ABSTRACT
Through rhetorical history, delivery has moved back and forth between two extremes. At one end of the continuum, delivery is conceived of as totally physical in nature, with rhetoricians proclaiming it to be an outside function of the body’s movement and voice control. At the other end of the continuum are theories incorporating a more noetic approach. According to Robert Connors, the people of early Greek times possessed an “oral state of mind,” that is, their mode of consciousness was particularly susceptible to oral rhetoric, much more so than people’s minds today. For rhetorical education, Quintilian believed that the best student is the one who can write and speak the best. Therefore, “expression is the main object of instruction” and delivery is a form of that expression. Traditionally, theory about delivery has presumed it to be delivery by a male body. Women, in general, had been barred from public speaking, a condition that has led to difficulty for contemporary researchers.
