The King’s Speech is loosely based upon Prince Albert’s speech impediment and the anxious speech he has to deliver as the future King of England, George the VI. Central to the movie is the relationship between Prince Albert and the unconventional Australian speech therapist, Lionel Logue. The premise of the film is the improvement of Prince Alberts’ stutter under the guidance of Logue and the desperate need to inspire and reassure a nation during the wake of World War 2 (WW2).
According to Kraaimaat, Vanryckeghem and Dam-Baggen (2002), stuttering was commonly viewed as an intellectual disability or as being psychologically deficient (p. 319). However, the portrayal of stuttering in the film shows King George as more than capable to carry out his royal duties with ease and that it was not his lack of intelligence that hindered his work. He was able to read to his young children, communicate efficiently with his wife, and talk politics with his father, expressing varying degrees of ease with which he communicated. However, his speech impediment propagated under duress, namely speaking with his demanding father and distant older brother. Therefore, this movie challenges the perceptions of pre-conceived notions of stuttering as a disability.
The disability in the film was portrayed as being associated with anxiety, shame, embarrassment and a sense of failure. This is evident in the opening scene of the film when Prince Albert failed to give an articulate speech to the discomfort of the crowd and distress of his wife. Also, the study conducted by Miller and Watson (1992) suggests that people who stutter do not have increased general anxiety unless they are faced with a situation where they have to speak publicly. This increase i...
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...rince what name he will choose as king. Churchill also stuttered and went on to become a powerful orator. This educates and raises awareness to students that though one has a disability it should not hinder them from achieving their goals. It also conveys to non-stutterers that people with a speech disability are not regarded as unintelligent.
The movie accurately depicted stuttering given that the story is written by David Seidler, himself a person who stutters, and directed by Tom Hooper. Perhaps the director puts his own perspectives in the film. However it ties in well with the literature.
In conclusion, the Kings speech portrayed stuttering in a sympathetic manner. there is no cure for stuttering but with the help of speech therapy, meditation and pharmaceuticals as part of modern therapeutic practice, individuals can overcome their fear of public speaking.
In the film, Transcending Stuttering: The Inside Story, produced by Schneider Speech, the viewer was brought into the lives of seven individuals with a stutter. These individuals described their experiences with stuttering and how they have transcended the obstacles they have been faced with throughout their lives. The viewer was also given the opportunity to understand the powerful reality of both the low and high points that can be accompanied by stuttering.
Communication is the very first thing one learns as soon as he or she is born, crying when something upsetting happens or laughing to show contentment. However, as one ages, they begin to realize that using words to express thoughts and feelings is a great deal harder than manipulating sounds and actions. Author Toni Bambara of “Raymond’s Run” and Lauren Tarshis of “Stuttering Doesn’t Hold Me Back” have similar views on the difficulty of speaking up. Bambara writes about a boy called Raymond who has Down Syndrome and communicates with others in a special way, as he cannot utilize his words. “Stuttering Doesn’t Hold Me Back” is an inspiring story regarding a young student facing the challenges of her disorder. Both writings consider the idea that we all have our own methods of conversing, and we need to accept and understand that it is normal.
Such an approach is preferred if the child reveals secondary behaviours or when the child is aware of his/her. This decision of choosing direct therapy will depend on the amount of stuttering that is been observed as well as the impact the stuttering has on the child’s attitude and psychology towards communication. Direct therapy focuses specifically on the child's stuttering. Within all cases parents should encourage their children and most importantly expect any disfluency issue a child might have. Direct therapy, targets speech disfluencies by speech and language therapists and parents, if the parents have been directed by a professional speech and language therapist. Specifically, in contrast with indirect approach, direct approach focuses on the disfluency of the child by correcting and working on the stutters with the SLT or the parents if they have been directed by an SLT. Direct therapy mostly focuses on breathing techniques, managing reduced speaking rate, encouraging pauses when taking turns in conversations and motivating the child by letting him/her finish speaking without any interruption. Two approaches in direct therapy are the fluency shaping and the
We then get to the area the speech was being held and we see a statue of Abraham Lincoln sitting in a chair with Martin Luther King Jr. standing in front of it. When he began his speech King was monotone in voice and stature. There was no emotion showing through the beginning stages of his speech. He made little to no eye contact with people during the beginning parts of the speech, and he seemed tired, dim but not defeated. The more in depth he got into it the more emotions he started getting out, he spoke with passion when it came to certain parts. This happened mainly on the section s of how slavery was affecting their lives. He could not get out certain words, choking on raw emotion that would come upon him emotionally or when he saw the looks on people’s faces. He almost could not believe, looking out over the vast crowds that the movement was even going to be a thing at all. That his words were meaning
Mairs, Nancy. “On Being a Cripple.” Writer’s Presence: A Pool of Readings. 5th ed. Ed. Robert Atawan and Donald McQuade. Boston:Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2006. 183-193. Print
Davis, S., Shisca, D., & Howell, P. (2007). Anxiety in speakers who persist and recover from stuttering. Journal of Communication Disorders, 40, 398-417.
In the book, The Short Bus, Jonathan Mooney’s thesis is that there is more to people than their disabilities, it is not restricting nor is it shameful but infact it is beautiful in its own way. With a plan to travel the United States, Mooney decides to travel in a Short bus with intentions of collecting experiences from people who have overcome--or not overcome--being labeled disabled or abnormal. In this Mooney reinvents this concept that normal people suck; that a simple small message of “you’re not normal” could have a destructive and deteriorating effect. With an idea of what disabilities are, Mooney’s trip gives light to disabilities even he was not prepared to face, that he feared.
The most common rhetorical device used in the speeches was an anaphora. An anaphora is a phrase that is repeated frequently. King repeated multiple phrases in all three speeches evaluated. In “I Have a Dream”, King repeats the phrase “one-hundred years later”. He uses this phrase in emphasize that much time had gone by and yet, there still hadn’t been change. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free.”. King also uses allusions like “... we’ve come to our nations capital to cash a check” and “... the bank of justice is bankrupt”. This helps give the audience a better imagine of what King was referring to. In “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop”, he used an abundance of anaphors. The phrase “I would” was repeated seven times. He talks about how if God asked him what age he’d like to live in he gave many places and people he would want to see. King ended each place he’d go with “I won’t stop there”. It is thought that this was Kings’ way of saying he wasn’t going to give up on fighting for what is right. He continues with saying he is thankful to be in the 20th century so he could fight for a cause. There was also an example of antithesis, which is making a connection between two ideas or things. He used the famous words from J.F.K “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” In “A Time to Break Silence”, an anaphora was also used. King used
Many people stutter; however people usually outgrow stuttering. But it is not something that people just do for a short while to attract attention. People who do stutter are actually really embarrassed by it and the attention they receive from stuttering and fear the next time that it will happen. They will often avoid situations in which stuttering will be a problem. Stutterers have no control over when they stutter or don’t. Contrary to the therapist in the novel American Pastoral, stuttering is not an idea conjured up in ones head to gain attention. It is not a psychological problem that comes and goes as one needs it, or when it would be beneficial to a person. Because the truth is, a stutterer never finds it beneficial to have.
In his speech, King uses different types of rhetorical guidelines. He uses them to show his points in a better and easier way to understand .At the beginning he successfully uses a mythos. A mythos has a deep explanatory or symbolic resonance for the audience. In mentioning the Emancipation Proclamation he shows that our ancestors signed a contract, in which all human beings are created equal, and therefore should be treated in the same way as others. He also visualizes his ideas with visual examples, which everybody can understand. “America has given the black population a bad check, which has come back marked insufficient funds”( I Have a Dream)
In Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream speech, King makes use of an innumerable amount of rhetorical devices that augment the overall understanding and flow of the speech. King makes the audience feel an immense amount of emotion due to the outstanding use of pathos in his speech. King also generates a vast use of rhetorical devices including allusion, anaphora, and antithesis. The way that King conducted his speech adds to the comprehension and gives the effect that he wants to rise above the injustices of racism and segregation that so many people are subjected to on a daily basis.
Lucas devotes a section of chapter one to talking about the history of public speaking stating that every culture has some word equivalent of the word speaker. Lucas then goes on to tell the similarities and differences between public speaking and conversation. Stephan Lucas then goes on to explains in this chapter that nervousness and stage fright are among the leading causes for the fear of public speaking. But he then assures us that nervousness is normal, and a welcomed part of speech giving. Lucas proves his point by saying, “If you feel nervous about giving a speech, you are in very good company. Some of the greatest public speakers in history have suffered from stage fright, including Abraham Lincoln, Margaret Sanger, and Winston Churchill” (Lucas, 2012 pg. 9). Lucas says that you should not run from your nervousness, but instead try to turn it into a positive nervousness. Lucas then goes on to give six ways to turn the negative nervousness into positive nervousness. They are acquiring speaking experience, preparation, positive thinking, visualization, realizing you’re nervousness isn’t visible and not expecting perfection. Now that Lucas has touched on the history, fears, and possible rewards of public
...hese children were unfairly target for this research because they were institutionalized I believe that Johnson studied was to biased because he was so determine to find a cure that will help him in the long run instead of reviewing the facts. In reality, stuttering can caused by different things such as environmental, biological factor, or genetic. In Johnson, case he already had hypothesis in mind and he was too determine to prove his hypothesis instead of reviewing the facts.
For example one question was, “does it prevent me from doing ordinary things?” It’s a yes and no answer because I still walk, and run it does not prevent me from doing things physical things, but when it comes to talking it’s a little bit more difficult and I struggle more. Stuttering makes things more challenging which is alright but you have to work more on how you talk. “Why can’t you speak correctly?” That is another question that anyone can ask and the truth is that it is a disorder in our speech sound of word, we repeat some of the words. “How does it feel to stutter?” To me as a stutter person it affects emotionally because sometimes I rather be quite and prevent talking and embarrassing myself. It affects us because of the way we communicate, it is not easy but we try to make it fluently as possible. (Question
According to a 2001 Gallup poll, “more than 40% of Americans fear public speaking than death”, I was shocked to learn this statistics that I was not the only one. As I was pondering about what to write on my essay for my favorite school, I thought about my own childhood experience.