Part 3: SPEAKER’S REFERENCE
LearningCurve can help you review. Go to bedfordstmartins.com/speakersguide
AUDIENCE ANALYSIS AND TOPIC SELECTION
SPEAKER’S REFERENCE
Learn about Your Audience and Adapt Your Message Accordingly
- Seek out information about your audience in order to give a speech that will be meaningful to them.
- Maintain an audience-centered perspective as you prepare all aspects of a speech.
Investigate Audience Psychology
- Understand the nature of attitudes, beliefs, and values, and the central role they play in audience receptivity to a message.
- Seek information on audience members’ relevant attitudes, beliefs, and values about the topic and related issues.
- Appeal directly to important audience values related to your topic.
- Adjust your strategy depending on whether listeners are positively, negatively, or neutrally disposed toward the topic.
Gauge Listeners’ Feelings toward You as the Speaker
- Anticipate how audience members will perceive you and strive to establish credibility, or ethos.
- Stress shared experiences to create identification.
- Emphasize common goals and values.
- Use inclusive language.
Gauge Listeners’ Feelings toward the Occasion
- Consider the reason and circumstances for the speech.
- Consider whether the audience is captive or voluntary; adjust accordingly.
Adapt the Message to Audience Demographics
Appeal to Your Target Audience
- Identify whom in the audience you are most likely to influence.
- Focus on target audience but aim to make topic relevant to all listeners.
Address the Age Range of Your Audience
Consider Cultural Background
Consider the Socioeconomic Status of Your Audience
- Consider that listeners’ attitudes may be closely tied to occupational status and income level.
- Use examples that are appropriate to the audience’s level of education.
Consider Religious and Political Affiliations
Avoid Judgments Based on Gender Stereotypes and Avoid Sexist Language
- Treat gender-related issues evenly.
- Consider the groups to which audience members belong and appeal to the interests and values they reflect.
Consider How Disability May Affect Audience Members
Adapt to Cultural Values
- Identify listeners’ major values and cultural orientation related to your topic and adapt your speech accordingly.
- Consult cross-cultural polls to further identify audience attitudes.
- Focus on universal values.
Gather Information about Your Audience from a Variety of Sources
- For classroom speeches, consider questionnaires or instant polls.
- Look for information about the audience in published sources.
Learn about the Audience through Surveys
- Consider interviewing one or more representatives of the audience.
- Distribute questionnaires using open- and close-ended questions.
Investigate the Logistics of the Speech Setting
- Find out in advance what the physical setting will be like.
- Plan appropriately for the length and timing of your speech.
Select a Topic and Purpose Appropriate to the Audience, Occasion, and Rhetorical Situation
Consider Various Approaches to Selecting Your Topic
- Follow personal interests, but ensure the topic will interest the audience.
- Survey current events.
- Consider civic issues, current events, and controversial issues.
- Avoid overused and trite topics.
- Brainstorm with word association, topic mapping, and Internet tools to generate ideas.
Select from the Three General Speech Purposes
- Use an informative speech to increase audience understanding and awareness.
- Use a persuasive speech to effect change in audience attitudes, beliefs, values, or behavior.
- Use a special occasion speech when the specific event calls for entertainment, celebration, commemoration, inspiration, or setting a social agenda.
Narrow the Topic and Purpose
- Narrow your topic to align with audience expectations and interests, occasion, and time constraints.
- Consider using a library portal to research and narrow topics.
- Form a specific speech purpose—a statement of what you want the audience to gain from the speech.
Formulate the Thesis Statement
- State the thesis as a single, declarative sentence that poses the central idea of your speech.
- Use the thesis to help you develop main points.
- Make the thesis statement relevant and motivating by adding key words or phrases and considering audience interests.
KEY TERMS
|
sexist language |
*Go to the Resources tab > Content by type > Videos to view this video