“How-to” TEDx Talks: Stage organisations and meaning expansions

Abstract

TEDx has emerged as a prominent digital platform for public speaking that organises talks featuring experts’ insights and innovative ideas for a global audience. The “how-to” talks, where the speakers deliver a compelling idea to persuade the audience to take action or to adopt a belief, have become one of the most popular. These talks present structured ideas in stages that set up and resolve expectations. Drawing on Hasan’s (1985) generic structure potential, Mann and Thompson’s (1987) rhetorical structure theory, and Martin’s (1994) concept of macrogenre, this qualitative study investigates how five popular “how-to” TEDx talks are organised in stages, how the stages are connected, and how meaning is expanded in each stage of the talks. The results of the analysis revealed that the talks are organised around four obligatory stages, further labelled as Hook, Contention, Advice, and Closure, with a possible addition of one optional stage Demonstration, creating a prototypical structure. Regarding the connections between stages, a nuclear structure is formed, resembling an orbital model. This model positions the Advice stage as the Nucleus, substantially delivering the “how-to” message, while the other stages act as Satellites, supporting the central message. The findings also reveal the predominant use of various elemental genres, such as procedure, observation, analytical exposition, hortatory exposition, and factorial explanation, as well as non-elemental genres, including rhetorical questions and calls to action. All of these genres contribute to expanding the meaning potential of each stage.