Speech-Related Theories and Confidence Building by Saudat Abdulbaqi
The rules approach to speech writing and delivery
The importance of rule in social life was discussed by Shimanoff in Littlejohn, (1992). She defines a rule as “as a followable prescription that indicates what behavior is obligated, preferred, prohibited in certain context” (Littlejohn, 1992, p. 198). For communication to exist or continue, two or more interacting individuals must share rule for using symbols. They must also agree on such matters as how to greet, what constitutes insult as well as what is culturally acceptable and what is unacceptable. Otherwise, “if every symbol user manipulated symbol at random, the result would be chaos rather communication” (Littlejohn, 1992. P. 198). This calls for specification of decorum in speech delivery context so that both the speaker and the audience know the expectations of each other. But most importantly, speech writing and delivery are governed by rules of language structure, concord, and so on. These rules must be strictly adhered to if the message receiver is expected to interpret the message as intended by the sender.
Speech Act theory
The cumulative philosophical foundation of Wittgenstein (1953) and Austin (1962) gave birth to what Searle (1969) christened ‘the speech act theory’ (Littlejohn, 1992) The theory deals with the basic unit of language that is meaningful or that expresses intention. This theory helps us to have a better understanding of human communication. While narrating his personal experience with this theory, Kemmerling, (2002), says: “Part of the joy of doing speech act theory, from my strictly first-person point of view, is becoming more and more remindful of how many surprisingly different things we do when we talk to each other”.
The utterance can be a word e.g., ‘go’ or a sentence e.g., ‘she is going’, so long as it complies with rules to accomplish the intention. According to Littlejohn (1992), Searle classified the speech act theory into four levels: utterance act, propositional act, referred to as locution by Austin (Lawal, 2012), illocutionary act and perlocutionary act.
Utterance act: this merely states without any intention to act. The focus of speech is to inform. An example is saying: ‘rat is a mammal’. There is nothing to this pronouncement other than stating the obvious which can be verified. However, Lawal (2012) submit that, although an utterance may not appeal to action at the constative level, the words uttered may carry some weight that indirectly lead to performance of some actions at the performative level. He cited the example of the utterance of a Priest whose statement: “I pronounce you as husband and wife” lead to performances between couples to buttress his assertion.
Propositional or locutionary act: is the pronouncement of a sentence that bears reference to an object, a situation or an event. It is the performance of an utterance. For example, the performance in the declarative statement: ‘I promise to be a good’ lies in the promise to be a good girl. The meaning of the statement is conveyed from the speaker’s utterance.
Illocutionary act: the speaker uses this speech act to elicit response from the listener. The primary goal of the speaker is to ascertain that the listener understands his/her intention. For example, if a man says to his wife: ‘I need some space’, the wife may understand that he wishes to be left alone but she does not leave. Searle, as stated in Littlejohn (19920, identifies five types of illocutionary acts namely:
- Assertives: utterances that represent how things are in the world; examples are, state, affirm, conclude, assert, etc.
- Commissivet: utterances that commit the speaker to do something in the future. This includes the use of words like, promise, vow, pledge, etc.
- Directive: utterances that attempt to get listener to do something with words like, commands, direct, request, pray, implore, etc.
- Declaratory: utterances to convey performance of actions contained in them, that is, conveying the message of done as said. Examples of such acts include, appointing, fired, engaged, etc.
- Expressive: utterances that betray the speaker’s psychological state. A speaker’s state of mind is communicated through acts like thanking, appreciating, apologising, congratulating, etc.
Perlocutionary act: the speaker is not after an understanding of his/her intention by the listener, he/she wants the listener to act in certain ways to demonstrate this understanding. Let us still illustrate with the example of the obstinate wife who displays indifference to her husband’s utterance. The wife would be operating at the perlocutionary level if she leaves the presence of her husband after his declaration that he needed some spaces.
Source credibility theory
The believability of the message in a speech rests largely on the credibility that the speaker enjoys in the perception of the listeners. As revealed from a study carried out by Hovland and his colleagues (Abdulbaqi, 2017) the weight an audience attaches to the trustworthiness of a source has a significant impact on their rating of the message received from such source. Some of the factors on which the audience base their assessment of source are expertise, trustworthiness, persuasiveness, attractiveness, and eloquence. Impliedly, a public speaker must try to live above board, display mastery of his/her field and develop appropriate persuasive skills in order to win the acceptance of his/her current and prospective audience.
Challenges to Effective Speech Writing and Delivery
People will always view the world from different angles. Same diversity defines our perception of self and others. Like every other form of human endvours, this divergence poses a challenge to communicating effectively. When armed with this knowledge, the urge to impress your audience and the disappointment that comes with not attaining this goal will be abated. The challenges include:
Attribution – this process of attaching meaning to behaviours is a byproduct of biases and sentiments. We often use different yardsticks to attribute meanings to our action and those of others. When we or somebody we know commits an offence, we tend to look the other way but we criminalise the same act, if done by others. This double standard affirms that, ‘meaning is in people, not words’. As a speaker, be focused on doing your best with sincerity with the belief that perfection belongs to God.
Perceptual errors: This is caused by self-serving biases in which one judges oneself in the most generous terms possible with an uncharitable attitude towards others. This can lead to judgmental messages and self-serving defenses of one’s action when questioned. The challenge can be minimized by show of empathy i.e., ability to re-create another person’s perspective through; perspective taking and suspension of judgment, emotional consideration by imagining the feelings of others and genuine concern for the welfare of the other.
Influence by what is most obvious: In a duel between a male and a female, onlookers would more readily conclude that the male was exploiting the so-called weakness of the female without exploring the possibility of the female being the first to lash out at the male. Your view about males being victims of violence from the females may not fly amidst people of feminism ideology. But with a logical and factual presentation of your message, you can gain an in-road into their prejudiced mind.
Clinging to first impression: some people hold on, tenaciously to the saying that: ‘first impression last longer’. This mindset keeps a first-time offender on the hook forever even if he does not commit the offence again. The same experience can be observed in a persuasive speech in which all attempts to convince some audience members will be abortive because of the existing deep-seated negative opinion that they hold. You can disabuse their minds and dislodge them of these prejudices with your own credible personality and track records. You buttress your claims with sound evidences and indisputable visual aids such as video clips, pictures, statistics, etc.
High expectations: we tend to equate others with ourselves and expect that they should be able to reason and act as we do. We tend to denigrate them when they fall short of our expectations. This poses challenges to effective communication to both speaker and listener, which can be resolved by cultivating a liberal attitude towards all stakeholders in a communication transaction. Both the speaker and the listener must be humble enough to appreciate that everybody has something to gain from others.
Confidence Building
Self-confidence is a major criterion for successful speech delivery. Lack of it will mar the quality of presentation, no matter how well prepared or written. A speaker’s confidence gets eroded by stage fright which manifests in speech anxiety and nervousness. Lucas (2007, p. 10) reports that 41% of respondents in a survey “consider public speaking worse than death”. The first thing to bear in mind as an aspiring public speaker is the fact that stage fright, speech anxiety and nervousness are natural. However, stage fright is of two categories.
Type of stage fright
Facilitative stage fright: this feeling acts positively to improve the performance of the speaker. It is desirable to be nervous at the start of a speech as it helps the body to secrete enough adrenalin in response to any stressful situation. It is not out of place for you to experience an increase in heartbeat, shaky hands, knocking knees and heavy perspiration as you prepare to take the microphone to begin your presentation. What matters is whether you take advantage of this upsurge in your adrenalin to have a wow presentation or you get repressed by the fear and put up an embarrassing show. Sharing his experience in public speaking, an American novelist and lecturer is quoted by Lucas (2007, p. 10) thus: “Now after many years of practice I am, I suppose, really a ‘practiced speaker’. But I really rise to my feet without a throat constricted with terror and a furiously thumping heart. When, for some reason, I am cool and self-assured, the speech is always a failure”. Aspiring public speakers should be able to put their butterflies to good use by knowing that, all celebrated best speakers were once bad speakers. Only then will stage fright facilitate best performance. Convert your fear to your slave, not your master.
Debilitative stage fright: this when speech anxiety and nervousness inhibit self-expression, causing intense fear, crowded thoughts and embarrassment. To be able to deal positively with stage fright and nervousness, let us look at some of their causes.
Causes of stage fright and nervousness.
- Previous negative experience: a public speaking novice whose initial public appearance ended up disgracefully will always be hunted by the repressive feeling of failure.
- Irrational thinking: thoughts of unpleasant past events are capable of creating highly illogical beliefs in the minds of some people, thereby, leading to nervousness. The resulting effects of this irrational thoughts are:
- Fallacy of catastrophic failure arising from the belief that, if something bad will happen, it probably will. Whereas such speakers fret over their self-assumed failure, they forget that nervousness is more apparent to the speaker than to the audience. It becomes obvious when the speaker plays it out.
- Fallacy of perfection: some speakers aim for flawless presentations while forgetting that perfection belongs to God. Their inability to secure a hole-in-one causes them self-condemnation.
- Fallacy of overgeneralization: this is over-exaggeration of one unfortunate incidence out of proportion.
Solution to address debilitative stage frights
- Be rational: study your system to justify the bases for your stage fright. Repudiate any unfounded negative thought.
- Be receiver-oriented: focus more on what your audience is gaining from your presentation rather than on yourself
- Be prepared: always remember that poor preparation leads to poor performance.
- Be positive: build and maintain a positive attitude towards your audience, your speech and yourself. Draw immeasurable strength from three short statement which you must keep at the back of your mind to reproduce, with an assuring smile before the start of any presentation. The three short statements that are recommended by communication consultants are:
- I’m glad to be here
- I know my topic
- I care about you
Conclusion
Speech is a major tool of human communication. It refers to the ability to speak as well as the spoken words. It is the expression of thoughts and ideas via the articulators. It also refers to a written document that is designed to be presented orally. To achieve the persuasive goal of communication, both source and receiver must be adept in the use of the four communication skills. There are various types of speech, whether spoken or written, and the classification is governed by the purpose for which the speech is meant. Speech writing is a process that evolves through choosing the topic to actual speech writing. After writing the speech, the presenter is at liberty of whether to adopt extemporaneous, impromptu, memorized or manuscript style of presentation. Speech can be subjected to constructive criticism; highlighting its strength and weaknesses.
…………………….
About Author
A Fellow of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR), Dr. Saudat Salah AbdulBaqi is an Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Ilorin and an Adjunct Lecturer at Kwara State University and Summit University. A Chairperson of NIPR Kwara State Chapter, she attended Bayero University Kano (BUK), University of Lagos and Universiti Utara Malaysia for her qualifications.
