A Brief Study on the "Reality Distortion Field" in Steve Jobs’Talking

Abstract

People are so concerned about Apple not just because the company invented great digital devices, but also the legendary figure behind all these-Steve Jobs. Never has anyone bonded a company and its founder so tight as with Apple and Steve Jobs.

Jobs was not a common entrepreneur. When people are trying to attribute the huge success of the company to the wise strategies Jobs had made and trying to figure out the essence that makes the company grow, they find that Jobs is a quite unique person with his stand-out idiosyncracy. Furthermore, the reality distortion field embedded in Jobs’ talking can be dug out. This is the exact main point the paper trying to discuss and analyze. The studies home and abroad focus more on the strategies of Steve Jobs. Not until the issue of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson did many people pay more attention on the character of Steve Jobs. There are many issues about the relation of the talking art and his character. Most of them deal with commercial and life cases, rarely can people discuss the speech style and features through linguistics, lexics and rhetoric. And this is part of the innovation of this paper.

To guarantee the necessary theoretical background, the paper will give a simple statement concerning the fundamental connection between Steve Jobs and Apple. Then, the paper will anatomize Jobs’ personal character and language features objectively and thoroughly in order to grasp the reality distortion power. Through a series of examples together with linguistics and other methods, these features can be dug out. Finally, the paper emphasizes on the impact these features have on the growth of the company and tries to analyze the concrete manipulative methods, expecting to enlighten people in talking and business management area.

Keyword: speech skill, persuasion, emotional appeal, reality distortion field, leadership