1. What is speech?

Speech is human vocal communication using language. Each language uses phonetic
combinations of vowel and consonant sounds that form the sound of its words (that is, all
English words sound different from all French words, even if they are the same word, e.g., "role"
or "hotel"), and using those words in their semantic character as words in the lexicon of a
language according to the syntactic constraints that govern lexical words' function in a sentence.
In speaking, speakers perform many different intentional speech acts, e.g., informing, declaring,
asking, persuading, directing, and can use enunciation, intonation, degrees of loudness, tempo,
and other non-representational or paralinguistic aspects of vocalization to convey meaning. In
their speech speakers also unintentionally communicate many aspects of their social position
such as sex, age, place of origin (through accent), physical states (alertness and sleepiness, vigor
or weakness, health or illness), psychic states (emotions or moods), physico-psychic states
(sobriety or drunkenness, normal consciousness and trance states), education or experience, and
the like.

2 How to deliver speech?

1. Focus on the Main Message

If you’ve been asked to give a speech, the first step is to choose a focused message. Even
if you’ve been given a theme for your speech such as “inspiration” or “strength,” this is more a
general umbrella under which your specific points (and point of view) will fall. Make a short list
of five ideas for your speech. It can be helpful to write them in command form. “Strength” a
brainstorm of five speech messages could include: “don’t ever give up, “overcome failure,”
“build physical strength” and “know your strengths.” If you feel stuck for ideas, a reference to
your current political or social context can bring new insight to your theme.

2. Build Three Supporting Points

By focusing on your central message with supporting evidence, you strengthen it. A
stronger message will resonate more with your listeners. To come up with supporting points, ask
yourself “why” about the speech message you’ve selected. For example, for “don’t ever give
up,” you’d ask, “Why should you never give up?” Make a list of several possible supporting
ideas. Read through your finished list, and at the end, cross off the weaker ones that don’t
support your main point.

3. Keep your Audience in Mind

After looking into the central message and supporting points for your speech, you can
flesh out the rest by considering your audience. Knowing who your audience are and what they
are expecting from this encounter can help you pick the right tone to optimal effect.
4. Be a Tactful Speaker

Some speakers choose to generalize complex topics in a speech because they think it’s
easier for the audience to understand. It’s actually better to do the opposite. Listeners tend to
connect better with concrete examples and personal stories, so embrace detail in your speech. A
personal anecdote about why one shouldn’t give up is more effective than just saying not to.
Areas where your passion and knowledge overlap are generally the richest. If appropriate to the
context, don’t be afraid to tell a joke about the topic. A little self-deprecating humor goes down
well with the crowd, one can always give it a shot.

5. Brevity Is The Soul Of The Wit

Some of the most effective speeches of all times have been brief. “The Gettysburg
Address” was only 15 minutes, while “I Have a Dream” was for 17 minutes. Aim for brevity. A
good formula is to speak for less time than you’ve been asked to, as people tend to overestimate
the attention span of their audience.

6. Feedback is Important

As the speech has to be delivered to an audience, it is important to get feedback from

theoretical listeners. Read your speech to someone you trust and ask for some honest feedback.
In particular, it can be helpful to ask if anything is confusing or unclear. Your speech will have
more impact if the message is engaging.

7. Eye Contact is Important

During your speech, look at your audience while you are speaking. Put the content of
your speech, either fully written out or in bullet points, so you are not staring straight down at a
piece of paper while you speak. Engaging your audience visually makes you appear secure and
confident.

8. Use Appropriate Gestures

A well-placed gesture can add humor or aid greater understanding of your speech. For
optimal effectiveness, punctuate your speech with gestures when appropriate. If you’re a very
nervous public speaker, try just resting your hands against the podium. It will make you feel
steadier.

9. Walk When Required

If your speech is informal, walking from one side of the stage to the other can help
engage people sitting in different parts. It will draw your audience in and enhance your
confidence.
10. Use Props

If appropriate, bring props to punctuate your speech for your audience. This can be
anything useful such as a graph to handout to all attendees or even a personal item to drive home
your speech’s content. Props can personalize your speech and add interest or humor. Limit
yourself to one or two props maximum per speech.
 1. How to overcome stage fraight?

Know Your Stuff

Nothing will stop stage fright in it’s gripping tracks like being prepared. Know your content,
your speech and more importantly your audience. If you know what you are talking about then
you have no reason to be nervous.

Understanding your topic will enable you to speak more naturally and hence more confidently.
Also, should a technical hitch occur, this won’t faze you as you are already confident on the
subject.

Practice, Practice, Practice

Knowing your stuff helps, but it doesn’t necessarily eradicate the problem. You need to practice
as much as you can before the performance or public speaking d-day.

Really know your content inside out and practice (preferably in front of a live audience) as much
as possible to build your confidence.

Talk Yourself Down

You need to realize that even though stage fright is “all in the mind,” the fear manifests itself in
physical ways. The best offence is to change your negative talk. Stop worrying about, “What if I
forget the content?”

Change that into positive talk like, “What if I am great at this?” It may sound simplistic or too
easy, but positive affirmation will go a long way in reducing stage fright when speaking in
public.

Wallow in the Worst

If you can’t calm yourself down with positive talk, then maybe it is time you thought about the
worst case scenario. Once you do this, you’ll realize that the worst case scenario isn’t really that
bad. This might help calm your nerves.

Visualize the Outcome

Call it what you will: reflection, visualization, meditation. Whatever you call it, just do it. Spend
time visualizing yourself giving a perfect presentation and speaking in public – filled with
humor, warmth, confidence and intelligence.

The more you imagine being great, the more likely you will achieve it.
It is Not All About You

Though you might feel like everyone is out to laugh, criticize or judge you, that is not the case.
Get over the feeling that the world is going to hang on your every mistake.

Focus on your speech, audience and what they deserve from you. This will ease the pressure that
is already accumulating.

When Things go Wrong

Sooner or later, something will go wrong. Your projector or microphone might stop working. If
you already know your content, then chances are that this won’t faze you as much. If, for
instance, your microphone stops working, don’t stress over it, carry on with a louder voice.
Chances are the technical people are already stressing and working to sort the problem out, so
you getting worried over the same issue won’t help.

Keep Calm, Don’t Rush It

Don’t rush your presentation. Start slow and allow yourself time to get into a comfortable pace.
You need time to get used to the audience and the audience also needs time to get used to you.

Focus on Getting Through the First 5 Minutes

Imagine your entire presentation is only five minutes long. This will make it less stressful. Focus
on just getting through the first five minutes and by this time you will have already calmed down
and the rest is downhill.

Never Apologize for Being Nervous

Three quarters of the time, no one will notice you are nervous. Why tell them? You may feel
yourself shaking and shivering, but your audience might not be aware of it. Don’t mention it. It
will make your audience nervous too and they will be too worried about your performance to get
much out of your presentation.

Don’t Share Your Mistakes

You have prepared, practiced and feel good about your speech or presentation. Suddenly, on
stage you realize you mixed the order of topics or you forgot an important point. But remember,
you’re the only one who knows about this. Your audience doesn’t. So, don’t make them aware of
a mistake that they didn’t even know existed. If you bring it up, some people might start looking
for more holes, which ultimately distracts from the whole purpose of your presentation in the
first place.
Arrive Early

Obviously, if you are late, this will only heighten your anxiety. Arrive early and acclimate to
your surroundings. You can even check out the stage and the auditorium as get yourself used to
the environment.

Stretch

If you are nervous, odds are your body will be stiff and your muscles tight. Fifteen minutes
before speaking in public and going on stage, do a few stretches. This will loosen the tense
muscles and relax your body.

Breathe

Nervousness is always accompanied by fast, short breaths and if this is not addressed, it will
throw you off balance. Minutes before you go on stage, take some slow, deep breaths, so that by
the time you get to the stage your breathing is relaxed.

Double Check Everything

Do you have a laptop or notes? Check that everything works. When you walk on stage and
suddenly realize that you forgot your notes, it’s too late. Of course, your nerves will take over.
Know your speech or presentation so well that should this happen, you can continue without a
hitch.

Don’t Fight Your Stage Fright … Work With It

You have to expect and accept the fact that you will feel anxious, especially the first few minutes
of your presentation. The more you resist your anxiety, the more it will work against you.
Again, focus on the presentation when speaking in public and the anxiety will slowly ease off.

FOURTEEN DIFFERENT TYPES OF SPEECH

1. Demonstrative speech

The idea behind demonstrative speech is basically to educate the audience that is listening to
something they are not aware of. The unique thing about demonstrative speeches is that they
could include various visual aids which can help further demonstrate or describe in practical
terms how to effectively do something. At first glance, one can say that demonstrative speech is
more like informative, but the difference is in the fact that informative speeches do not exactly
include actual demonstrating of how to do or perform an action.
2. Entertaining speech

Entertaining speech is quite a common or should I say a familiar one amongst the types of
speech in our contemporary society. If you have ever been to a birthday party or wedding, which
I know you most certainly must have, then you have experienced what an entertaining speech is
like. The main purpose of a best man’s speech in a wedding or an after-dinner MC is to entertain
the crowd. This form of entertainment is usually done by using interesting illustrations, hilarious
stories, and just flat out humor.

3. Informative speech

Informative speeches are speeches mainly performed for the purpose of educating the audience
on new or relevant piece of information on a particular topic.

4. Persuasive speech

A persuasive speech is a speech given solely for the purpose of convincing the audience listening
that the opinion of the speaker on a particular topic is the right or correct one. Whether you are
discussing what movie to watch next or which political standpoint is best for the economy, you
are making a persuasive speech.

5. Oratorical speech

Oratorical speeches are a type of speech that is delivered in the style used by an orator. Its name
and definition are quite humorous because orator and oratorical both relate to the act of giving a
speech.

This type of speech is usually given on very special occasions like a graduation ceremony,
inauguration or ribbon-cutting event. This type of speech can take shape in two distinct forms,
they can be long and quite formal in situations like funerals, graduations, and inaugurations, or
they can be short and informal in situations like the speech given during a toast in a special
event.

6. Special occasion speech

Special occasion speeches are speeches that don’t exactly fall into any particular category of
speech. Hence, the name special occasion. They can include speeches that are given to introduce
a speaker or announce the arrival of a guest. They are designed to be short but interesting and
direct to the point.

7. Special occasion speech

Writing speeches for special events are usually the easiest as they do not require statistics,
demanding need for information and knowledge, just a simple couple of lines could do the trick
for you.

8. Motivational speech

One can consider the motivational speech as a special type of speech in which the general self-
improvement of the audience is the goal to be attained. A speaker generally engages in this type
of speech to encourage and inspire the confidence of his audience to do better with and for
themselves.

9. Explanatory speech

Explanatory speech is one of the types of speech which is given to critically explain a situation
or thing. They are somewhat similar in nature to the demonstrative speech. However, the
explanatory speech is different from the demonstrative speech in the sense that the explanatory
speech gives a detailed step by step and breaks down of how to do something. It is also different
in the sense that it does not make use of visual aid to assist in understanding.

10. Debate speech

During the cause of a formal debate event, there is a lot of verbal exchanges being made by the
two or more parties involved. This act of debating takes shape in many forms in our
contemporary society. These forms include the following; classical, impromptu, parliamentary,
mock trails, extemporaneous and even public forum.

11. Forensic speech

The term forensic speech is mainly regarded as the practice and study of public speaking and
debating. This definition is from the American Forensic Association, and they believe according
to their research that millions of high school students and college students engage in this activity.

12. Impromptu Speech

An Impromptu Speech is one that we have to deliver with no prior preparation or rehearsal time,
it’s one of those moments where you are simply called up to speak in an event, in an interview,
or in so many other situations.

13. Pitching Presentations / Pitch Speech

The term Pitching Presentation comes from a type of speech that is specifically targeted at
getting buy-in and approval for support, generally financial, for an idea, for a business, a product
prototype, or a solution.

14. Farewell Speech

Farewell speech is, as the name implies, the type of speech where you have to say goodbye to
people. It can be a Farewell speech done at work, when you are moving on to your next
opportunity, or it could be a goodbye speech to your loved ones when traveling for a long time.