Public Speaking Chapter 4

Joao is telling a story about something that happened in his Intercultural Communication course. His younger brother asks "What's intercultural communication?" How might Joao reply?

"Intercultural communication happens when people with different backgrounds or experiences communicate."

Sam is telling his husband that he is working on a paper about intercultural communication. Their daughter asks "What's intercultural communication?" How might Sam reply?

"Intercultural communication happens when people with different backgrounds or worldviews communicate."

At a school board meeting, Wally is presenting his plan to eliminating honors and AP classes in the interest of fairness and equality. His presentation is well crafted and expertly delivered, but many of the other people disagree strongly, and he loses the vote. What led to this situation?

A difference in values

Which of the following is considered demographic data?

Age

NOT Philipa has just finished giving a speech about learning car repair from her grandfather. In order to improve her public speaking skills, what should she try to do as soon as possible?

Ask each member of the audience to write a short paragraph about her speech.

What should be your first step in preparing a speech or presentation?

Find out about the event and the audience.

Hua will be presenting before a community group on school safety. What should be her first step?

Finding out about the audience and the event

Jamal's friend asks him: "How do I know if an object or style is cultural appropriation or not?" What might Jamal answer?

Has the source culture been historically exploited or oppressed? Does the object have particular cultural meaning or religious significance? Does someone besides the source group stand to profit or benefit from its use this way? If the answers are yes, it may well be appropriation.

A good way to get useful feedback from your audience is to:

Let one or two people know in advance that you'd like to ask them for feedback.

Karl is visiting Vietnam with his wife, who grew up there. His in-laws are extremely accommodating—driving them around, cooking them delicious food, and helping them feel at home. Karl is careful to thank them graciously—in Vietnamese—whenever they help him. At some point his wife says "you know, with people that are close to us, like family, we tend not to say thank you so much, because that's really for acquaintances and strangers. Family members are happy to help each other!" "Ah!" says Karl. "That's really good to know. I'll try not to do it so much in the future." This is an example of

Metacognitive Cultural Intelligence.

Jen is speaking to a group called Parks Not Parking Lots (promoters of urban green space) about trying to rally support for a ballot measure increasing downtown parking options to promote business. Given the topic, what kind of audience can Jen expect?

NOT A friendly audience

Antonio works in the IT department at a University. He's telling his coworkers about a new RAID server he just finished setting up. After he talks for a while about the technical specifications, he notices one of his coworkers glancing at their laptop. What should he do?

NOT Antonio should stop lecturing immediately-- his coworkers can't take any more information. It's time to start the question and answer session. **He shouldn't worry-- maybe that coworker is expecting an important email. It couldn't hurt to reengage the audience with a question, though.

Sonja is giving a talk to her local homeowners association about ways they could help people experiencing homelessness and living outdoors in their neighborhood. Before her talk, she emails a brief survey to the participants to get a sense of their views on the causes and effects of homelessness. What kind of information is she gathering?

Psychological information about values and beliefs

Alejandra is preparing a grant application as part of her job for an organization that runs a career-readiness program. As part of the application, the grant funder wants to know demographic information about the program's participants. What kind of information would be included in this part of the application?

Racial groups represented by the participants, age range of the participants, and level of educational attainment.

In her speech on Islamic art, Sara says "Muslims believe that representations of people or animals are blasphemous, so you don't see any depictions of these things in Islamic art." One of her classmates interrupts her and says "Wait, I'm Muslim, and I don't believe that." What seems to have happened here?

Sara should have been more careful about characterizing the beliefs of a highly diverse religious group.

Kahlil was invited to lead a workshop on photography with an afterschool youth program. The organizer of the event tells him: "they're great kids! They get distracted easily, though, so it's good to keep things moving. I think all of them know how to use a camera already." What kind of audience information is this?

Second-hand observation

Davida, a psychiatrist, volunteers with an organization that provides emergency psychiatric care for people experiencing homelessness. She is scheduled to speak with a group of psychiatrists to recruit more help for her organization. In her previous meetings with this group, she has observed that they tend to be politically conservative, while she identifies as very liberal. How might Davida use this information to inform her speech preparation?

She should avoid offhand political jokes or comments and keep her audience's good will for her actual message.

Juan has been recently hired as the Director of Resident Life at Brighton College. During orientation he will be speaking on diversity and inclusion on college campuses. Prior to the event Juan should:

Take time to research the different ways that diversity is currently represented on campus.

Why is it important to study demographic information prior to developing your speech?

To ensure that your topic is appropriate for the audience

As soon as possible after a speech, it can be very helpful to...

Write down your impressions of the speech.

Sydney will be speaking before a graduating college class on their commencement day. The college has let her know that they have a higher percentage of non-traditional graduates. Sydney realizes that to tailor her speech to this audience she needs to know more about their static characteristics such as age, gender, and social class. To do so she should:

gather demographic information

One important feature of audience diversity to keep in mind is that diversity

is not always visible

Jing is talking to her friend Angelina, who comes from Italy. Angelina says "Americans seem friendly, but they're really rude. They ask 'how are you?,' but then they don't really want to hear the answer!'" This statement is an example of ethnocentrism because

it defines politeness according to the speaker's cultural standards.

In audience analysis, three methods used to gather information before you speak are

observation, inference, and data collection (surveys)

Cultural competence is one way of describing

one's ability to behave appropriately and communicate effectively within a multicultural and diverse environment.

One way of gathering audience information before a presentation is:

questioning the person who invited you

Adapting your speech as you are presenting it is not easy. However, it is doable if...

you are observant of your audience, pay attention to their cues, and have a plan in place.

Lois is speaking to a group called Booksmart (promoters of literacy education) about trying to rally support for a ballot measure increasing funding for local libraries. Given his topic, what kind of audience can he expect at his talk?

A friendly audience

Which of the following might be considered cultural appropriation?

An "Indian Warrior" Halloween costume, complete with headdress and face paint

Najila will be petitioning the university Curriculum Committee to count her proficiency in American Sign Language toward her graduation requirements (it is not currently on the list of approved languages). She finds out that several members of the committee are in the World Languages department and have published articles on the need for students to learn languages in college. How might this knowledge of her audience shape Najila's proposal?

By reading their articles and researching their arguments, she can show how ASL fulfills the goals they were arguing for.

Jalissa, who grew up in England, is on a trip to the U.S. to raise support for her nonprofit, which provides legal support for migrants trying to enter Europe. She has several versions of her presentation, since she knows she needs different arguments depending on the political leanings of the area she's in. In liberal cities like San Francisco, she talks mostly about the legal rights of the migrants. In more conservative West Texas, she talks about how her program can help to disupt smuggling operations and combat extremism and terrorism. This knowledge of the U.S. political landscape is an example of:

Cognitive Cultural Intelligence.

Jane is traveling to Morocco in a few months. To prepare, she reads a number of books about contemporary Moroccan culture. Jane is increasing her:

Cognitive Cultural Intelligence.

Mario, a student at Trident University, has been asked to give a speech to the college alumni association at the scholarship golf fundraiser. What is something he should do before the day of the event?

Consider why this group will be attending the event.

Sam has been asked to give a speech at an event for the Humane Society. What is something they should do before the day of the event?

Consider why this group will be attending the event.

Philipa's company does a lot of business in Brazil, so she has flown down to São Paulo for an important meeting at the office there. During her presentation, Philipa blames some supply-chain disruptions on one of the Brazilian teams. After a heated discussion of the issue later in the meeting, Philipa realizes that she had made a mistake; the problem had to do with the factory in Taiwan. She turns to Luiz, who runs the distribution team and had just been grilled for the last hour about problems he hadn't caused, and says "sorry about that, Luiz! A case of mistaken identity." The next day a Brazilian colleague pulls her aside and says "you really need to meet with Luiz. He's pretty angry. Here in Brazil it's customary to give a real apology, and we try not to do it in a public meeting." What happened in this intercultural situation?

Philipa failed to account for the different value-system in her hosts' culture.

Jim is applying for a graduate degree program. One part of the application collects anonymous demographic information about the applicants. What kind of information might be included in this part of the application?

Race/Ethnicity, Gender, Religious background

Students in a Public Speaking class were told that they would be presenting an eight-minute demonstration speech during the next class. On the day of the speech, Shantelle was selected to go first and started to give her speech in front of 25 peers. One minute into the speech, she could see that some were beginning to chatter and others were nodding off to sleep. She immediately felt flustered. What is one way that would be appropriate for Shantel to respond?

Re-engage the audience by asking them to answer a question through a show of hands.

During fashion week in 2017, fashion designer Marc Jacobs sent mostly white models down the runway in hand-dyed wool dreadlocks. Since dreadlocks are most often associated with African-American hairstyles, some media observers suggested that this might be a case of:

cultural appropriation.

Antônia is talking to her family about a conversation they had in her Anthropology class about Japanese culture. Her younger sister asks "wait, what's culture?" How might Antônia answer?

"Culture is every aspect of our experience that isn't physical fact. So our language is culture, and the things we think are important are part of culture, and so is the way we dress or what we eat."

Audience analysis is the process of gathering information about an expected audience, used to help a public speaker adapt the content of a speech. How do demographic and inference data differ in regards to audience analysis?

Demographic data is information about characteristics of a population whereas inferences are a type of "educated guess" made from observations or research.

Julian is giving a workshop on personal finance at a local community center. He asks the organizer of the workshop series: "Who usually comes to these workshops? How old are they? What do they do for a living? What kind of education do they have?" What kind of information is he looking for?

Demographic information

Frank is speaking about credit card consumer protection. At one point in his speech he says "Christians are supposed to be against usury, but American Christians don't seem particularly riled up about 25% interest rates." During the Q&A, there are a number of questions about this statement. First, Frank has to explain that usury is an old word for lending at interest. Then one student, who seems annoyed, says "why am I supposed to be against that?" Another says "my minister talks about debt relief all the time." A third says "I don't understand this at all. I was raised Muslim." Another says "You have to be careful talking about 'usury'— that word's been used to persecute Jews for centuries."

Frank didn't take into account a number of important considerations when discussing religion, for instance how sensitive people can be to labels and characterizations, and also the fact that religious references have to be explained so that everyone can understand what you're talking about.

Which of the following best illustrates tailoring a speech to the audience?

Geraldo is a visual artist. Since he'll be speaking at a fundraiser for a local music venue to an audience of rock fans, he decides to talk about album cover art.

Tasha is trying to convince her co-op board that they should put solar panels on the roof of their building. After the years-long argument about putting a compost bin in the back yard, she knows that the board is pretty divided about environmental issues. How could she use this information to inform her argument in favor of putting solar panels on the roof?

Give equal weight to the environment benefits and the cost savings over time

Amal, who is majoring in philosophy, is giving a speech to his class about why philosophy isn't a waste of time. He has the class fill out a survey and finds out that many of his classmates are majoring in business and marketing. How might this information shape the organization of his speech?

He can start with the questions one might encounter in the business world, then show how philosophy can help resolve these questions.

Hamid will be leading a workshop on creative problem solving and thinking outside the box. From a pre-workshop survey, he learns that half of the participants in the workshop grew up outside the United States. How might he use this information to prepare his presentation?

He could invite participants to draw from their experience to think about cultural differences in approaching common tasks, like how to get groceries.

Tadeus is giving testimony at City Council about a proposal to construct public bathrooms by the waterfront. He's not sure what to say, since he's never seen a City Council meeting before. What should he do first?

He should find out who will be there and how the meeting works.

Which of the following is most likely to be considered an example of ethnocentrism?

Hilde, who is visiting China from Norway, remarks that people in China "seem to have no idea of personal space" on public transportation.

Tumaini, who is studying in the U.S. and comes from Germany, asks his roommate "what am I supposed to do when people nod and say 'how's it going?' but then keep walking? How am I supposed to answer the question? His roommate says "oh, that's just another way to say 'hello.' It's only occasionally a real question." Tumaini says: "That's really good to know! I'll stop trying to answer if they keep walking." This is an example of

NOT Tumaini's lack of Behavioral Cultural Intelligence.

Which of the following best illustrates tailoring a speech to the audience?

NOT JD is a passionate environmentalist, and he's excited to talk to the local chamber of commerce about increasing the amount of bike parking downtown. If more people could bike downtown, they could reduce both traffic congestion and the city's carbon footprint.

Suzi and Chandra are high school teachers. Since Chandra is an expert in Constitutional Law, Suzi invites her to teach a class about the First Amendment. In preparation for the guest lecture, Chandra visits Suzi's class, and sees that the students are talkative and bright, but are also easily distractible and sometimes disrupt class with off-topic comments. How might Chandra use this information to prepare her lesson?

She should plan lots of time for discussion, interaction, and small-group conversation.

Speakers should pay attention to audience feedback. When and how does the audience give feedback to the speaker?

Speakers should pay attention to audience feedback. When and how does the audience give feedback to the speaker?

In class, Lana gives a speech calling for the elimination of football at her university. She has carefully examined public records of the university's budget, and argues that football costs the school four or five times more than it brings in, and rarely sees much success on the playing field. Meanwhile, university leadership has just announced significant cuts to academic programs. Lana gives her speech, and the class seems completely confused. One student says: "Eliminate football? Now? You must be nuts!" It turns out that it was just announced that the team earned a spot in a nationally televised bowl game, and the whole town seems to be celebrating this morning. What has Lana failed to consider?

The timing of her speech. If she had acknowledged the announcement, she could have spoken to the excitement of her classmates while still making her argument.

Kiera recently joined a fast-growing tech startup. Wanting to impress her new boss, she volunteered to present at the next quarterly meeting on a project that she and her team had collaborated on. Just before she is supposed to speak she finds that the projector will not connect to her laptop, making it impossible to use her prepared slide show. As she fiddles with the connection, audience members begin to get restless. Keira can re-engage her audience by...

ditching her plan to use technology and give an impromptu oral presentation on the topic.

Which of the following might be considered cultural appropriation?

dressing as a Buddhist monk for a speech about meditation

At a local diner, Theo introduces Ulf, his Austrian roommate, to the root beer float. Ulf is shocked and appalled: "Ice cream with root beer?! What's wrong with you Americans?" This is a (relatively harmless) example of:

ethnocentrism