Fisher's Speech In A Whisper Of AIDS By Mary Fisher

People have been moved by famous speeches for many decades, and each of speeches has difference characteristics. In this essay, I would like to discuss one of the masterpiece, “A whisper of AIDS” by Mary Fisher, who was one the member of Republican Party at that time. During her speech, we can find some important elements of public speaking. Thus, in this paper, I am going to analyze this speech focused on three strategies which she uses in her speech; argument from analogy, argument from generalization, and inductive reasoning. First of all, argument from analogy is used during Fisher’s speech. According to the I-Speak text book (Nelson, Titsworth & Pearson, 2012) an argument from analogy is described “An argument from analogy involves

According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2012), “An inductive logic is a system of evidential support that extends deductive logic to less-than-certain inferences….in a good inductive argument the premises should provide some degree of support for the conclusion, where such support means that the truth of the premises indicates with some degree of strength that the conclusion is true” When we take a look at Fisher’s speech, we can find inductive reasoning. For example, at the beginning of her speech, she introduces the fact about HIV/AIDs with specific example; “The reality of AIDS is brutally clear. Two hundred thousand Americans are dead or dying; a million more are infected. Worldwide forty million, or sixty million or a hundred million infections will be counted in the coming few years” (Fisher, 1992). As this sentence shows that, she demonstrates specific number of people who will be suffered from HIV/AIDs. After this sentence, she warns everybody has a potential to have a HIV/AIDS. She mentions that “This is not a distant threat. It is a present danger. The rate of infection is increasing fastest among women and children” (Fisher, 1992). Then, she describes that it is important to learn from Fisher’s lesson and tells future generations about HIV/AIDS in conclusion, “Learn with me the lessons of history and of grace, so my children will not be afraid to say the word "AIDS" when I am gone. Then, their children and yours may not need to whisper it at all” (Fisher, 1992). I consider that this structure of Fisher’s speech is inductive reasoning. In the beginning her speech, she uses specific example and shows that a number of people with AIDS/HIV. Moreover, following her speech, she mentions that everybody has a potential to be HIV/AIDS due to a number of infected people. In the end, she describes the importance of telling children and