Being Polite Will Get You Everywhere - Speech or Presentation Example

Presentation Being polite will get you everywhere Remember when you were young and you wanted your parents to buy you a toy car? What did you say? And what did you say after they bought you the car? Remember that day you wanted to go out and play with your friends? What about the time you broke the glass, what did you say then? According to my research and observations over a long period of time, I have realized that politeness is a great incorporation in our daily lives. Polite words such as please, thank you, sorry and so much more have been used by every person to get what they want. I have identified a global as well as a social problem in the society. This problem is impoliteness. It is a great setback in the continuous development of our society in terms of moral hygiene. The tongue has the power of life and death according to the bible in the book of proverbs 18:21. There are many encounters in my life that have proven the validity of this statement. There is this one time I was put in a difficult position and the only saviour I had happened to be my communication skills. I was walking into a building where my interview was to take place back in the year 2013 when I was looking for a university to join. A few policemen stopped me and told me to accompany them to the station where I was to answer some questions. Down there at the station, I met a few of my friends we had been partying together the night before. It was a week after our graduation and we had decided to have a good time before we depart to our various universities. Right then I knew what the problem was. I was very scared considering that if I was to spend a night at the police station and have a record with them, then the chances of me joining my dream university will be very slim. Leave out the fact that if my parents were to find out they would punish me. Right before the police officer started interrogating me; I cut him short and told him how sorry we were about the noise that night. I apologized to him and promised never to repeat that ever again. He kept quiet for a second and smiled. He told me that he was relieved he didn’t have to force the truth out of me and also I had made his job easier since there was a statement he had to fill about domestic disturbance and I had already clarified the problem. I was released together with my friends with a written warning from the chief officer. I later found out that my friends had been fined and my name was not included among the people causing disturbance in the neighbourhood. I had managed to solve the problem just by practicing my politeness skills. As you have noticed, the interrogating officer was having a hard day and since I was polite, I had managed to lessen his problems and in return, he was kind enough to lessen mine. That day, I went back and nailed the interview. I managed to solve the problem just by practicing my politeness skills. Politeness is also seen in the bible. Many a times the characters in the bible have to use polite language when in need of a favour or blessing from God. There are a good number of times when people who have sin in the bible have said sorry and apologized for their evil acts and the Lord forgave them. One such person is Jonah. He was swallowed by a big fish and while in the stomach, he asked for forgiveness for not doing what the lord wanted and the fish puked him out after the lord forgave him. Another character in the bible that benefited from his polite language is the penitent or the good thief. He repented and told Jesus to remember him in his kingdom. The other thief who mocked Jesus by telling him to free himself and them since he was the son of God didn’t see the kingdom of God like the other one. I ask that you join me in the process of coming up with solutions towards this problem that is affecting our society and also in taking actions to change the course of polite communication. The problem is impolite or in simple terms; rude behaviour especially among the young people. This is so because there were strict consequences in the past for those people who rudely spoke to their elders. Elders included parents, grandparents, elder brothers and sisters, old people in the community, uncles and relatives and also elder neighbours. Whenever a person disrespected his or her elder, there were great consequences involved including a curse being put upon the person. It was therefore very rare to hear of impolite language used by our parents since they grew in the era when it was a great issue. These were times before and during the colonial periods. Rude behaviour is not only seen during communication. There are certain behaviours that qualify to be classified under impoliteness. Such behaviours are seen in the actions that we perform towards others. It could be in public or some actions done privately but end up affecting someone. For example, a simple rude behaviour is refusing to offer a sick, old or a crippled person a seat in public transportation or in a gathering. Another form of rude behaviour is throwing waste materials such as papers or empty bottles on the ground instead of a bin. This might not affect only the person responsible for cleaning the compound but it also creates a bad image of the environment. Other rude behaviours include spitting, whistling, chewing gum and even dressing inappropriately or having weird haircuts. This shows how badly the person may have been brought up by the parents and they should be ashamed of themselves. Since we have identified the problem, there is need for a better solution to be developed to counteract this issue. I have come up with a better solution to our problem. First, the society should create awareness to all the people. They should ensure every person is aware of the problem, its effects and the best methods that can be put into practise to deal with this problem. The other way is through educating the young people about the importance of practicing politeness during communication. They should learn the different ways of using the polite words such as please, sorry, excuse me, pardon me, welcome and thank you. These words go far as we have seen in both my situation and in other bible characters. Thanks to all our parents who took time to ensure that we developed the correct communication skills when speaking to various people. There are different kinds of people and we are all expected to know the various methods that should be used when speaking to them. For example when you get the chance to speak to a person who is older than you, there are polite words that should be used. They should be greeted with respect by using respectable greetings such as good morning and not what’s up which is mainly meant for teenagers. Politeness is a global language and it is therefore our responsibility to input these virtues into the young minds of the children all over the world it is also our responsibility to practice these virtues whenever we get the chance so as to set a good role model to the young children. Do you all agree with me that schools and other learning institutions should ensure that they educate the students about the importance of politeness? As leaders of tomorrow, these children are our precious stones and therefore they should be shaped into great people of value to the community. They should be given insight and knowledge which they would be able to pass down to their friends and also to their children when they come of age and have their own family. Who among you in this meeting is ready to join me in this journey in educating young people about the value of polite behaviour? And who among you is ready to accept their faults and be ready to change and become responsible adults by practicing polite language and behaviour? It is a promise that you have made to yourselves and God and therefore you are all entitled to keep your promises. Thank you and God bless you. Reference Hallsworth, Simon, and Tara Young. "Crime and silence: Death and life are in the power of the tongue'(Proverbs 18: 21)." Theoretical Criminology 12.2 (2008): 131-152. Levinson, Penelope, et al. Politeness: Some universals in language usage. Vol. 4. Cambridge university press, 1987. Chen, Rong. "Responding to compliments A contrastive study of politeness strategies between American English and Chinese speakers." Journal of pragmatics 20.1 (1993): 49-75. Lakoff, Robin Tolmach. The logic of politeness: Minding your p's and q's. 1973. Watts, Richard J. Politeness. Cambridge University Press, 2003. Read More