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Language in Special Occasion Speeches

You don’t have to be an artist or a famous writer to add warmth or color to a special-occasion speech. Just do your research, be yourself, and ask for help as needed.

Violet’s mother passed. She and her siblings agreed that Violet would give the eulogy. As she prepares, Violet asks her mother’s friends to share stories. She also taps into her own sadness at losing her mother. The day of the eulogy, Violet chooses words that are somber as appropriate for this event. She also chooses words that are personal and connect to her family and her mother’s friends. These words describe what a wonderful person Violet’s mother was and how she touched people’s lives. At the reception, many approached Violet and stated how much her eulogy connected with them and really described her mother well.

So, how does you connect to the audience no matter the occasion? Start by simply thinking about the event itself. If you have been to an event like this, what made it memorable? You can also search online for similar real-life events and speeches given to watch what this type of speech is like and see if your ideas are a good fit with your speaking engagement. Take note of interesting concepts, rhythms or word patterns, and literary devices that are often used in literature, poetry, and speechmaking.

Specific, Concrete Language

As is so often the case in public speaking, specificity is key. If you’re talking about a person, try to think about them as specifically and individually as possible. If you’re describing them with a trait or characteristic, think about specific examples of how they embody that trait. Brainstorming can be a useful way to get started.

Tamara will be giving a wedding toast to her sister, Lisa, and her sister’s new wife, Jo.  She thinks, “What do I want to say? I want to tell them how much they mean to me and how much I admire them.” First, Tamara writes, “You’re both such incredible people and you mean the world to me.” Then she pauses. “What does incredible mean, anyway? You could call a vacuum cleaner incredible. Not to mention the Hulk.” After writing down a few more adjectives (“Amazing? Nope, Spider Man. Fantastic? Nope, Fantastic Four. Are there any adjectives without superheroes attached?”), she decides that she needs to be more systematic. So she divides a piece of paper into two columns and writes “Lisa” in one column and “Jo” in the other. She starts brainstorming words that she associates with each of the brides-to-be. Some qualities they share include “kind, generous, funny.” Others are quite different. This gives her an idea for structure. She starts writing notes like crazy. At the wedding dinner, Tamara gives her toast:
A woman with a microphone giving a toast.

“In some ways they’re so different: Jo loves to hike and sleep outdoors, Lisa won’t accept a thread count under 300. Jo’s always up on the latest music, and Lisa? Well, let’s just say that if it were possible to wear out MP3s, Lisa would have destroyed ’90s Party Mix by now. Even though they’re so different, the qualities they share are some of the greatest qualities people can have. They’re both kind, and thoughtful, and funny – by the way, if you haven’t heard it yet, make sure you get Jo to tell you the 7/11 story sometime. Just don’t take a drink right before she tells it, or you’ll snort soda all over everyone like I did! They’re both generous with their time, like when Lisa spent two hours on the phone talking me through making a pie step by painful step. And they’re generous with their couch, which I always appreciate.

Now some of you may not know this. Did you know that Lisa was borrowing my slacks the night she met Jo, because someone spilled something on her slacks? It was this pair of itchy linen slacks – I still have them – super itchy. And this was in August. Now imagine the scene. Jo’s at a party for a friend of a friend, and she doesn’t really know anyone. And Jo’s like, “I think I’ll go talk to that sweaty, uncomfortable-looking woman in the corner who keeps scratching her thighs.” Now Jo might tell you she picked Lisa for her quick wit or her great hair, but I know it was because of those slacks. I can only hope that some day someone else has that unexpected luck, to meet someone who looks at you like Lisa and Jo look at one another.  So now let’s all look at this happy couple with love in our eyes and raise our glasses.”

Lisa and Jo loved the toast, and the audience seemed to like it too. Tamara’s wedding toast was successful because she took the time to find specific, concrete language to describe the couple. And this, in turn, helped her find the organizing structure for her toast.

Rhetorical Devices

In some occasion speeches, you may want to choose language very consciously in order to create a certain effect for your audience. Rhetorical devices such as comparisons or repetitions can help create memorable phrases and effects.

This very short video explains very simply how our brains react to the “music” of language, which makes a case for using rhetorical devices thoughtfully.

Here is the video with accurate captions: Rhetorical devices A top speechwriter explains…(opens in new window).

There are many types of rhetorical devices from which to draw. The following examples of rhetorical devices often used in special occasion speeches are drawn from two speeches by Senator Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona: his announcement of retirement, delivered October 24, 2017, and his farewell address to Congress, delivered December 13, 2018.

  • Imagery: Draws your audience in by using strong words to create pictures in their minds. For example, “Through eighteen years in Washington, our kids grew up thinking it was normal to have their faces plastered on campaign signs along the roadside when election time rolled around. . . . They spent summers in Washington catching fireflies and voting with their dad on the House floor.”[1]

  • Simile: usually using “like” or “as” to draw a comparison between things and adding an element of freshness to bring the words alive such that they make a bigger impact. For example, “It might seem that all of this has lately been tossed around like pieces on a board.”[2]

  • Metaphor: Like a simile, this is a comparison between two different things, but it is implied. The words “like” or “as” are not used. For example, “Cheryl is the rock on which our family is built.” “Eastern Europe was squinting out into the light of liberation for the first time in forty years.”[3]

Old German wood carving saying "Rhetorica."

  • Repetition: The device of repetition acts as verbal underlining. Repetition of a word or phrase or a sound (or silence) makes the listener take notice. Repetition ties together a point and each additional repetition tightens the knot. Repetition is memorable. Repetition makes the point stick. For example, “It must also be said that I rise today with no small measure of regret. Regret, because of the state of our disunion, regret because of the disrepair and destructiveness of our politics, regret because of the indecency of our discourse, regret because of the coarseness of our leadership, regret for the compromise of our moral authority, and by our—all of our—complicity in this alarming and dangerous state of affairs.”[4] The “I have a dream” passage of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous speech, in which the phrase “I have a dream” is repeated at the beginning of five consecutive sentences, is one of the most famous examples of repetition. 

  • Alliteration: Another form of rhythmic repetition is alliteration. It is usually the repeating of a first consonant in a group of words. For example, “The reckless provocations, most often for the pettiest and most personal reasons.” “Humility helps. Character counts.” [5]

  • Antimetabole: An antimetabole, repeats a clause with the word order reversed in the second version. Most famously: “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country,” or “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” Here’s another example, “We were not made great as a country by [. . .] calling fake things true and true things fake.”[6]

  • Quotation: Especially when introducing or concluding a speech, a quotation can add weight to the words being said and the event itself. If the quote is from a literary text or a more formal style of speech, it can be a way to elevate the language of your speech even further. In the example below, Flake quotes Lincoln’s first inaugural speech. Although a contemporary speaker probably wouldn’t write a phrase like “the mystic chords of memory,” this quote allows Flake’s language to expand toward the conclusion of the speech, ending on a point of maximum elevation.

For example: “I thank my colleagues for indulging me here today, and will close by borrowing the words of President Lincoln, who knew more about healing enmity and preserving our founding values than any other American who has ever lived. His words from his first inaugural were a prayer in his time, and are no less so in ours: ‘We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.'”[7]

There are many useful videos on rhetorical devices and their effects.  Here are a few:

Communication Coach Alex Lyon’s Rhetorical Devices for Persuasion (opens in new window).

Tolentino Teaching’s series of short videos on:

The thing to remember is that special occasion speaking often allows for more variety in language, and the use of more rhetorical devices, as opposed to informative speaking (where your language needs to be very straightforward and clear), or persuasive speaking (where you often need to promote action through relying on evidence more than emotion).

If you’re interested, you can watch Jeff Flake’s October 24, 2017, announcement that he will not run for reelection. Watch for the use of rhetorical devices and their effects.

You can view the transcript for “Sen. Jeff Flake announces retirement with fiery speech” here (opens in new window).

Here is the video with accurate captions: Sen. Jeff Flake announces retirement with fiery speech (opens in new window).

  1. Flake, Jeff. "Farewell Address to Congress," 13 Dec 2018. https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/13/politics/jeff-flake-farewell-address/index.html ↵
  2. "Farewell Address to Congress." ↵
  3. "Farewell Address to Congress." ↵
  4. Flake, Jeff. "Announcement of Retirement." This is the type of repetition called anaphora, or repeated words or phrases at the start of sentences. It was also pointed out in Gallo, Carmine. "Senator Jeff Flake Used These 6 Public-Speaking Tools to Build His Headline-Grabbing Speech." Inc. 26 Oct 2016. https://www.inc.com/carmine-gallo/6-reasons-senator-jeff-flakes-big-speech-is-so-memorable-shareable.html. ↵
  5. Flake, Jeff. "Announcement of Retirement" ↵
  6. Flake, Jeff. "Announcement of Retirement" ↵
  7. Flake, Jeff. "Announcement of Retirement" ↵

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