“3 Ways to Speak English”

Jamila Lyiscott has a four-minute ted talk and titles it “3 ways to speak English”. She is a renowned speaker and youth activist from New York who is trying to show not that articulating is good Eurocentric English but that in reality articulate is whatever English you do speak. Furthermore, that by speaking English that is different from “articulate” it doesn’t mean they are ignorant.  She’s persuading the audience to not judge anyone who talks different than normal articulate. Her audience is the people attending and Americans in general.

 Lyiscott uses rhetoric by using different accents to differentiate the people she is talking about. She uses those forms of different English to also demonstrate how they talk. She uses rhetoric by using those accents without having to say who she is talking to or how she talks to that person because she demonstrates it. She uses that rhetoric to show that those three different ways of speaking English are as articulate and equal to each other.

Her stylistic technique is essentially alternating between raps and talking while she is giving her Ted talk. Furthermore, when she talks during her speech, she talks in a way that sounds very demanding and powerful, in such a way, that sometimes it is hard to know when she is either rapping or talking.

She didn’t support her argument and lacked information throughout it. I wanted to know how she has actually been affected by racism and how that has affected her language. She could improve her argument and rapping.