In Chapter 5 on verbal communication, we discuss how to use the cooperative principle to produce understandable messages. This means using language that is as informative, honest, relevant, and clear as required for a particular situation. When composing your speech, you want to use the cooperative principle to ensure that your audience comprehends what you are saying. In addition, you can make an emotional connection with your listeners by using language that’s powerfully descriptive. For example, suppose you attend a presentation in which the speaker says, “There is poverty in the United States.” This matter-of-fact statement doesn’t make the idea of poverty personal or real to you—or to any of the other listeners. Now look at this passage from a speech delivered by former New York governor Mario Cuomo (1984) on the same topic:

In this part of the city, there are more poor than ever, more families in trouble, more and more people who need help but can’t find it. Even worse: There are elderly people who tremble in the basements of the houses there. And there are people who sleep in the city streets, in the gutter, where the glitter doesn’t show. There are ghettos where thousands of young people, without a job or an education, give their lives away to drug dealers every day.

In this speech, Cuomo took an abstract term—poverty—and transformed it into vivid images. Picturing the families, elderly people, homeless, and city youth described in the speech made his audience eager to help eradicate poverty. As you compose your speech, think about how you, too, can use descriptive language to create compelling images in your listeners’ minds. The How to Communicate feature on pages 446–447 provides specific steps for developing emotional appeals in your speeches.