Ann Morgan's Speech On Why Reading Books Is Important

What does your bookshelf say about you? Are there mystery novels or science fiction series from well-known North American or British authors? How about a book on the Portuguese fight to freedom in the 19th century?Many of the public do not know how little their reach into the world is, and the majority do little if nothing to try to remedy this. In the Ted Talk titled “My Year Reading a Book from Every Country in the World,” the speaker and author, Ann Morgan, speaks about her shocking discovery of how Western culture has minimal to no outside communication in the literary world and communicates this by using the major rhetorical strategies. Out of all the rhetorical strategies that were used in this presentation, pathos was focused on and used the most. Morgan, the speaker, makes the audience feel. She makes the listenerquestion themselves on their own reading habits, makes them feel empathy for one another, and makes them feel for the countries and cultures that they might never have heard of before but aren’t given the chance to know about.

Throughout her speech, her use of examples aided her in getting across all the emotions that she felt through this excursion around the world. Despite not leaving her home in the UK, Morgan was transported by reading the wonderful works from the world around her. When she was beginning this journey, she received a message from a woman named Rafidah in Kuala Lumpur (capital of Malaysia), who asked if Morgan would let her choose potential books and send her book choice to Morgan from her “local English-language bookshop. ” A few weeks later, she ended up receiving 2 books, one from Malaysia and one from Singapore. She hadn’t expected strangers to be so ready and willing to help her, and it showed her that human beings can come together over something so small and spread a message of kindness and friendship. Multiple people were willing to send her books and help out however they could. The most amazing example of Morgan receiving help was when she was having difficulty locating a translated book from the African island nation of São Tomé and Príncipe. The only option left was for her to get someone to translate a book for her from scratch. After getting a post out asking for help, calls came rolling in from numerous people, including Margaret Jull Costa (an expert who translated works from Nobel Prize winners). All these examples give the audience an uplifting and enlightening feeling. It is inspiring to think that, despite everything going on in the world today, complete and total strangers would take the time out of their lives and help one another.

Logos was the next most used in Ann Morgan’s speech. She had many frightening statistics, like how “only around 4. 5 percent of the literary works published each year in the UK are translations, and the figures are similar for much of the English-speaking world. ” With this low of a number, one is forced to stop and think about how much is being missed by the English speaking world. We are essentially closed off to important lessons, such as cultural awareness and working with others that you do not know much about. She went on to say that quite a few nations, who have little or no commercially available literature in English, have books that may never be seen by the world’s most published language. That is an alarming thought. It is horrifying to think that, although English is one of the world’s most used languages, the countries that do not speak English are underrepresented to the majority of the western world. Cultural awareness is important especially in today’s world because it is easy to accidentally offend someone if you have zero knowledge of their cultural tendencies and is something that could easily be avoided. The video showed how restricted the western world view can be and went on to bolster people’s confidence to break out of that limited view and to grow. All the statistics conveyed her credibility and gave her presentation a well-researched edge, while also communicating that it is morally admirable to learn about new cultures. At the beginning of her speech, Morgan starts of by saying that she found out that she “…was a clueless literary xenophobe. ” This establishes her credibility because it proves that she has gone on this journey herself and wants others to do the same. She is not just saying that the audience should go out and do something, but that they should go with her. In a world that seems to be unfriendly, this message is one of great importance. Presented in 2012, Morgan’s speech came at a time when the world seemed to be hopping with events: the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, London hosting the Olympics, the French elections, the Mexican general election, Egyptian presidential elections, and the Mayans’ prediction of the end of the world. Everyone knew what was going on in those specific countries. In the modern day, the message still holds true.

Communication with the world is a vital and important factor in gaining knowledge with said world and, in today’s world, communication is key. Ann Morgan’s message of knowing how limited one’s knowledge of the world is and wanting her audience to amend that is one that will stay with the listener for a long time. Her use of pathos gives the audience the feeling that they can gain knowledge, along with conveying the compassion that can be found in the world. Logos came through in the presentation by giving the fearsome statistics of how limited western world culture actually is and was put in motion throughout the speech by having so many statistics and findings. Ann Morgan’s use of the rhetorical strategies tie together extremely well to convey her imperative message.