Complete Name of the Professor
The Brain-Damaged and the Emergence of Truth
The President’s Speech graces with a comical paradox of how truth exists among people with disabilities in speech and understanding. It describes the odd perceptions of aphasiacs and people suffering from agnosia on words and how they create an alternative framework through which they make sense of every word that they hear. It is the acceptance of human’s susceptibility to words that consider brain-damaged people seemingly nearer to truth than normal ones. In the case of the President’s Speech, it is the pure and uninfluenced reception of either physical cue for the aphasiacs and focus on the grammatical structure and natural flow of speech for Emily D that declare why normal people are easily deceived by words, tones, or gestures.
It all starts with a good reader hook. Initially, the article starts with an intriguing declaration: “A roar of laughter from the aphasia ward.” This is particularly thought-provoking in a sense that it gives hint as to whether there is an exact comprehension on the part of the aphasiacs or they are simply laughing at the physical cues of the president. The president is described as having practiced rhetoric, histrionisms, and emotional appeal that burst the aphasiac ward into laughter. But the writer cunningly draws the explanation by comparing the aphasiacs to Emily D who has an agnosia.
The writer’s description of aphasia is so succinct and logical that it easily draws analytical thoughts from the readers. The writer describes aphasia as a neurological disease that affects a certain portion of the brain that loses people’s sense of understanding for spoken words. Nevertheless, this does not mean that aphasiacs are reduced to some sorts of animal straightaway because, in fact, they turn their attention to physical cues such as extra-verbal cues (tone and inflection) and visual cues (gestures and posture). The writer’s inclusion of the real conditions of aphasiacs makes the storyline more interesting: it raises possibilities that the reason why there was a roar of laughter in the aphasia ward is because everyone is simply laughing at the funny cues of the president.
The writer emphasizes that the aphasiacs means for understanding the speech of the president is likable to that of the dogs – not because of the sensitivity to tone and feelings but of “linguistic incompetence.” This simply means that aphasiacs look for extra-verbal and visual cues in order to analyse speeches or words per se, which is comparably distinct from the case of Emily D, a patient with agnosia, that relies on analysis of the natural flow of speech and grammatical structure because they do not have sense of anything visual or tonal. If aphasiacs cannot be deceived by words because they do not make sense to them, what about Emily D who understands the words as they are – their meaning and correct applications but lack emotional elements for them? Still, speech cannot deceive Emily in a sense that while gestures and tones do not appeal to her, she finds the real intention of the speaker through his use of words or grammatical structure.
Either way, whatever are the intentions of the president in his speech, it is but true that normal people are easily hooked by the combination of words and feeling tones. While the words may not sound so sincere, the physical cues might aid in faking truth in the process. In the case of both the aphasiacs and Emily D, the truth remains intact: they see everything purely and without any complications. For the aphasiacs, the truth lies in the president’s extra-verbal and visual cues and for Emily D in the grammatical structure that streams sincerity and integrity of words. In a nutshell, normal people have both senses: these senses oftentimes conspire to make a twisted truth that is why normal people are almost always deceived by words in speeches.
