Original Essay
In Safwat Saleem’s ted-talk published in February 2016, “Why I keep speaking up, even when people mock my accent”, he talked about the struggles he faced growing up speaking English with an accent. He used voice covers and the magic of editing to cover his accent when recording videos in English. Eventually he was able to overcome the negativity and all the comments made about his speaking and decided to do public speaking. Saleem wanted to inspire and help people like him because there is a lack of representation for kids that do not speak English “perfectly”. He wanted to motivate children like him to not give up and show the people who mocked his accent that they failed to bring him down. Saleem was able to send his message, not to give up, through his speech using examples from his personal experience and data he found online.
He begins the Ted-Talk by taking the audience through an event he has encountered countless times years ago, before he learned to be comfortable in his speaking. Saleem was able to do this through humor, entertaining the audience. He made his introductory speech funny so that he had the audience’s attention from the beginning so that throughout the rest of his speech, the audience was happy. Then he moves on to showing examples of him using voice overs to hide his accent. Through showing his past work, he establishes a form of ethos by creating credibility for himself. By establishing credibility, Saleem was able to gain the audience’s trust, making it more likely for them to believe his story and take in the information he was providing. He was also able to appeal to the pathos of the people because he talked about how defeated he felt due to the judgment of other people. Thus, using voice covers for his videos.
Because Saleem had created credibility, he was able to then go and use statistics to talk about the major issue in society, bigger than just him. The first issue that Saleem brings up is the lack of representation of children of color in the media. His exact words are, “Number one, children are told that they can be anything, they can do anything, and yet, most stories that children of color consume are about people who are not like them.” (Saleem 8:11). Then he used the statistic that only 11% of children’s books had a person of color. Using all of this data, he was able to further build credibility for himself because he was able to use his background to show that he is the expert in this scenario. By doing this ted-talk, he is that small percentage of representation showing that he is passionate about this topic.
He uses his pathos by getting the audience’s sympathy. By telling us about how he was bullied for his accent, the audience probably felt bad for him and wanted to hear his story on how he was able to overcome his achievement. This was a smart method to get their attention and feelings because if he had just started to talk about the lack of characters of color, people would be yawning. But since he gave background about why the issue was personally important to him, people were more willing to listen and see if they noticed these things and behaviors in their day to day life.
Overall, Saleem efficiently uses rhetorical strategies to deliver his big message through his use of ethos and pathos. He used these strategies to gather the attention of the audience and to make him care about his topic. By giving us his background story, he also gave us his “so what” reason to listen. (the audience was my friends)
Pt. 2
What Changed?
I don’t know why I struggled so much with the revision of this SAR. I spent over 2 hours reading, then rereading and trying to figure out what I could do to revise it. In the end I just ended up making a whole new document rather than just trying to add things to the original one to make it better. When I made a new document, I realized that my choice of audience was not specific enough for me to write the SAR. So I decided to change the audience towards friends who have English as their second language.
The main thing I did was reword some of my paragraphs so that they were more focused and clear. I tried my best to concisely state my points and took out unnecessary words. I also tried to write it in a way that if my friends were reading, it would be like I was talking to them by using the words “we” and adding a thought I had to get them thinking too. I tried to use “we” also to get my audience to be engaged. I did feel like at times this essay was more of a summary so I rearranged my paragraphs and ideas to make it more of a response to the TED-Talk. Because I cut out a good portion of my essay, I was able to elaborate and be more specific on certain things such as when he used voice overs. I also realized that Saleem’s audience was not just children, but those who had mocked his accent over the years and added a small part of that into the essay.
Revised
In Safwat Saleem’s TED-Talk published in February 2016, “Why I keep speaking up, even when people mock my accent,” he talks about the struggles he faced growing up speaking English with an accent. Like many of us, having English as a second language can be challenging and hard on our identities at such a young age. For Saleem, he used voice covers and the magic of editing to cover his accent whenever he recorded content. Through this process, he was able to reflect and overcome all the negative comments made about his accent and decided to start public speaking. By doing so, Saleem hoped to be a representation for children who didn’t speak “perfect” English and show them that it shouldn’t prevent them from doing things they were passionate about. He wanted to motivate these children, who may be in the same place he was once in and show the people who mocked his accent that they failed to bring him down. I feel like if we had this type of representation when we were younger, we would have seen our English as a strength as opposed to a weakness. Saleem was able to successfully send out his message through his use of ethos and pathos.
Saleem begins the TED-Talk by taking the audience through a time when he used different voice covers to hide his accent. He does this by using his humor, entertaining the audience. He made his introductory speech funny so that he would be able to catch the audience’s attention for a longer period of time. To help with this, he shows the audience the voice covers he used and the different animals he used. Through showing his past work, he establishes a form of ethos by creating credibility for himself. By establishing credibility, Saleem was able to gain the audience’s trust, making it more likely to listen to his story and actually care. He was also able to appeal to the audience’s emotions when he talked about the defeat he felt every time he was judged and made fun of for making these videos. Although he wanted to be a representation to children, a part of his speech was targeted to the people who made negative comments about his accent showing that he did not let them bring him down.
Once Saleem had created a relationship between him and his audience, he used evidence to support the message he was sending by making that TED-Talk. Because Saleem had created credibility, he was able to use statistics to talk about the major issue in society, bigger than just him. Saleem brings up the lack of representation of children of color in the media. His exact words are, “Number one, children are told that they can be anything, they can do anything, and yet, most stories that children of color consume are about people who are not like them.” (Saleem 8:11). Then he used the statistic that only 11% of children’s books had a person of color. By doing this ted-talk, he is that small percentage of representation showing that he is passionate about this topic. Lack of representation is something that we don’t talk about because no one pays attention to it. However, Saleem bringing it up to the audience gives them new ideas to consider. It made me wonder if we had more representation in the books we read in school, if we would have been less scared to participate and talk in class.
Overall, Saleem efficiently uses pathos and ethos to deliver his big message. He used these strategies to gather the attention of the audience and to make him care about his topic. By giving us his background story, he also gave us his “so what” reason to listen. Since he gave background about why the issue was personally important to him, people were more willing to listen and see if they noticed these things and behaviors in their day to day life.
