Delivering the Speech

Three simple rules should guide the delivery of your speech: (1) be yourself; (2) look at your audience; and (3) communicate with your body as well as your voice.

1. Be yourself. Act as you would if you were engaged in an animated conversation with a friend. Avoid an excessively rigid, oratorical, or aggressive posture; but don’t lean on a lectern or table or a wall. When you speak, you want the minds of your listeners to be focused on the ideas you are expressing, not on your delivery of them.

2. Look at your listeners. As we continue to emphasize throughout, watch the faces of your listeners for clues to their reactions. You’ll need this feedback to gauge the ongoing effectiveness of your speech – to know whether you are putting your message across or whether you should make some prompt adjustments. Moreover, people tend to mistrust anyone who does not look them in the eye. So, if you fail to so do, they are likely to misjudge you and undervalue your ideas. And, finally, they nearly always listen more attentively if you look at them while you are speaking.

3. Communicate with your body as well as your voice. Realize that as a speaker you are being seen as well as heard. Movements of the body, gestures of the arms and head, changes in facial expression and muscle tension – all can help clarify and reinforce your ideas. Keep your hands at your sides, so that when you feel an impulse to gesture, you can easily do so. Let other movements of your body also respond as your feelings and message dictate. Do not force your actions, but do not hold them back when they seem natural and appropriate to what you are saying. Try earnestly to transmit your ideas to others, and sooner or later you will make bodily responses of some kind, for they are an integral part of the desire to communicate.

Using Your Body to Communicate

Just as your voice gives meaning to your message through the aural channel, your physical behavior carries meaning through the visual channel. While the audience is using the aural channel to grasp your ideas, it is simultaneously using the visual message you send to add clarity. You can use the two complementary channels to help create a better understanding of your presentation. To help you explore ways of enhancing the use of the visual channel, we will examine the speaker’s physical behavior on the platform.

Dimensions of Nonverbal Communication

• Proxemics. One of the most important but perhaps least recognized aspects of nonverbal communication is proxemics, or the use of space by human beings. Two components of proxemics are especially relevant to public speakers:

1. Physical arrangements – the layout of the room in which you are speaking, including the presence or absence of a podium, the seating plan, location of chalkboards and similar aids, and physical barriers between you and your audience.

2. Distance – the extent or degree of separation between you and your audience.

• Movement and Stance. How you move and stand provides a second set of nonverbal cues for your audience. Movement includes shifts you make from one spot to another during the delivery of a speech; posture refers to the relative relaxation or rigidity of your body, as well as to your overall stance (erect, slightly bent forward or backward, or slumping). Movements and postural adjustments regulate communication. As a public speaker, you may, for instance, move from one end of a table to the other to indicate a change in topic; or you may accomplish the same purpose simply by changing your posture. At other times, you may move toward your audience when making an especially important point. In each case, you are using your body to signal to your audience that you are making a change or transition in the subject matter of the speech, or are dealing with a matter of special concern.

• Facial Expressions. Your face is another important nonverbal message channel. When you speak, your facial expressions function in a number of ways. First, they communicate much about yourself and your feelings. Of course, you cannot control your face completely, which is probably why listeners search it so carefully for clues to your feelings, but you can make sure that your facial messages do not belie your verbal ones. In practical terms this means that when you are uttering angry words, your face should be communicating anger; when you are sincerely pleading with your listeners, your eyes should be looking at them intently. In short, use your face to maximum communicative advantage.

• Gestures. Gestures include purposeful movements of the head, shoulders, arms, hands, or some other part of the body. Fidgeting with your clothing or aimlessly rearranging notecards on the podium are not gestures because they are not purposeful, and they distract from, rather than support or illustrate, the ideas you are expressing. The public speaker commonly employs three kinds of gestures:

  1. Conventional gestures – signs or symbols which have had specific meanings assigned to them by custom or convention. The raised-hand “stop” gesture of the policeman directing traffic, the hand-and-finger language of deaf persons, and the arm signals of football referees are examples of conventional gestures.

  2. Descriptive Gestures – signs or symbols which depict or describe more or less directly the idea to be communicated. Speakers, for example, often describe the size, shape, or location of an object by movement of hands and arms. They may extend an upraised arm to indicate the height of a stranger. They may make hand-and-finger motions to help describe what a punch press looks like or to demonstrate the successive steps in its use.

  3. Indicators – movements of the hands, arms, or other parts of the body which represent feelings. Thus, speakers may throw up their arms when disgusted, pound the podium when angry, shrug their shoulders when puzzled, or point a threatening finger when issuing a warning. In using such indicators or signs, speakers are in a sense trying to transmit their own feelings directly to their listeners.

• Characteristics of Effective Gestures. Although you can perfect your gestures only through practise, you will obtain better results if, as you practice, you keep in mind three characteristics of effective gestures: (1) relaxation, (2) vigor and definiteness, and (3) proper timing.

When your muscles are strained or tense, you have difficulty expressing yourself naturally, and awkward gestures result. One of the best ways to relax is to move about. “Warm up” by taking a few easy steps or by unobtrusively arranging your notes or papers. To avoid stiffness and awkwardness, make a conscious effort to relax your muscles before you start to speak.

Good gestures are lively, vigorous, and definite. Put enough force into them to make them convincing. A languid shaking of the fist is a poor way to support a threat or issue a challenge; an aimless or hesitant movement of the arm confuses rather than clarifies. Do not pound the table or saw the air constantly; exaggeration of minor points is ludicrous. Vary the nature of your gestures as the ideas in your speech demand; but always make them vigorous enough to show your conviction and enthusiasm.