Lieutenant Colonel Tim Collins Speech Presentation

In March 2003, journalist Stuart Wavell wrote an article for the Sunday Times about a pre-battle speech made by Lieutenant Colonel Tim Collins. The headline was: 'Words that Make Troops Walk Above the Ground' with a subtitle of: 'The Power of Oratory'. The purpose of this article was to entertain and inform readers, and to convince them that Collins is a good orator. Wavell uses various techniques to do this. When looking at this or any newspaper article, the first things you will notice are the presentational devices.

These include the headline, any pictures and their captions. The main picture is of Collins telling his men to: "fight bravely, and show compassion in victory". You can see several of Collins' men standing around Collins, presumably in a circle formation, in this picture. This suggests that Collins is a good orator in the sense that his is not afraid to speak in front of large crowds. The fact that many of Collins' men are in this picture suggests that they all take interest in what Collins has to say.

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The caption corresponding to this picture is: 'Voice of a Leader: Collins tells his men to fight bravely and show compassion in victory'. The 'fight bravely' part of this caption is a direct quote from Collins' speech. Wavell used this quote because this may well have been what Collins was saying at the time, if not it looks like Collins is saying similar. 'Voice of a Leader' is emotive language because this implies that Collins was destined to be a leader.

This is also a metaphor because there isn't a distinctive voice that all people considered as leaders have.

The headline to this article is also both emotive language and metaphorical because the idea of the speech making the troops 'walk above the ground' gives readers the implication that the speech was so powerful that the troops were on a very different level to their battle rivals so to speak. The metaphor element comes from the fact that the speech doesn't literally make the troops levitate into battle. This also links to a quote from Professor John Potter in the article. Also in this article, Wavell spoke to Professor John Potter, a former lecturer on military psychology.

The purpose of this was so that readers didn't only have the opinion of Wavell, but the added views of a professional in the area of the article's content. Potter's first sentence is: "Occasionally we come across a transcendent leader who inspires people to walk 3ft above the ground". The "walk 3ft above the ground" is basically an alternatively worded version of the headline. This may have been chosen for the headline because it is very emotive. The last sentence of John's contribution is: " In an age of high technology we look even more to the human touch. " This is also an emotive quote.

John uses the word 'we' to make the readers feel involved and agree with what John is saying to help in the convincing that Collins is a good orator. Towards the end of the article, Wavell compares other pre-battle speeches to that of Collins. The first example is from Field Marshall Erwin Rommel. This is because, like, Collins, Rommel made very few speeches but inspired many with the ones that he did make. The next example is from Alexander the Great. Wavell chose this because it shows that there war speeches as good as Collins' back in the days of Alexander.

The last example is a bad pre-battle speech made before D-Day. This was chosen so it could be compared to Collins' speech and so that the readers were entertained. There are also other persuasive techniques in this piece. For instance, Wavell describes Collins and his speech with powerful words like 'hero'. This convinces the readers because people don't usually disagree with people who are described as heroes. When Wavell says: "it did not merely stiffen the sinews and summon up the blood", this is a reference to Shakespeare's Henry V. Wavell is trying to make readers think that this speech is as good as, or to an extent better, than Shakespeare's. Later on in the article, Wavell inserts a joke about the Irish St. Patrick's Day ban on alcohol. This is to show readers Collins' comedic side, and to amuse readers. Wavell uses the metaphor 'rang around the world'. This elicits the image that the speech instantly went all the way over the world as Collins was saying it. And that convinces readers because it makes them think that Collins must have made a powerful speech if this happened.