VOCAL DELIVERY

Speak clearly, correctly, and conversationally. Vary your vocal delivery for interest and emphasis.

As important as preparation, organization, content, and style are, the essence of the speech is still your uttering.

…your most important goal is to develop a style of vocal delivery that sounds natural and conversational.

Your way of speaking reveals your ethnic and cultural heritage, as well as your personality.

A. Speak so that you can be heard and understood.

1. Speak loud enough to be heard by the entire audience.

• For the inexperienced speaker, just about any volume level will sound too loud. This is understandable.
• The only thing that will make loud speaking more comfortable and natural is, of course, practice.
• You want to be loud, but not to yell like a drill instructor.
• Maintain a mental image of broadcasting or propelling your voice to the far corners of the room.

2. Speak at a rate your audience can follow.

• An average rate of speaking is around 150 words per minute.
• If you speak faster than 200 words per minute or slower than 100 words per minute, you may be endangering your comprehensibility by
overworking your audience. Extremely fast speakers ask listeners to decode and process information more rapidly than is their custom.
• When giving a speech, plan to speak a little slower than you do in daily conversation.

3. Enunciate words distinctly and naturally.

• People rarely enunciate every sound in every word.
• In public speaking settings, much information can be lost due to distance from the speaker and to distracting noise.
• Do not mumble, run words together, or swallow whole phrases.
• It merely takes some practice incorporating precision into your normal conversation instead of creating a separate “speaking persona.”

4. Make special adjustments, if necessary, to compensate for having an accent that your audience may have difficulty understanding.
• Do not try to eliminate or hide your accent. Your manner of speaking is part of your unique personality.

B. Reinforce meaning and make your speech more interesting through vocal variety.
• Vocal variety is equally important, and the need for it goes beyond a mere desire for novelty.
• Changes in pace and emphasis show your audience what is significant and can signal humor, seriousness, irony, and a range of emotions.

1. Vary your pitch.

• Do not be afraid to use the full range of your voice.

2. Vary your rate of speaking.

• The average pace of your delivery should be geared toward comfortable listening.
• Changes in rate at different times during the speech can be effective in establishing moods or in adding emphasis.

3. Vary your volume

• You should speak loud enough that you can drop your voice for effect and still be audible to the listeners in the far corners.

C. Use standard, acceptable pronunciation.

1. Identify words that you habitually mispronounce.

• Some differences in the ways people words are inevitable and cause no problem for public speakers.
• This sort of linguistic snobbery can be unfair, but it is easier to change some pronunciations than to change everyone else’s attitudes.
• If you find one or two words that you mispronounce, you can easily work on correcting them. If you find five or more, you may need more
extensive help in the form of coaching or coursework.

2. Check the preferred pronunciation of unfamiliar words.

• Your reading vocabulary and your speaking vocabulary are different.
• There can be words you frequently se and understand yet rarely speak or her spoken.

D. Identify and eliminate distracting characteristics of your vocal delivery.

• Distracting speech habits are difficult to identify and even more difficult to change.
• Vocal mannerisms become so familiar to you and your closest associates that they are overlooked and cease to distract, but to a new
audience they are blatant.

1. Identify problems of voice quality.

…no one perfect voice for effective speaking. Rather, there is a range of pleasing voices.

Harshness, hoarseness, or stridency

These qualities are caused by constriction of the throat or by tension in or damage to the vocal folds.
Breathiness, thinness, or weakness
These qualities are caused by having an inadequate airstream, by releasing excessive air, or by speaking in an unnaturally high falsetto.
Nasality and denasality
Incorrect flow of air through the nasal passages creates these problems.

2. Identify problems of articulation.

• Many people have speech problems that are not severe enough to be considered disabling but that are still sufficient distracting to impede
good communication.

3. Identify vocalized pauses and other irrelevant sounds and phrases.

• Do not be afraid to pause between sentences or thoughts when you speak.
• But avoid filling those pauses with distracting and meaningless sounds and phrases.

4. Identify repetitious patterns of inflection.

• You learn very early that there are logical and natural places in sentences to vary the pitch of your voice.

5. Eliminate your distracting habits through a systematic self-improvement program or with professional help.

PHYSICAL DELIVERY

Use your physical delivery to create a visual effect that complements the content of your speech.

• Much of how your listeners respond to you is a result of what they see rather than what they hear.
• Be aware of the visual image you are creating.

A. Be conscious of your appearance.

• As you get ready for a particular speech, consider what your hairstyle, grooming, and clothing might communicate to your audience.

B. Eliminate distracting mannerisms.

• Distracting mannerisms fall into two categories: those you have all the time, and those you have only when giving a speech.

C. Stand or sit with a relaxed but alert posture.

D. If you move about during the speech, make the action purposeful and relevant.
• Most speeches can be aided by movement at appropriate times.
• Physical movement during a speech is a constructive way to release tension.
• Make your movements purposeful.
• The timing of your movement can reinforce your ideas.
• Physical movement works best at transitional points, where it signals a change in mood, content, or form.

E. Keep your hands free so that you can gesture if it feels natural.
• What you should do with your hands in a speech is exactly what you do with them in normal conversation.
• Whether you gesture a little or a lot, you do it to describe, to point out, to enumerate, to emphasize, to entreat, and so on.
• If you are absorbed with your topic and with communicating it to your listeners, your gestures will emerge spontaneously at the appropriate
points.

F. Maintain eye contact.

• Be familiar enough with your material that you can look at as many member of your audience as possible, as often as possible.

G. Use facial expression or forecast mood and tone.

• Your natural facial expression serve as one more channel for effective communication.
• Remind yourself to smile genuinely whenever it can reinforce your message. It is one of the easiest ways to establish rapport, show your
goodwill, and put you and your audience at ease.