Many novice speakers are uncomfortable with pauses. It’s as if some social stigma is attached to any silence in a speech. We often react the same way in conversation, covering pauses with unnecessary and undesirable vocal fillers, such as “uh,” “hmm,” “you know,” “I mean,” and “it’s like.” Like pitch, however, pauses can be important strategic elements of a speech. Pauses enhance meaning by providing a type of punctuation, emphasizing a point, drawing attention to a key thought, or just allowing listeners a moment to contemplate what is being said. They make a speech far more effective than it might otherwise be. Both the speaker and the audience need pauses.
In his well-known “I Have a Dream” speech, Martin Luther King Jr. exhibits masterful use of strategic pauses. In what is now the most memorable segment of the speech, King pauses, just momentarily, to secure the audience’s attention to the next words that are about to be spoken:
I have a dream [pause] that one day on the red hills of Georgia. . . .
I have a dream [pause] that one day even the great state of Mississippi. . . . 5
Imagine how diminished the impact of this speech would have been if King had uttered “uh” or “you know” at each of these pauses! Unnecessary filled pauses can adversely affect your ability to convince your audience of your message.