element in his speech which is sexiness. We all expect sexiness to address the physical appearance of an individual but all this is opposite of the speaker's definition and utilization of sexiness. In this point in relation to sexiness, Ashton is talking about the sharpness of the mind and how smart one needs to be. This is a thing that majority of the audience can hardly forget due to the way it has been conveyed to them by the speaker. I find it hard to forget this rhetoric expression in the speech. The speaker says that the sexiest thing in the entire world is being very smart and then everything else is nothing of major importance to one's life (Brummett, 2014).

During this speech, the speaker assumes that the audience is willing to be successful in life and in whatever they are doing hence the nature of his speech. His physical appearance does not scream out loud official but his speech clearly states the need of being smart and not how you physically look. From the speech, Ashton manages to convey his message to the audience on how to approach matters in their life and tips on how to become successful. The use of rhetoric elements makes the speech more interesting and captivating, making it more memorable and easy to understand.

Elements of rhetoric in speech

Rhetoric elements are used for different reasons by a speaker or an author with the intent to convey a message to the audience. How these elements are used determines how well the audience get to understand the message the speaker intends to convey. For our study, Ashton's speech is full of rhetoric elements from the starting point of his speech to the finishing point. He manages to bond with his audience via his speech so well that even for the viewers such as me can hardly forget the speech. This is one of the most important things of speech. Through this speech, the main point that Ashton relays to his audience is how to become successful in whatever you are doing. A seen from the summary in the introduction he addresses three main points that relate to his life and career success and he is an example of success as per his career. The use of rhetorical device which changes word meanings.

The use of metaphor, for instance, this is the comparison of two seemingly unlike things. For example, from the speech, Ashton says opportunities are like hard-work. These two things are completely different but the mention of this catches the attention of the audience as they try to understand what the speaker means. This metaphor fits well in this situation as it is seen to serve its purpose. Hard-work is entirely different from opportunity but Ashton uses the two to paint a particular idea in the minds of the audience. Gaining his audience attention, he explains his metaphor to them helping them understand what he means by opportunities look a lot like work. Opportunities are those chances that come once in a lifetime and if utilized properly they end up changing once life. This is the perspective he wants the audience to understand. He expounds his work experience how one job got him to his next job just like opportunities link you up to greater things.

The other metaphor which Ashton brings in the picture is smartness of the brain and sexiness. These two concepts do not even come closer to each other in relation to meaning and how to use them in a speech but the speaker uses the rhetoric element to introduce a new topic to the audience. With such an approach it is entirely impossible to lose the audience attention. From the video when he gets to the second point it is realizable how he approaches the topic the audience screams out loud since the mention of sexiness implied something different to their minds but Aston is seen to take advantage of this and introduce another important point in his speech which is smartness of the brain. With this kind of an approach, it is completely impossible for the audience to lose track of what the speaker is talking about. Audience attention matters a lot when giving a speech and with this, the speaker is more motivated to interact with the audience. The message being communicated by Ashton is one serious issue to the lives of many on how they handle different things and if the speaker were to be boring, this would have ended up in quite a boring speech. Sexiness is a very sensitive topic to address in public and catches the attention of many. How to address the smartness of a person is not an easy topic to address but the skills of the speaker seem to stand out while addressing this issue.

Ashton's speech is a lecture of how to live

Ashton's speech is a lecture of how one is supposed to live, how to be successful in their career and how to live a fulfilling life in general. His speech has rhetoric elements almost throughout the entire speech and with this technique, the speech is unforgettable and exciting to listen to. The audience of the speech seems to be so engaged to the speaker which is an indicator that they are listening to him. Ashton manages to keep the speech brief but conveys a critical message to the audience; he even goes to the extent of giving his personal life experience as a living prove of what he is speaking about. The audience seems to be a group of young, ambitious lot which seems to be moved by Ashton's speech. This indicates a perfect speech for the right audience. An enthusiastic audience needs a speech which guides them on the right path, Ashton's speech covers this skillfully without losing the audience attention in the process. Different skills can be employed to a speech so as to gain both the attention and relay the message of the speech to the audience but choosing the right technique is usually not a simple thing. Rhetoric techniques in a speech or a written piece of work can deliver different messages but another thing such as tone while speaking helps apparently paint the meaning the speaker intends. Ashton at some point emphasizes some words so as to let them sink into the minds of the audience words such as, Work' opportunity' Sexiness and smartness of the brain' all these words are emphasized by the speaker by stressing them out while doing his speech and repeated severally so as to communicate his intended message appropriately.

Reference

Brummett, B. (2014).T Rhetoric in popular culture. Sage Publications.