What is elocution?
Broadly speaking, the word “elocution” refers to one’s manner of speaking or oral delivery. Elocution is particularly used in reference to an orator’s manner of speech when speaking or reading aloud in public. Elocution can also refer to the study of proper public speaking, with particular attention paid to pronunciation, grammar, style, and tone. There is more to elocution, however, than a tidy definition. During the 1700s, elocution was considered an art form, and a formal discipline. In this capacity, elocution has common ties with pronuntiatio, the art of public speaking, which was one of the five integral disciplines in Western classical rhetoric. In following the syllabus of this art form, academic orators would have studied diction, dress, stance, and the appropriate use of gestures. It seems that in the study of speech delivery, the communications of the unspoken word were equally important to those of the spoken word.
