Public Speaking Terminology/Codes

1. Public Speaking Terminology/Codes

2. California Standards • Listening and Speaking 1.9 – • Analyze the occasion and the interests of the audience and choose effective verbal and nonverbal techniques (voice, gestures, eye contact) for presentations. • Listening and Speaking 1.8 – • Produce concise notes for extemporaneous delivery • Listening and Speaking 2.2 – • Deliver expository presentations • Listening and Speaking 2.4 • Deliver oral responses to literature • A. advance a judgment demonstrating a comprehensive grasp of the significant ideas of works or passages. • B. Support important ideas and viewpoints through accurate and detailed references to the text or to other works. • C. Demonstrate awareness of the author’s use of stylistic devices and an appreciation of the effects caused. • D. Identify and assess the impact of perceived ambiguities, nuances, and complexities within the text.

3. Impromptu Speaking • Conversation is a form of impromptu speaking – it is unrehearsed. • Impromptu speech is one given on the spur of the moment with little preparation. (It’s like a one-sided conversation) • Each impromptu speech should contain an attention-getter, main points, and a clincher. • Process • Choose a topic • Ask yourself what you know or why you hold this opinion? • Think of an attention getter • Decide on a clincher

4. Talking with the Body • Good talkers are animated. Animation brings clarity to our words. • But be careful, movement can also distract from our message  what kinds of movements are distracting? • People with a more lively voice tend to have more movement; people with a more dull voice tend to be more inert. • The audience will mimic your movements, attitude, and mannerisms.

5. Talking with the Body • Nervousness manifests itself as: • Fear-stricken face • Spasmodic Breath • Shaky Knees • Twitchy Hands • Chattering Teeth • Anything else? • Experienced speakers are nervous too! They have just learned to control it!

6. Talking with the Body • Posture: • The way you stand tells the audience whether you are fearful and unsure of yourself, conceited and arrogant, angry and defiant, or eager to tell them something. • Thus, choose posture according to the persona you want to exude. • You do not want to be stiff and awkward and don’t slouch! • Stand with one foot slightly in front of the other, and keep the weight chiefly on one foot at a time.

7. Gestures • Hands • Parts of the body should not move alone. Everything works conjointly. • The hand supine: palm upward - indicates approval. • “We ask for justice. Here is our proposition.” • The hand prone: palm downward – represents dislike, disapproval, opposition. • “No, never! We will not accept it!” • The hand adverse: palm outward, away from the body - expresses a feeling stronger than mere dislike and suggests complete rejection or repulsion. • “Stand back! Leave my sight!” • The hand index: first finger as if pointing out an idea, a fact, a place, or a person. • “This is the point…” • The clenched fist: expressing great earnestness or intensity of feeling. • “We defy them! Let them come!”

8. NOTE: • Remember that gestures need to be timed appropriately with words and facial expressions!

9. Voice Quality • Normal Voice Quality • Feeble Voice Quality • Harsh Voice Quality • Whispered Voice Quality • Resonating Voice Quality • Note: Voice quality can be chosen for different components of a speech to express different emotions.

10. Voice Changes • Inflection • Rising inflection • The glide of a voice from a lower to a higher tone. It expresses doubt, uncertainty, incomplete thought, surprise, astonishment, wonder, amazement. • Falling inflection • The glide of the voice from a higher tone to a lower one. It indicates certainty, completeness of thought, authority, determination, and indignation. • Circumflex inflection • A wave of the voice either upward or downward or reverse. A combination of rising and falling inflection. • Can be used to emphasize antithetical statements.