At all times, people who know how to speak correctly and beautifully have enjoyed increased attention.
Among them were successful rulers, revolutionary figures and politicians. Currently, every person striving for success tries to master the basics of oratory. Here we will tell you who the speaker is. To define what kind of profession this is, let’s turn to Wikipedia. A speaker is a person who has the knowledge and skills of correct and colorful speech, and applies them in his speeches in front of an audience and among interlocutors.
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Facts about the profession
The ability to communicate skillfully and attract the attention of others with your speech is not given to every person. However, it is worth understanding that the possession of public speaking skills is one of the most important components of success.
Logical arrangement of thoughts, combining words into correct informational sentences give the speaker advantages that help win over people.
Currently, there are courses where those interested can undergo training and acquire public speaking skills.
Key aspects of working with an audience
Firstly, you need to take into account that listeners are divided according to many criteria: gender, age, education, etc. Therefore, you should consider who you are going to talk to and what you are going to talk about.
, otherwise you may encounter indifference or, even worse, aggression.
Secondly, public speaking involves the ability to win the attention of the public, so before your speech, try to think as much as possible about what will be interesting for your audience to hear
.
Thirdly, the speaker must understand perfectly what the audience wants from him and give it to her
. Understanding the needs of each individual listener will make the presentation engaging.
Fourthly, the art of oratory is based on a positive attitude towards people
, even if the purpose of the speech is to criticize.
Remember that a positive person will evoke the same feelings in the audience, which means that the speaker will be able to achieve his goals without any problems during the speech.
History of development
As noted earlier, orators have enjoyed great success since ancient times. As a separate specialization, this skill appeared in Ancient Greece, where public speaking was the basis of state influence. Prophets, teachers in Buddhism and other leaders of past eras can also be classified as speakers.
In modern times, not only politicians and large businessmen resort to teaching public speaking skills, but also coaches who teach people various skills.
The structure of oratory speech
In order for a public speech to achieve its goal and leave no one indifferent, it is built according to the plan and content in a certain order, which is called composition.
The introduction should attract attention, interest, establish contact with the audience, and give an idea of the topic of the upcoming message with a brief description of the issue.
The main part of a public speaking speech is the presentation of the material itself, argumentation, and the use of facts and logical evidence.
The conclusion is intended to summarize and generalize what has been said, emphasize the main idea, draw conclusions, and inspire listeners.
It is advisable to approach creatively when working on a composition. While maintaining a clear sequence and consistency of its elements, it is important not to lose your individual style.
What should a speaker be able to do?
In order to truly justify the title of speaker, a specialist must have a set of certain knowledge and skills.
These include the following points:
- Be able to effectively express your thoughts in public;
- Have clear and intelligible speech;
- Possess public speaking techniques. It's worth noting that some people get this naturally;
- Have a pleasant speech rate that does not disturb the comfortable perception of others;
- Possess the principles of persuasion, convey a thought so that it has followers;
- Have the skills to write texts for performances and perform in public;
- Use the intonation of your voice and focus the audience’s attention on what is important.
The speaker's speech is a monologue that is aimed at a mass audience. That is why the speaker must structure his speech as effectively as possible in order to be as clear as possible to the audience.
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What qualities should a speaker have: tips for speaking in front of an audience
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A successful speaker must captivate people with his charisma.
His speeches must not only reach the public, but also make people think and act. A good speaker is a true leader. But not everyone is born with these abilities. To become a master of eloquence, you need to constantly improve yourself and cultivate the appropriate qualities. What does a successful speaker need? Any person can develop the basic qualities of a speaker. To do this, you can start attending public speaking courses. But if you have the desire and a clear goal, you can do this without outside help. Most of the rules for successful speaking are interrelated. It is impossible to say exactly what qualities of a speaker determine his success. Since all of them are needed equally to form a master of words. In addition, some minor flaws can be made into a highlight, which will further attract the attention of listeners. Confidence A person who speaks in public must be decisive. You need to be confident in your abilities, knowledge, charisma. A successful speaker is not afraid of the public and boldly approaches them halfway. Without confidence, you will not be able to dominate the general mass of listeners. An indecisive speaker will not attract the audience's attention, even if he is covering an important and interesting topic. Beginning masters of eloquence can be overly self-confident. It is necessary to maintain flexibility of thoughts. It’s worth putting yourself in your opponent’s shoes and trying to understand his point of view. Sometimes you need to have the courage to admit that you are wrong. But you can’t doubt your arguments too often. Knowledge of the topic The speaker's confidence in his own rightness should stem from careful study of the topic. You cannot give a speech that has been prepared by another person. You need to understand the issue yourself, consider the problem from several sides, and prepare for your opponent’s arguments. The ability to answer even unexpected questions from the audience will make the audience believe the speaker and be inspired by his idea. But knowing only your topic will make a person just a good speaker. A skilled speaker must be erudite. This will allow you to highlight any topic to the public and expand the capabilities of the master of words. After all, the main quality of a speaker is the ability to calmly express his ideas to the crowd, infecting them with his enthusiasm. If a speaker speaks in scientific circles, then for clarity you need to have visual material to support the words of the tribune. Also, the audience is more receptive to speech that is replete with statistics and practical examples. They should be emphasized. Correct Speech A person who speaks in front of an audience must be able to speak correctly and clearly. There is not always a microphone at hand, so a successful speaker knows how to speak loudly, focusing on the acoustic characteristics of the hall and the size of the audience. Speech should be unhurried. It should not contain parasitic words. It is recommended to adapt your speech style to the intended audience. If the majority of listeners are young people, you can insert a slang word that better describes the situation. Correct speech is based not only on the voice, but also on manners. The tribune constantly walks around the stage and gesticulates. At the same time, the pace of his walking and gestures coincide with the tempo of his voice. Not too fast and with as bright a presentation as possible. An artistic speaker speaks with his whole body. The ability to build a dialogue If we talk about what qualities of a speaker determine his success, it is worth paying special attention to the ability to conduct a dialogue. The speaker must be able to ask questions: to a specific listener, waiting for his answer; to the entire hall as a whole, waiting for a loud “yes” or “no”; to an imaginary listener, creating the illusion of a conversation. You need to constantly communicate with the public so that people don’t get bored and feel personally involved in the process. The speech itself should be replete with appeals, while some of the questions are rhetorical. Quick Response A successful speaker knows how to answer questions. He does it quickly and always on topic. Not a single comment unsettles him or distracts him from the main topic. The speaker must be guided by the mood of the audience. If the listener is tired, you need to notice this in time and defuse the situation with a joke or a sharp remark. Charm In the list of the main qualities of a speaker, one cannot fail to mention charm.
A person should attract attention from the first second of his appearance. Nothing can replace natural charm, but any speaker must have a pleasant and well-groomed appearance. Even if it's stand-up at an open mic. Often charm is built on confidence, the ability to joke about oneself and obvious shortcomings, and kindness towards the public. A whole set of qualities of a speaker should ultimately become “charm.” You can learn all this and much more in face-to-face classes at the “Anton Veselov School of Elocution”
Requirements for the quality of speaker's speech
In order for public speaking to be as effective as possible, you should have the following principles:
- Know who his target listener is;
- When speaking to a mass audience, present people only with useful information that will bring them maximum benefit and moral satisfaction from attending a lecture or seminar;
- Have the ability to convey information to the listener, as well as induce him to take certain actions;
- Be able to agitate the audience;
- Be able to put listeners into a certain psychological state;
- Be an example to the listener not only in words, but also be an authoritative representative of your own views.
How to influence your audience
There are several techniques that can help you manage your audience more effectively. These include:
- respect for the values of the audience (the speaker must take into account the opinion of the public when speaking, show interest in their questions, then the main points of the speech will be better received);
- unity when the speaker and the audience are similar (you can achieve consistency even in terms of style: this contributes to a better perception of the text);
- the speaker’s feeling of the mood of the people in the hall (in order to feel the audience, the speaker must ask them questions and respond to correct exclamations from the audience);
- results, decisions and conclusions are briefly presented to the audience at the moment when they become interested in the issue under discussion: then the effectiveness of the presentation will be much higher;
- breaks (a person cannot maintain attention for more than 30 minutes. To prevent listeners from getting tired, the speaker must take short breaks at regular intervals, during which a dialogue with the audience takes place, an exchange of opinions or bringing personal experience to the issue).
It is important to visualize text through presentations with audio. This will help listeners understand the material better.
Speaking in front of an audience always requires careful preparation, not only in terms of familiarization with the material. The speaker also needs to know well the psychology of the public, its preferences, and the social status of those present in order to structure his behavior correctly. Only then can the speech be perceived by listeners as fully as possible.
Pros and cons of the profession
In this section of the article I would like to analyze the profession to identify the pros and cons of the activities that accompany speakers in their work activities.
Positive factors:
- Self-expression and the opportunity to feel like a leader;
- The ability to find your followers;
- No dependence on the office;
- Public speaking skills increase personal self-esteem;
- Good wages or lucrative business contracts.
Negative sides:
- Oratory takes a lot of energy;
- You need to find your listener;
- The speaker does not have the right to make mistakes and weakness, since you can lose your audience very quickly.
Classification according to S.F. Ivanova
According to the thoughts of the teacher, lecturer and author of numerous works on rhetoric S.F. Ivanova, a person manifests himself in oratory depending on what type of personality he belongs to. So, S.F. Ivanova considers the following types of speakers in her classification.
Emotionally-intuitive
This personality type correlates with the second type according to Cicero. Just like Cicero, the emotional-intuitive speaker captures the attention of the public with the help of passionate and expressive speech, rich in ironic remarks, topical jokes, vivid comparisons and lyrical digressions.
Speakers of this type often appear a little eccentric due to their behavior behind the podium. The danger for such authors is that their rambling speech appears to many listeners as idle chatter and, therefore, does not receive the necessary serious attention from the audience and its response, which, in fact, is the purpose of any utterance. In order to remain not only an original author, but also in demand, speakers of this type carry out special work on their speech.
Such authors usually prepare for presentations in two stages. To begin with, they write down their speech as it comes from the heart with all emotional expressions and digressions. At the second stage, the received text is processed. The author analyzes his work and cuts off the unnecessary. During the speech itself, they are advised to have a clear plan with them, reflecting the structure of the speech, and protecting them from unnecessary statements and prolongation of the speech.
Rational logical
Speakers belonging to the rational-logical type behave more restrained. As a rule, such people are more silent and do not make empty speeches. Each statement is the fruit of long and deep reflection. Such people tend to constantly monitor and analyze everything that is happening around them, as well as what is happening inside the speaker himself and his listeners. This habit of reflection gives rise to precisely calibrated statements, devoid of the color and special “juiciness” that good speech should have.
As the first type of speaker in Cicero’s classification shows, speech deprived of a certain amount of expression becomes almost lifeless, despite all its logical beauty. Analysis of the situation and the speech that is being prepared regarding this situation is very important, as is the structure of the speech. However, this is not enough to “reach out” to the audience and get their response.
That is why, when preparing for performances, this type devotes a lot of time to the written editing of his speech in the direction of enriching it with various artistic means such as metaphors, comparisons, epithets, as well as numerous aphorisms and proverbs.
Philosophical
This type of speaker is more difficult to characterize, since they do not belong to one extreme or another, but from time to time they can be either too consistent or, on the contrary, confusing. As a rule, people of this type are somewhat withdrawn and fixated on the topic that interests them. They enjoy studying an object from all sides, spending a lot of time working with archives and communicating with people involved or close to the subject of study.
Such an author usually speaks in public infrequently, but as a speaker he is characterized by his thoughtfulness and comprehensive analysis of the problem being studied. Rhetors representing the philosophical type are good at written reasoning, therefore letters to like-minded people or scientific articles published from the pens of these authors are distinguished by logical reasoning and a deep understanding of everything related to the object of study.
The public loves and listens attentively to such rhetoricians, thanks to their ability to present information in a moderate style, maintaining the originality of their judgments with sufficient imagery of speech.
Lyrical or artistic
Speakers of this type are rarely found in their pure form and are usually philosophers who are carried away by lyrical reasoning. The lyric rhetorician is a creative person who, like philosophers, is characterized by deep thinking and a tendency to constant reflection.
The main feature of the speech of such a speaker is its imagery. He thinks not in logical structures, but in figurative manifestations of the surrounding reality. Thanks to this perception of the world, lyrical speakers pronounce speeches rich in metaphors, comparisons, metonymies, quotes, proverbs, sayings and other means of expressive language.
Let's sum it up
This article is an information source for both children and adults. After all, you can become a speaker at any age, the main thing is to find your topic and people who will be interested in it. These skills will also be useful in business and personnel management.
We told what kind of profession a speaker is, discussed all the pros and cons of this type of activity and gave a description of the professional qualities that such a specialist should have.
Now you are not faced with the question: “Who is this speaker?”
Features of oratory
Oratory speech is characterized by the following features:
Oral presentation. The process of communication with the audience occurs directly when voicing thoughts. Texts for public speaking are learned by ear and structured in such a way as to be easy to understand.
Availability of feedback. A good speaker feels the audience. He distinguishes mood, catches reactions to what is said, guesses emerging questions and flexibly builds further dialogue.
Use of various means of communication. The use of gestures, pantomime, intonation and other non-verbal methods is inherent in oratory, which distinguishes it from ordinary oral speech.
The relationship between the text prepared for speech and its oral interpretation. Choosing the right tone of communication helps to present information in an intelligible form and find contact with the audience.
Oratorical techniques
Oratory techniques are used to improve the perception of information. They work either by orienting the listener to figurative perception, or by stimulating his mental activity.
For example:
- visual comparisons and short illustrative examples are especially appropriate when conveying numerical material;
- repeating what has already been said in other words creates a new image;
- the allegory clearly illustrates the speaker’s ideas and thoughts;
- antithesis by contrast enhances their perception;
- hyperbole exaggerates those points that need to be paid attention to;
- rhetorical questions do not require an answer, but stir up interest;
- an insertion when a casual remark made draws attention to what was said;
- unexpected words and actions heighten the listener's curiosity.