Definition of Public Speaking:
Public speaking is an art, it is useful art, in common with acting, interpretative reading, and elocution. Other words used for it were “elocution” and “oratory”. According to Aristotle, public speaking is the “Art of Persuasion”. Ralph Waldo Emerson encourages the speaker with the words: “Speech is power, speech is to persuade, to convert, to appeal”. An art is a human activity, it differs from a science in that it is concerned with doing, while a science is concerned with knowing. A Fine Art has the purpose of giving pleasure, namely aesthetic pleasure, or pleasure derived from the sense of beauty. It gives it by means of an imitation or interpretation of life in terms of artistic conventions. While in acting aesthetic pleasure is aimed by a conventionalized representation of life, in public speaking we have life itself, a natural function of life, a real human being in real communication with his fellowmen and women. We have an activity and therefore, if you like, an art, a useful art, not a fine art.
Need of Public Speaking: In order to be successful today, we need to excell in the rhetoric art, in public speaking. A successful business executive should have a brain full of ideas, have a good voice and manners, a perfect command of language, and be an engaging personality. He should be able to talk fluently and forcefully to people around him, carry his point, and come to the public and make a speech. In the beginning he may become nervous and idiotically self-conscious. Public speaking may scare him. He has to get over it, train himself and excell in it.
If we are nervous or timid and shy, the audience may be for us a terrifying presence. When Abbe Faria was getting nervous to preach before an audience in Europe, his father was present there, and he said in our Goan language (Konkani), “Kator re baji! Hi soglli bhaji!”. At that moment Father Custodio Faria, who became later on “Father of Hypnotism”, was shining with his powerful mind and fluent word.
Traits of Public Speaking: The speaker needs hard work, determination to succeed, sincerity, knowledge, vocabulary, and practice.
Demosthenes, the celebrated Greek orator, was so imperfect in delivery and so impeded in his articulation that he not only practised day and night, but even put pebbles in his mouth to increase his natural impediment by almost superhuman efforts to overcome it.
The orator should bear in mind not only his topic, but also the audience, and look at the audience, instead of staring at the ceiling or the wall, or outside the window.
Good speaking is communication, it means sharing his ideas and emotions with others (from cum+munus, ‘business’, communis, ‘common’). A speaker should communicate with his audience. It can be compared to conversation, in which two interlocutors are active, experience a sense of direct mental contact with each other. Whether formal or informal, there is an essential mental relationship between the speaker and the audience. It can vary in vocal force, style, degree of formality to suit the situation and circumstances—posture, gesture, tone, vocabulary, phraseology, and parliamentary form. Public speaking is simply an expanded conversation. The relationship between the speaker and the audience should be direct, reciprocal and sincere. The speaker should be trained to overcome his nervousness and think on his feet. With practice s/he will be able to excell in this art.
Aims of Public Speaking: The aims of the speaker are to inform, to enlighten, to convince, to impress, to actuate and to entertain.
1.His purpose will be to inform, when he wishes to furnish his hearers with facts, especially with facts new to them. His effort is directed towards recording in their memory. A teacher may teach mathematical principles or physical laws, or a researcher may state the results of his investigation.
2.The speaker may try to enlighten the minds of the students by explaining the dogma of Resurrection.
3.The legislator may try to convince people by supporting a bill, an attorney may argue a point at law before a judge, a scientist may try to prove the truth of a scientific hypothesis.
4.A speaker has to impress the audience when he seeks to bring to his hearers a new and deeper realization of a truth, perhaps an old truth already known to them. The preacher may try to impress on the people the need of conversion of heart by proclaiming the Crucifixion and Death of Jesus Christ.
5.The purpose of public speaking can be to actuate, by not only planting beliefs that may later work out into actions, but also by persuading his hearers to some definite deed, an act to be performed at the time and place of the speech, or very soon after. The appeal may be emotional or intellectual, or a combination of both. People who are convinced of a truth do not always get round to act upon their convictions, it is often necessary to add persuasion, that is, to arouse their emotions in such a way as to overcome their natural inertia and provide a motive force. Examples may be found in the political speaker urging his party constituents to come out and vote; the missionary appealing for funds; the wartime speaker urging his audience to buy war bonds or to give a pint of blood.
6.The speaker may have to entertain, like a speaker raising the toast or compere animating the gathering. Entertainment does not necessarily imply hilarity. It has to call for interest and involvement, and give pleasure. The essential point is unity and singleness of purpose.
Empathy:
The speaker will be able to arouse attention and interest in the audience, if he is able to enter into the world of reality and emotions of the hearers. Empathy means to “feel with”, that is, the speaker has to interpret and experience the inner world of the audience.
Listening:
We need to be in dialogue with other people. Unless we listen to others, we shall not be able to enter into the world of ideas and emotions of other people, and therefore we shall not be able to experience their inner world and be able to help them.
Tools to make communication skills effective:
The tools of the speech will be the choice of words, the audio-visual means, the electronic devices, the voice, articulation. The speaker must be master of his subject. He must investigate or dig up all the facts, review them, appraise them, determine the findings, arrive at conclusions, with a feeling of unshakable certainty. Let him illustrate with concrete cases.
We can sum up the essential points of a speech as follows:
1.Secure interested attention; 2.Win confidence; 3.State your facts, and educate people regarding the merits of your statement; 4.Appeal to the motives and action.
Scribbling 