Textuality » 4A Interacting
Hans Rosling's speech is an example of an oral non-linear argumentative text. Since it is oral, it resorts to repetitions and straightforward and informal language, in order to make the listener remember more easily what the speaker has said.
In the introduction, the speaker employs a simple structure (statements followed by justifications) and several personal references. Indeed, the first clause ("visualization is right at the heart of my own work too") is immediately justified by the subsequent one ("I teach global health"); the pattern is repeated in the following two sentences.
The personal references are used to explain the speaker's intentions to the listener, as well as to create an informal atmosphere. In particular, the use of the going to future underpins the experimental nature of the representation.
The language used is very informal ("with a bit of", "crew") and the conjunctions are the typical ones of the spoken language ("and" instead of "in addition", "now" as false start, etc.). Notably, the word "crew" seems to compare the speaker's work to an attempt whose result is unknown.
The body of the text is subdivided into 7 paragraphs; the first one explains how the speaker is going to display data, while the others deal with the change of data in time and space.
The first paragraph opens with the expression "here we go", which is a common phrase in the spoken language to refer to a start. Afterwards the speaker starts to explain what he is going to do and how. He intends to discuss the relationship between health (identified with life expectancy) and wealth (identified with income per person) of each country during the last 200 years through an augmented reality Cartesian diagram. On the vertical axis, life expectancy is represented, while on the horizontal one income per person is represented. The way he employs to describe the graph is very synthetic, adapted to visual instructions; indeed, he resorts to the ellipsis of the subject and the verb ("first, an axis for health..."). Besides, the speaker describes its functioning from general statements to particular situations or examples ("life expectancy: from 25 to 75 years"). In the last part of the paragraph, he explains orally the legend of the diagram. Every country is symbolized by a bubble; the color of the bubble marks which continent it belongs to. The size of the bubble stands for the size of the population. Here too he employs an informal a synthetic language ("here come ..."). The most common conjunction is still "and", while "so" is used to introduce examples ("so down here is poor and sick"). Also succession conjunctions are used, like "first". However, all conjunctions belong to the informal style.
The second paragraph illustrates the situation in 1810: all countries were "sick and poor". The first sentence displays the general situation, while the subsequent one serves as argumentation, explaining the graph in a more detailed way and showing the particularities. The gravity of the world condition is conveyed still through the informal style (pretty crowded, wasn't it?) and the repetition of the phrase "all countries".
The third paragraph opens with the informal phrase "I start the world", which is used to draw the reader's attention to the flow of time and to the related change of position of the bubbles. The expression "and now" serves as false start. After that, the speaker illustrates the effects of the Industrial Revolution and the First World War. Thanks to the Industrial Revolution, the western countries got "healthier and healthier", but the others remained in the poor and sick corner. The contrast between the two blocks is conveyed on one side through the pleonastic repetition of "they" ("the colonized countries, they are stuck down there"), on the other through the phrases "and eventually" and "healthier and healthier". The tragedies of the War and the Spanish flu epidemic are rendered through the exclamation "What a catastrophe". All these devices belong to the informal style and are used to impress the listener. In this and the following paragraphs the diagram functions as non-linear argumentation itself.
The fourth paragraph is dedicated to the situation during the Twenties, the Thirties and the Second World War. In this period, the gap between industrialized and non-industrialized countries continued to grow. The speaker resorts again to the conjunction "and" and to the false start "now". Besides, he starts to focus on Japan to make an immediate comparison with today's world.
In the fifth paragraph the speaker focuses on the situation in 1948, because in that year the difference between countries was wider than ever. To explain this, he mentions some countries that today are famous for their wealth and development, and compares their past situation with the today's one. In this way, he manages both to make people easily understand the difference and to provide a valid argumentation. Besides, he quotes Sweden's victory at the Winter Olympics and his birth; thus, he draws the listener's attention and makes him pay attention to what he is going to explain later.
The sixth paragraph deals with the development of the emerging economies since 1948 on. It opens with an expression which should draw the listener's attention to what he is going to say. The conjunction "but" in key position implies a shift in the growth tendency. In addition, the informal phrase "in my lifetime" is employed to make the listener reflect on the speed and the proximity of the growth. In this period many non-industrialized countries caught up with the western countries. The argumentation for this consists on their achievement of independence. However, some remained still poor, because of war and HIV. The importance of the growth is underlined by the repetition of "healthier".
The seventh paragraph deals with the current situation of the world: now most people live in median conditions of health and wealth, but there are still huge differences between countries and within the countries themselves. The contrast is highlighted by the conjunction "but" and the repetition of "huge". Afterwards the speaker resorts to the example of China as argumentation: he "split the bubble" into provinces, showing the differences between them. The idea of "split" is concrete; thus augmented reality makes possible to deal with data as if they are concrete quantities. Besides the concept confirms the popular nature of the speech.
In the conclusion the speaker sums up the situation and makes a prediction for the future. According to him, all countries will reach the healthy and wealthy corner, despite today's enormous disparities. "And yet" highlights the contrast between the disparities and the new converging tendency. The sentence "we have seen 200 years of remarkable progress" and the words "aid, trade, green technology and peace" serve as argumentations for his optimistic view of the future.
Besides, he informs the listener about the work behind the augmented reality graph. The enormity of the work is conveyed through the juxtaposing of "few minutes" with "200 countries, 200 hundred years and 120,000 numbers".