Elocution

Elocution is the study of formal speaking in pronunciation, grammar, style, and tone as well as the idea and practice of effective speech and its forms.

It benefited men and women in different ways; the overall concept was to teach both how to become better, more persuasive speakers, standardize errors in spoken and written English, and the beginnings of the formulation of argument were discussed.

Another actor, John Walker, published his two-volume Elements of Elocution in 1781, which provided detailed instruction on voice control, gestures, pronunciation, and emphasis.

The once-popular female-dominated genre of elocution set to musical accompaniment in the United States is the subject of a 2017 book by Marian Wilson Kimber.

[4] Ellis did not go the lengths that Sheridan and Walker did when it came to developing theories and rules for elocution but she made it clear through her writing that she believed that the spoken word was powerful and mastering it "deserves the attention" of ladies all around.

[4] An example can be seen in the table of contents of McGuffey's New Sixth Eclectic Reader of 1857: Jason Munsell, a communications and speech professor, theorizes that part of elocution is strategic movement and visuals.

[6] Munsell, when examining a bulletin from the time period, makes an argument that elocution may have been the beginning of the rhetoric concept of Literary theory, "The bulletin also explained that the function of elocution was to discover possible meanings of a reading, to learn how to express those meanings, then to discover the intended purpose.

A man in a hat recites with his hand raised upwards. Two children watch.
"An accomplished elocutionist", an illustration of elocutionist performing an open-air recitation, published in The Strand Magazine in 1891