Description

The Speech Opening

Barlow Daniel ‘s topic was “Power Words!” and the genre is a kind of TED talk. The speaker’s objective was to inform us what are the Yale top twelve power words. He opened with a high intonation of ‘Power words!’ with a background of lightning. It was impressive! He began with “words construct reality…are everything…have power”, with high stress on “words” and gestures to show the importance. The hook effectively aroused the interest from the audiences. The words and body language at the speech opening were crucial to his success of the speech and the speech opening precisely established the intention of the speech.

Speech Content and Language

The speech content was well selected and logically organized to achieve the objective of the primary speech. The speech was focused, and examples were used to further elaborate “Power Words”. They supported his topic and was balanced. He firstly linked the twelve power words with meaning, then related them to four fundamental needs, with high stress on some words, like “Nothing else, Freedom”. He illustrated “desire” with repetition of “want want want…”, which was a kind of rhetorical device. He described some scenes to illustrate the important of ‘you’. These all could improve understanding. The language suited the audience. He articulated clearly, and the sentences were short and easy to understand. No jargon or complex language was used. His language choice increased the intensity of the speech.

Vocal Variety

His delivery was natural and clear with loud and soft variations appropriately used. It was slow enough and understandable. Pauses were appropriately used before and after phrases, or some important words, increased excitement with clear transitions.

Body Language

The speaker used a lot of body language to illustrate his speech and his gestures showed his confidence, which was natural and complementary. His eye contacts effectively connected with audiences. His facial expressions, body movements and gestures added vitality to the presentation.

The Speech Conclusion

The speaker provided a concise conclusion that summarized his speech by repeating the main ideas, which was a recency effect. The conclusion gave a big contrast by saying loudly, “ bullshit!” to show that the 12 Power words do not have research to support it. It was so creative and memorable! This was an excellent speech but there were a few areas for improvement. Sometimes, his volume dropped at points and it was a bit difficult to hear. Besides, he didn’t mention much where he got some of his information.