ORAL PERFORMANCE AND PUBLIC SPEAKING: POINTS OF CONVERGENCE AND DIVERGENCE

This paper, from an African perspective, seeks to establish points of divergence and convergence between oral performance and public speaking. The essence is to find a concrete base to justify the claim that the skills and expectations of an African oral artist and a public speaker are, by and large, synonymous and that an African oral performer may require only a little effort to pass for a public speaker of universal standards. In the interest of scientific vigour, the paper exploits Aristotle?s pillars of public speaking, performance centredness, components of the speech communication process and some elements of the performance theory to establish points of convergence and divergence between some universal standards of public speaking and African oral performance. Besides functioning as an inspiration and encouragement to potential African orators, the result of the comparison on such theoretical grounds will also help to buttress the contention that African oral artistic resources could be exploited to foster public speaking skills in the contemporary world or that an experienced African oral artist is a potential public speaker.