Occasion Speeches

The ceremonial or occasion speech is the most common speech. This is the speech that proclaims a holiday, opens an exhibition or a new facility, announces an award winner, commemorates an event, celebrates someone or something special or eulogizes someone who has died, etc. Leaders are constantly being asked to give ceremonial speeches.

Despite the fact that these speeches are often fairly short, they have been and can be used to make important and memorable statements. Perhaps the most famous American occasion speech is Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.

What can you take away from this short speech to help you write a ceremonial/occasion speech? Several things:

Take every occasion seriously. The myth is that Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Address on the back of an envelope en route to Gettysburg from Washington. That’s hogwash. Lincoln took every speaking occasion seriously and apparently spent weeks thinking about and writing what he wanted to say at the scene of this bloody, but pivotal battle. The numerous versions of the speech attest to the president’s penchant for taking care of every word he delivered in public.

Put the occasion to good use. Use it to speak your truth. Lincoln did it. The main speaker, Edward Everett, did his part; he spoke for two hours and commemorated the battle, and dedicated the cemetery. But Lincoln did much more. He went beyond the battlefield and redefined the war and exhorted the nation to do the work that it still had to do to bring the country back together. He made good use of his occasion.

Have a message. Let it be an important one and one that is appropriate for you to deliver and for the audience to hear.

Respect your audience as well as your fellow speakers. Don’t step on another’s lines or repeat what they’ve said unnecessarily. Even though he was the President of the United States, Lincoln was just one of eight speakers on the agenda and Everett was the one people had come to listen to so Lincoln only spoke for about 3 minutes. But, while Lincoln allows Everett to remain the main attraction, he also basically dismisses everything that anyone is saying there that day because their words pale by comparison to the actions that still need to be undertaken. He redefines the occasion.

Omit needless words but repeat important ones. The total word count of the Gettysburg Address is 272 words. The most repeated words are we, here, dedicate, dead and dying, live and living, nation and people. Repeat the important words.

Select your words carefully. A speechwriter/speaker has to also be part poet:

“Four Score…our fathers…”

Biblical allusions help set sacred and prayer-like tone for what’s to follow.

Monosyllables versus multi-syllables—When President John F. Kennedy asked his advisor and chief speechwriter, Ted Sorensen, to find out what made Lincoln’s speech so memorable, he discovered that close to 40% of the speech consisted of words of a single syllable. Lincoln used common language to reach the common man.

Modifiers—note the careful use of adjectives and adverbs and what they’re modifying and how some are used to contrast ideas and basically create a balance and others to denote how important the task remaining is; For example, little note and poor power contrast with the larger sense and the great task and the increased devotion and the last full measure and the high resolve.

Is there any doubt that the work for the living to do is important? Vital?

Create a rhythm. In a speech, as in poetry, you’re writing for the ear and to be remembered. Lincoln uses anaphora, alliteration, and the “rule of 3’s” to catch our attention and stick in our memory. He wants to make the speech sound good, not just make good sense.

Note: for a fuller analysis of Lincoln’s famous speech, see the detailed discussion of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address on the Three Favorite Speakers section of the website.