DipComm

• Why is non-verbal communication important

  • Engage and connect the speaker to the audience
  • Enhances speaker's message further
  • Makes a speaker more natural and spontaneous
  • An effective tool for ESL audiences 
  • Often subconsciously judged
• non verbal communication - Considerations in the physical components

  • Gesture
  • Eye Contact
  • Facial Expression
  • Appearance
  • Stance
• Albert Mehrabin conducted a study that showed people understand: 

  • 7% of spoken words 
  • 38% of voice 
  • 55% body language 

  Take away meaning in face-to-face communication
• Suprasugmontals 

  • Tone →pitch 
  • Tempo 
  • Tamba → quality 
  • Volume 
  • Silence can speak volumes 
  • Stress 
• Stress 

  • Relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word, or to certain words in a phrase sentence 
• Pitch: The tone (height or depth) that is used in some expression 
• Intonation: Is often the use of changing vocal pitch (rising or falling) to convey grammatical information or attitude
• Rising intonation is commonly used in:

  1. Questions that ask for a yes or no answer 
  2. Questions that show warm personal interest 
  3. Enumerating items 
  4. Polite requests 
  5. Greetings 
  6. Indicating uncertainty 
  7. Incomplete statements 
• Falling intonation is commonly used in:

  1. Giving commands 
  2. Making statements 
  3. Questions that demand information 
• Falling intonation: has a gradual and rhythmical fall in the pitch of the speaker, with a considerable duration and tempo 
• Juncture: how native English speakers will blend words 
• 1. Gesture 

  • Used to create a connection between the audience and the speaker 
  • Natural, meaningful and spontaneous
  • Cant be rehearsed 
  • If it is distracting it can make you more nervous 
  • Match your gestures to the size of the room 
  • Big room, take up more room/space etc 
  • So the audience can see what you are doing 
  • Imagine you have oranges under your arms 
  • Be open 
  • Be aware of culturally inappropriate gestures 
  • Avoid self-soothing gestures (eg rocking) 
• • All aspects of your body to public speaking 
  • Head → memorise opening and closing paragraph 
  • Eyes → consistent eye contact to build trust 
  • Ears → listen and read the mood of the room 
  • Back → stand properly for proper breathing, having a good, wide stance shows that you have power 
  • Leg → don’t sway it is distracting 
  • Hands → gesture 
  • Mouth → speak clearly with variation 
• 1. Eye contact 

  • Share evenly across the whole audience 
  • Look at an invisible, upside-down triangle on each person's forehead 
  • Try to make a connection with each individual by looking at each person (if a smaller area)
  • If larger area look at the bottom middle, bottom left, top right etc 
  • Most important at the beginning or the end 
  • Lack of eye contact projects lack of confidence and anxiety 
• 1. Facial expression

  • Helps build rapport as it helps the audience build an understanding of your personality 
  • Match the tone of what you are trying to achieve 
• 1. Appearance 

  • Subconsciously impacts what the audience thinks of a speaker 
  • Be professional 
  • Be comfortable 
  • Be appropriate 
  • Be naturally made up 
  • Avoid wearing noisy jewellery (especially if speaking into a microphone) 
• 1. Stance 

  • Feet should be shoulder-width apart 
  • Ease in the knees 
  • Long strong straight spine 
  • Speech crown 
  • It enables you to breathe 
  • Use visualisation → stones for feet, hourglass 
  • Dont sway → shows anxiety 
  • Movement is okay if it adds to your speech
• Body and Tone 

  • More connections between the brain and the palm of your hand than anywhere else on the body 
  • The movement of your hands can change a fun suggestion into an order 
  • Palms up: laid back, friendly, humorous, engaging 
  • Palm down: pushy 
  • Pointing has the worst response 
  • 4 times more power when palms are down than up 
• Sugrasegmental Features 

  • Speech sounds → Phoneme → sound segment 
  • Suprasegmental: A vocal effect that extends over more than one segment in an utterance (beyond the segment (level)) 
  • Pitch 
  • Loudness 
  • Stress 
  • Intonation 
  • Tone 
  • Perceived timing 
  • Juncture patterns 
• • Length: the time it takes to pronounce a phoneme 
  • It makes sense when vowels/syllables are compared to each other 
• • vocal Stress results in: 
  • Increased respiratory muscle activity 
  • Exaggeration in sound segment properties such as vowel height, and stop aspiration 
  • Exaggerated pitch
• • Intonation: used to create contrastive emphasis 
• • Pitch: change with the rate of vibration of the vocal folds independently of stress
• Physical barriers 

  • Background noise 
  • Closed door 
  • Faulty equipment→ powerpoints, microphones 
  • Lecterns 
  • Stand to the side 
  • Higher gestures if there is a mic 
  • Microphone 
  • Distance 
  • Appearance 
  • Assumptions 
• Vocal/linguistic barriers 

  • Microphone 
  • Delivery 
  • fast pace, you might want to: 
  • mark pauses, breathing spaces 
  • Record yourself 
  • Avoid reading → be spontaneous 
  • Monotone 
  • Written structure of a speech 
  • don't speak like an essay? write for the ear = colloquial 
  • vary sentence length 
  • Use language devices 
  • Avoid high-rising at the end of sentences as a pattern 
  • Creates a sense of uncertainty 
  • Verbal static 
  • Use of um, er, yeah, you know
  • Hinder communication 
  • The audience starts to count 
  • Don't stutter 
  • Singing is good therapy 
  • Breathing exercises 
• Physiological barriers 

  • Stage fear 
  • Phobia 
  • Speech disorder → stuttering has deep roots in anxiety 
  • Having an off-mood 
• Cognitive Cultural barriers and restraints  

  • Some cultures are black-hatted (looking to right wrongs) and some are green-hatted (creative)
• Behavioural Cultural barriers and restraints  

  • Different levels of appropriateness 
  • Some are not comfortable when you look them in the eyes 
  • Some don't like a direct approach 
  • Different styles and what is appropriate to wear 
• Emotional Cultural barriers and restraints 

  • Some have more emotion/passion when speaking (Italians, Greeks, generally Europeans), and some are more reserved/calm and focus on reason and logic (Asia?)
• Linguistic Cultural barriers and restraints

  • Differences between age groups, cultures and countries 
  • Gas in America means petrol, in Australia, it can be a fart 
  • Tap is called a faucet in the UK 
  • Iddioms, slang and jargon 
• Overcome barriers 

  1. Check whether the time and place are good for communication 
  2. Being clear and using language the people understand
  3. Communicate one thing at a time 
  4. Respecting a person's desire not to communicate 
  5. Check-in to see if the people understand
  6. Free of distractions 
  7. Acknowledge emotional responses to what you have said by the audience 
• Assumptions

  • This can lead to inaccuracies 
  • If the audience is nodding doesn't necessarily mean they understand 
  • If you say are there any questions and no one puts their hand up doesn’t mean everyone understands, they may be nervous 
  • You can initiate the discussion by asking a question to the audience 
  • Always assume you are wrong 
  • Assess the audiences reaction to your material 
  • Adapt the material to suit the audience 
• Bias vs assumption 

  Bias is the attitude or behaviours based on the stereotype of people. 

  Assumptions are the idea that is taken for granted but not necessarily proven. 
• Bias

  • Unconscious bias refers to the automatics, hidden, instantaneous judgements and stereotypes that our brain makes up about others 
  • Confirmation bias is when you only focus on a small aspect of something, it can look like:
  • no seeking out facts 
  • interpreting information to support your belief 
  • Only remembering details that uphold your belief 
  • ignoring information that challenges your belief
• Radios as a medium - over the phone or in the studio 

  • Hydrate, warm up, speak with a smile, gesture 
• Television as a medium - likely in the studio 

  • Appearance 
  • White/shiny colours can become see-through and reflect the light 
  • No busy patterns 
  • No strips; Horizontal stripes make you look wider 
  • No green in case of a green screen 
  • Red can go smudgy  instead of sharp 
  • Hair should be neat and off the face 
  • Natural makeup 
  • Use powder so you aren’t too shiny 
• Lights in interviews

  • Ensure you don’t have any weird dark shadows or spots 
  • If you are wearing glasses and using a ring light it can reflect so be aware
• Camera in an interview

  • It should be at eye level 
  • Framed correctly 
  • Head and shoulders visible with a bit of a gap in between the top of your head and the top of your screen 
  • Eliminate anything distracting in your background 
• AMEN (media)

  • Audience 
  • Know who your audience is 
  • Demographics → Who is listening to you 
  • Changes the way you express yourself 
  • Eg. if you are on ABC you want to appear educated, articulate and expensive as that is the group of people who are watching 
  • Messages - no more than  3 take-home points 
  • Ask for questions ahead of time 
  • Sound bite - 10 second grab that 
  • Examples - back up the message with stories 
  • Negatives 
• Media ABC method

  Acknowledge 

  Bridging/blocking (avoiding, denying, evasive) 

  Communicate Key Message