Fostering user engagement: Rhetorical devices for applause generation learnt from TED talks

Abstract

One problem that every presenter faces when delivering a public discourse is how to hold the listeners' attentions or to keep them involved. Therefore, many studies in conversation analysis work on this issue and suggest qualitatively constructions that can effectively lead to audience's applause. To investigate these proposals quantitatively, in this study we analyze the transcripts of 2,135 TED Talks, with a particular focus on the rhetorical devices that are used by the presenters for applause elicitation. Through conducting regression analysis, we identify and interpret 24 rhetorical devices as triggers of audience applauding. We further build models that can recognize applause-evoking sentences and conclude this work with potential implications.