Assignment Part I

1)

The first tone shift in Rowling's speech was when she transitioned from her cheery "gay wizard" joke to her scholarly true message, in which she has wracked her mind and heart for the words to be spoken at Harvard's graduation. This was important because she lures the graduates into her speech with her whimsical puns and then abruptly introduces them to the true meaning of why she is before them that day. This is a continuous theme throughout Rowling's speech; she will reminisce on some dark age/s of her life and relate it to the graduates, then playfully follow through with a joke, in an attempt to use humor to break the tension built between the students and her.  

The next tone shift I encountered, takes place when Rowling reveals her personal optimism to the graduates when she states, "What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure." Beforehand she depicts her personal troubles, poverty, and shifts her attitude to what she feared most, failure. This tone shift was important because she displayed what she feared most by detailing how she became a failure, with a lack of motivation on her part, unruly peers, and her jobless parenthood, to the gradates in a way to instruct them that failure is okay. She conveys these ominous details and compliments that part of her speech with enthusiasm and jests once again.

The final tone shift I observed, occurred when Rowling dramatically addressed the graduates with a sense of urgency and a hope. This occurred near the conclusion of her speech and refers to her true friends, whom she has been able to turn to in times of trouble. She passionately wishes the Harvard graduates similar, genial friendships. This was an important shift because as she concluded her speech she wanted to connect to the graduates in a more broad sense and leave the audience with a challenge and desire. Rowling ultimately ties her whole speech together with a complimentary, jocular, reference which took place in the beginning of her speech.

2)

inoculated - to introduce something into the mind of

revelatory - making something known; revealing something in usually a surprising way

vicissitudes - a difficulty or hardship attendant on a way of life, a career, or a course of action and usually beyond one's control