Read the passage given below and answer the questions that follow:
I have always
felt that the style of broadcasting should be conversational rather than
literary. The broadcaster should endeavour to convey to his audience the
impression that he is speaking to him eye to eye and striving, with such
faculties of persuation as he may possess, to communicate either information or
an idea. I believe that
the essence of
good broadcasting is this very desire to communicate; and owing to the nature
of the medium employed, the communication must be oral and not written. The
style of conversation is evidently different from that of rhetoric on the one
hand, and literature on the other. A broadcast talk that sounds like a public
speech is seldom efficacious; one that is read aloud like a prize essay quickly
ceases to command attention. Does this mean that broadcasting will have a degrading
influence on our literary style and that in a few years even the greatest
stylists will merely write as they talk? I think the wireless will banish
grandiloquence from British prose, but it will certainly not banish style.
Questions:
1. What,
according to the writer, should be proper style of broadcasting?
2. What impression
should the broadcaster try to convey to his audience?
3. What form
should this communication take?
4. What kind of
broadcast talk is seldom efficacious?
5. What effect
is broadcasting likely to have on English prose style?
