TED Talks as an Emergent Genre

Persistent URL
Author(s)
Ludewig, Julia
Date Issued
March 2017
Abstract
In her article "TED Talks as an Emergent Genre" Julia Ludewig analyzes TED talks-short, informational, and entertaining presentations that are given during TED conferences in North America and abroad-as a hybrid and emerging genre. Based on a qualitative interpretation of 14 such talks, she offers a list of recurring thematic, argumentative, and rhetorical features, which she aligns with three parent genres-the sales pitch, the memoir, and the academic lecture. Comparing recent versions of TED talks with three older talks from the 1980s and 1990s, she suggests an historical trajectory, which emphasizes the professional performance character of recent talks and their popularization through highly sophisticated and sharable video footage.
Journal
CLCWEB-COMPARATIVE LITERATURE AND CULTURE
Department
Modern and Classical Languages
Citation
Ludewig, J. (2017). TED Talks as an emergent genre. CLCWeb- Comparative Literature and Culure 19(1). DOI: 10.7771/1481-4374.2946
Publisher
Purdue University Press
Version of Article
Published article
DOI
10.7771/1481-4374.2946
ISSN
1481-4374
Rights
This is an open access title restricted to non-commercial use. Copyright is retained by publisher.
Subjects

TED Talks

academic lecture

memoir

sales pitch

File(s)
Thumbnail Image
Name

Ludewig_2017_CLCWeb_TedTalks_Cover.pdf

Description
Cover Page
Size

329.67 KB

Format

Adobe PDF

Checksum (etag)

2eb3d2ff09741a951ebd39dad8f9e758

Thumbnail Image
Name

Ludewig_2017_CLCWeb_TED Talks.pdf

Description
Main Document
Size

564.29 KB

Format

Adobe PDF

Checksum (etag)

e5bc467c5ab901bcfc435f25e08a8f0b