Public Speaking
Edwin Salter, UK
Dr. E. A. Salter is based in King's Lynn and has interests in psychology and education. Recent articles include Saying and Sense (HLT) and Language Evolution (Thinking Philosophy). He has trained teachers of English in Brunei and Sweden and works with expressive behaviour therapy. E-mail: kl.humanfactors@virgin.net
Menu
Introduction
Being foreign
Helping listeners
Language and culture
Rhetoric
Preparation and rehearsal
Address
Along with learning any foreign language must come the understanding and skill to deploy it in a variety of realistic situations by adopting appropriate language ‘registers’. How does one greet strangers, build a personal relationship, write to a business …? There are many tasks both of initiating and responding to communication.
In a language class, public speaking begins naturally enough for any comment or response is heard by a group other than close acquaintances. As progress is made such utterances become more substantial and may develop into formal presentations. Even some structured dialogues, such as job interviews, may have elements of public speaking and those who pursue wider interests, professional or personal, will find themselves addressing audiences.
The purpose of this article is to offer some guidelines and hints to students and trainee teachers towards creating the necessary confidence and skill in English.
First, it is worth disposing of any concern about a slight accent or the occasional grammatical error. Partly it is that the whole point of much speech is a sense of immediacy, of working it out together, and with that come departures from notional correctness even by well-educated native speakers. Almost all listeners now have sufficient sophistication to appreciate the effort required of foreigners. Other languages are often thought charming as unfamiliar tunes are heard as musical, dropped endings as flowing and so on, and some of this may carry over. In Britain a reaction against ‘correct/RP/BBC’ speech on vaguely egalitarian regionalist and ethnic grounds can make non-standard speech sound more genuine (as advertisement voiceovers illustrate).
Less acceptable are frequent repetitions of a specific error so that it seems the speaker just hasn’t bothered with the fault. Teachers should also look out for pronunciations and phrases that conform too closely to stereotypes not always kindly. Exclamations akin to ‘Ach zo’ with emphatic friction or ‘Oh really, goodness me” retroflexed and tuneful, will promote unintended amusement or possible irritation.
Opening words should allow time for the audience to adjust its ears. A good chairman may provide a helpful introduction but often a few more personal words, not essential for the main content, can be preliminary. In a technical presentation this may be something about work done in the speaker’s country. Initial and concluding remarks should both be carefully prepared – opening with “Gentlemen and Ladies’ (as a Malay might) is an unnecessary oddity and an attempt at too portentous an ending (an excess of multiple negatives perhaps) may risk going astray.
Key terms should not be thrown in abruptly lest a whole passage be misunderstood. It often helps to provide a repetition with change of context or to couple a term with a frequent companion. If the audience should appear not to understand a point it must be rephrased and presented afresh, as a teacher would, not just repeated. For example in a chemistry talk, ‘electrophile’ might be prepared by remarking first on “the distinction between electrophilic and nucleophilic”. An economic statement might avoid leading off with “Fiscal tools..” but talk initially of “developing not monetary but fiscal policies”.
Foreign proper nouns such as names and places can be intractable to audiences whose knowledge, if any, is of the anglicised equivalent. Such variants as Peking now sounded Beijing, the spellings Tchekoff or Chehov, illustrate this. It may be necessary to offer the alternatives, written and oral, familiar and native, perhaps with a prompt either visual (a gesture for the sometimes ‘sh’ of Swedish written ‘s’) or verbal (the anthropologist’s ’Hopi tribe’ as “optimistic not jumping”).
The devices of speech and values of societies vary. Some forms of public speaking tend to follow clear formulae, for example the proposing of a vote of thanks, the after-dinner speech, wedding speeches and so on: no attempt is made to deal here with the specifics of these, but there is no shortage of sources. Those who adapt to speaking in English are likely to be helped by the very widespread dissemination of examples. These can of course mislead. British television exports a good deal of period drama with some deliberate archaisms, and film genres may exploit a conventional manner intended to place a milieu quickly.
In the past the British have rather cultivated a certain eccentricity of style and proclaimed (alas often deceptively) a general notion of decency and fair play, and it is still a usable model (I occasionally rely on it, being a bit so inclined). But nowadays the media processes of compression, dramatisation and excess can lead foreigners to suppose this is typical of English expression. Equally contrary to media indications are that, for example, the English live mostly in small very unstately homes, a good many citizens of the USA are in poverty, and the inhabitants of many tourist destinations are simply too fed up with it all to be welcoming.
Linguistic forms often mirror cultural values and customs from notions of authority to conventions of politeness. A mental map of the world may truly not translate into English and its competences. For example the English ‘we’ is often confusing, and may be used either to include or exclude those addressed. The expression of closeness may be hard to pin down (compare French ‘tu’ and ‘vous’ or the distinctions in some very stratified societies). Even the sense of time represented by English verb tenses is, like our now exact urgency, far from universal (some Asian languages differ profoundly).
In public speaking the address is almost always to others relatively unfamiliar and feedback is limited, so errors that can easily be tolerated or corrected in one-to-one conversation can be disastrous. Idioms may be confined to one English speaking country. The informal opening “Hiya folks” is best left in the USA where casual British advice to ‘not do your nut but keep your pecker up’ surely sounds offensive.
Particular care should be taken with gestures. The more precise a meaning a gesture has within in a culture, the ‘thumbs up’ that often translates as “okay” for example, the more risk that it will be misunderstood by a foreign audience. What humans share are the facial expressions and body postures of basic emotions. The movement elements of public speaking are necessarily larger than those likely in conversation. In British culture (unlike some) pointing to a member of an audience is fine, even so it should best be done without stabbing directness; and equally an over relaxed ‘putting one’s feet up’ style can be inappropriate (a weak counterpart to the offensive display of the sole in Arab culture).
Less acute than in conversation is the issue of gaze. Direct personal gaze is a matter of status in many cultures (indeed it is slightly in Britain where too direct a gaze is challenging, ‘trying to outstare’), but the distance of an audience and the need for the speaker to spread attention diffuses this effect. Some speakers use gaze and visual focus insufficiently and so need training to sustain a scanning contact.
The stressed nature of English language can lead some foreign speakers to achieve this by thumping gestures, tediously striking the beat. The effect can be reminiscent of attempting to declaim in Anglo-Saxon or aspire to global dictatorship. A pleasant cure is to achieve a good reading of Shakespeare, not stinting on the iambic feet but with no arm waving whatsoever.
At the simplest speakers should seem alert and interested. An upright natural posture with less rather than more gesture is wise. Dress is also better on the conservative side and the entire performance of a speech from first appearance to last should convey the same sense of careful presentation as the text. An effect of spontaneity needs either a well-trained talent or thorough rehearsal.
The ancient study of rhetoric is undergoing something of a revival, perhaps a measure of the power wielded over our lives by political machinery and its speech writers and by commerce and its advertising. But some knowledge of this is a way to draw the attention of non-native speakers to distinctive features of English in general as well as offering clues relevant to public speaking.
Here are some rhetorical devices. Repetition is perhaps simplest: “If we fail to act now, we not only fail others, we fail ourselves”. The three part list is another easy feature: “I came, I saw, I conquered”, and Churchill is usually remembered for offering only “Blood, sweat and tears” though he actually included toil as well. Such balancing contrasts as “We know who but not why, when but not how” or “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country” (Kennedy) can have a ritual force. A collective ‘we’ may be called upon: “We shall continue as planned and we shall triumph”. The rhetorical question of course requires no answer: “Could anyone believe I’d put up with this?”
The significance of word choice in advocacy may be fairly obvious as in a deliberately simple populist style or when technical terms are used to suggest expertise. Specific effects may be deliberately confined to aware sympathisers as when speakers use intertextuality or a distinctive style, for example religious allusions to support politics (as with the Bush ‘crusade’). English often presents as lexical alternatives words of Romance or Germanic origin, with the former (since the Norman conquest) usually having higher status. In the British Anthem the monarch is to be “victorious, happy and glorious” and the Latin victorious is also the longest word in this simple text.
There is a great range of ‘figures of speech’. An effect can be achieved by the quantitative changes of exaggeration, the hyperbole of the slogan “Better dead than red”, or of diminution, the meiosis of “That is not a pleasant place” (in Beowulf) for somewhere utterly dreadful. Irony can convey a quite opposite meaning: “And what a gift that would be” with sinking pitch. Metaphor and simile enable striking effects and persuasive analogies. A political “wind of change” may blow (Macmillan) or an individual be characterised “as a lonely fir tree” (Kierkegaard of himself).
Delivering words effectively includes non-prosodic and non-verbal features which mere text analysis overlooks. Qualities of voice and the variation of ‘power, pace and pitch’ matter. A slow pace may suggest seriousness, speed brilliance. Silence and pause can powerfully signal the need for thought or an impending decisive moment. Appropriate gesture has long been studied (and sometimes codified) and it is interesting to look back to Delsarte as well as at later work by Laban on movement and by social psychologists.
Classroom presentations are a preliminary to the wider world. They may have to be assessed by the teacher formally as well as receiving comment from peers. Immediate global impressions can be extended by asking peers to provide a balance of positive and negative comments under appropriate headings. A few students can be very resistant to such observations and may need persuading either by quantitative data or video recording so as to see and hear themselves objectively. But the overall atmosphere should be towards the general benefit to language skills and personal confidence.
There is no substitute for rehearsal. A speaker who can’t be bothered or is unwilling (for whatever reason) to listen to himself does not deserve an audience. A very short speech may need to be learned almost by heart (I recently presented a ‘two minute platform’ at a large conference and tried variants out loud about twenty times). A longer delivery may need the support of notes (with difficult words phonetically), brief or full according to necessity, and it must be checked that these will be both visible and manageable in the practical situation: similarly the means of timing should be settled. Reading a speech should be avoided if at all possible.
Rehearsal almost always benefits the text. It is easier to detect when tone becomes monotonous and needs the diversity of an illustration or example, or when complexity must to be broken down or helped by preamble or some visual aid. A summary of the argument so far may be needed.
Many speakers seem to think that the mere fact of giving a power point presentation guarantees effectiveness. Such displays can be very enriching and with images that surpass easy description, while complex diagrams can be prepared and sequenced so as to enable a clear focus on essential points. But unnecessary visuals, even if decorative, may only distract, and often the tedious parallelism of words seen and heard has a stultifying effect and diminishes the speaker. Writing on a board can assist by taking the audience through a process at the correct speed for understanding, and a real object, from simple prop to experimental apparatus, can be an effective link to practicality for a generation over accustomed to life via screens.
It is often wise to include a rehearsal with a listener at the required distance, and if that can be a native speaker so much the better. Novices may need the help of recording or to start with the listener close by and then gradually moving away; and some may be helped by carefully imagining their performance while relaxed. These simple measures are not a million miles away from the processes of behavioural psychology or hypnotherapy that help individuals with exceptional problems.
Rehearsal may seem a chore but there is clear progress as a reward.
Particularly within this ‘Humanising’ publication, it is worth emphasising that an address is made to people. They may be in a special role that constrains text and relationship but even so their capacities and needs remain. At the simplest audiences require some acknowledgment of their existence at beginning and at end, perhaps by greeting and thanks. They are usually best thought of as individuals (only demagogues require anonymous mobs), equal with the speaker who merely has the temporary duties and privileges of the role of conveying information or advice, entertainment or enthusiasm.
In all circumstances except the most formal or grave, humour and charm play an important part. The loose ends provided by wit or anecdote or asides appropriate to the immediate circumstances usually help the rapport that enables listeners to engage with topic and presenter. Novice speakers can imagine their words aimed toward scattered members of the audience as if friends were dotted around. It is essential to think of what is being said, not as words on a page, but as actually said to individuals. So even the banal “Why are we here, what is our purpose?” becomes a genuine question, just as it is the central question for any writer or public speaker.
Preparing a talk may be assisted by a kind of spider diagram (perhaps mixing languages) that generates connected ideas that support the main argument. For presentation it has to be decided if themes will be dealt with separately in a sequence that is finally recalled and linked, or if they will interweave and recur, rather as conversation can develop into a spiralling pattern of contents with different aspects emerging. It can be an interesting exercise to chart visually the flow of ideas and alternation of methods within the time design of a presentation. The sense of freedom and immediacy is balanced by structure. The crude ‘tell them what you’re going to say, say it, and tell them what you said’ is merely a reminder of the fundamental pattern of introduction, argument and conclusion. The last advice must be towards being brief.
Concerned with form and content, vividness and comprehensibility, we hover on the aesthetics of presentation. The interplay of variety and unity is framed by time and situation. With that aesthetics, all speakers must struggle.
Please check the Teaching Advanced Students course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Teaching Academic English course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Methodology for Teaching Spoken Grammar and English course at Pilgrims website.
|
