Public Speaking and Non-verbal Communication

   Have you ever thought that what can make you prosperous in public speaking? People need some movements to express themselves which are quite effective ways for being a good speaker. These movements are known as verbal and non-verbal communication. To prosper in public speaking, non-verbal communication types need to be known acutely and used effectively. From a historical perspective, non-verbal communication types are based on Charles Darwin's The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals in 1872. In addition to that, research show that people are mostly affected by non-verbal communication types. For instance, facial expressions, eye contact, voice, touch, gestures, body movements, and postures which are undoubtedly significance for giving an efficient speech. These types have %93 influence on people. Briefly, these types play a crucial role to make people an excellent public speaker. Although, non-verbal communication types can lead to serious problems, such as difficulty in understanding, differences in culture, and egocentrism, it has also considerable advantages, as well.

   Firstly, types of communication are based on verbal and non-verbal communication. These two main types substantially enhance each other. First one is, verbal communication which divide into two types as oral and written is a kind of vehicle for expressing ideas and demands. Besides, it has a crucial role to the process of learning and teaching, as well as building relationship with other people. According to Albert Mehrabian’s research, verbal communication has a %7 impact on people. Despite this low influence, its importance cannot be underestimated. In presentations, messages should be understandable to catch the audience attention. To make messages understandable, verbal skills should -which include- convey messages concisely, be audience-centered, help speak confidently and supporting statements with facts need to be used efficiently. For example, if a speaker presents his topic confidently and supports his topic with evidences, it makes audience interested in topic. Secondly, non-verbal communication is communication without words. Non-verbal communication includes eye contact, gestures, space, touch, and body movements. These types have a %93 influence on people. Based on this percentage, non-verbal communication has a great influence on people in comparison with verbal communication. To clarify, non-verbal signals reflects the situation more accurately than verbal messages. When people interact with others, they constantly give and receive wordless signals. All their behaviors including the posture of people, how much eye contact they make, and how far we stand send strong messages to other people. For example, if speakers make an eye contact with audiences, their speech become more believable. Furthermore, the audiences are likely to look at the speaker and more likely to receive the speaker’s message. These situations make your speech more efficient. Besides, these types are a fundamental way to make you a prominent person in public speaking. To summarize the main point, verbal and non-verbal communication types complement each other. Without one, your speech is likely to be less impressive and powerful.

    Secondly, “Actions speak louder than words.” Indeed, this quota underscores the importance of non-verbal communication. So, non-verbal communication is vitally important for giving an effective speech. Besides, using visual aids, photos, and graphics make the speech more professional and attractive. Without non-verbal communication types, the speech can be less influential and charming. So, using these types can provide enormous advantages to the speakers. One of the advantages is that non-verbal communication can help speakers to demonstrate their confidence, enthusiasm and professionalism by having good postures. For example, speakers should be meticulous for their posture as it is highly effective way to draw attention. It conveys the message that you have enough knowledge about the topic. Also, good posture has several benefits for speakers, as well. Upright position improves mood and energy levels. In other words, posture has major influences on your energy, optimism and mood. Other advantage is that non-verbal communication easily transmits complex ideas to the audience with the help of a single action, such as body movements, visual aids, and facial expressions. With the help of them, the speaker will have a chance to demonstrate the information easily by using visual aids. To illustrate, a speaker occasionally should use visual aids in some topics, alike economy to make the presentation or speech more interesting and reinforce the key points. For economical topics, showing graphical statistics or photos provide considerable benefits to the speaker, such as increasing audience interest, clarifying points and being remembered what the speaker mentioned later. The third advantage is that non-verbal communication decreases the waste of time of the speaker since the message from the non-verbal is received by audiences undoubtedly fast. To exemplify, the speaker should sometimes ask questions to audiences as a speaker to make them involved. In this situation, the speaker can make use of facial expression or gestures, such as smiling and nodding to encourage them. Briefly, non- verbal communication has a great importance and benefits to speakers who want to prosper in public speaking.

    Finally, although non-verbal communication has many advantages, it leads to some serious drawbacks, as well. First disadvantage is that non-verbal communication means communication by using signs, symbols, and gestures. Speakers use gestures, symbols, and signs for communicating with audiences and these indicators sometimes may not be understandable for them. Because of that, these indicators which are unknown by audiences can cause difficulty in understanding. For instance, if speakers use new signs or symbols in their speech and audiences may not know the new signs, it can cause distortion of information between the speaker and audiences. Second disadvantage is cultural differences. Some non-verbal communication types like gestures are considered as a universal such as, smile while happy and frown while unhappy or angry. However, some types like touch may convey some different meaning in other cultures.  For example, Islamic cultures do not approve of any touching between genders and Asian culture find touch unacceptable especially touching in their head; therefore, speakers who give a speech in these cultures, they should pay attention to their movements. Thirdly, ego-centrism can provide considerable disadvantages to speakers. Since every culture has different humor style, speakers should avoid reflecting a specific style to their audiences. They should benefit from common styles. For example, people in Balkans use gallows humor which includes death, war, and disease. If the speaker in Balkans use this humor while giving a speech, people in other countries can take it seriously and misperceive the speaker. So, the joke will return the speaker as unfavorably. To sum up briefly, non-verbal communication has a lot of drawbacks, for this reason, speakers who want to prosper in public speaking must pay attention to the movements they should not do.

     In conclusion, to prosper in public speaking, speakers should behave accordingly because non-verbal communication has not only substantial profits, but also it has serious drawbacks, including difficulty in understanding, culture differences, and ego-centrism. “The most important thing in communication is hearing what is not said” by Peter Drucker. This quota must always be remembered and fulfilled properly by the speaker. To emphasize its importance, according to Ralph Waldo Emerson, “When the eyes say one thing, and the tongue another, the practiced man relies on the language of first.” So, the speaker must pay attention to his non-verbal skills since audiences mostly believe the speaker’s silent words.