Discourse Analysis of Rita Pierson’s TED Talk: “Every Kid Needs a Champion”

Sung Juhyun (성주현)

Discourse Analysis of Rita Pierson’s TED Talk: “Every Kid Needs a Champion”

The Sociolinguistic Journal of Korea
Abbr : 사회언어학
2023, 31(2), pp.1-27
Publisher : The Sociolinguistic Society Of Korea
Research Area : Humanities > Linguistics
Received : May 13, 2023
Accepted : June 14, 2023
Published : June 30, 2023

Sung Juhyun ¹

¹연세대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

The study focuses on the discourse strategies used in Rita Pierson’s TED Talk “Every Kid Needs a Champion” speech. The transcript and video of her speech retrieved from the TED website were used as data. This paper analyzes how she has used different discourse strategies to successfully deliver her speech based on the politeness theory, persuasion strategies, and relevance theory. The findings suggest that Pierson efficiently used different discourse strategies to effectively deliver her idea through a brief public speech, which remains one of the most viewed TED speeches. The results prove that Rita Pierson has exerted effort to strategically encourage other educators to build relationships or connections with the students to improve the education system.

KEYWORDS

public speech, discourse analysis, politeness theory, persuasion strategies, relevance theory

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.

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