Rhetoric is personality

Ever since I came back to the US last summer, I realized that I pay some attention to the way people talk – to their personal rhetoric. By that I mean their choice of words and repetitions therein as well as intonation, articulation and use of sarcasm. Funnily enough, that constant analysis of language only comes to me in my first foreign language and not in my native tongue. When I hear or speak German it is simply information to me and I notice hardly any patters or let alone actually pay attention to how I communicate. I say communicate because as we all know there’s a lot more to language than ‘just’ words but I had never witnessed the application of that statement on an day-to-day basis so clearly before.

What it comes down to is that a person’s rhetoric is also part of her personality. I found myself drawn to people who speak in a matter that appealed to me, that I found to be mentally engaging, also hoping that the same was true for them. People that can hold a conversation on the same level and that I get to know not by merely the information they convey but the way they do it. 

 

During my first couple of days at Penn State I was simply excited about a certain choice of words; for example witty qualifying adverbs in front of adjectives: you are decently entertaining. As the semester progressed and I got more familiar with my new friends, the repetition of certain words and their actual meaning to the person became most fascinating for me. When you tell my girlfriend a story you will most-likely get either of two responses: uhm, delightful! or oh, precious! Both of which seem sincere and are definitely signature replies of her. However, it quickly became clear to me that when she was delighted, she actually cared what you had to say. If it was precious to her, she didn’t give a damn and just didn’t want to be mean (or she was making fun of someone…). When I started calling her out on that she made me stop because even people that are and have been around her a lot don’t realize the difference and she wanted to keep it that way.

While I could give you many more examples of her and other friends’ signature statements (and even sounds/moves) I just want to emphasize that how someone speaks can tell you a lot more about them and their personality than anyone realizes until you actually start paying attention. I would even go as far as saying that rhetoric can be a good match-maker, not only in love but also in friendship.