Successful of a presentation is determined not only by its contents, but the way it is delivered, merely effective body language, facial expression and eye contact, as well as vocal strategies. The Victory Speech by Barack Obama that he made after winning elections in 2008 represents a fusion of all elements, crucial for the delivery of a quality speech. While giving the speech, Barack Obama maintains a balanced position. Sometimes allowing himself leaning forward while speaking, he avoids leaning on one foot that may be perceived as the lack of confidence or doubts. From the tempo of speaking and dynamics of pauses, it can be noticed that Mr. Obama aims at establishing relations of mutual trust between himself and the audience.
The amount of hand gestures is quite limited. That is why particularly hand gestures help the speaker effectively emphasize key points of the speech, for example, when directly referring to the audience (e.g., thanking Americans for supporting him at the elections). It is important to stress that not using gestures continuously helps to make the speech more structured by separating substantive parts of the speech from one another with the help of hand gestures.
During the whole speech, Mr. Obama continuously animates – his facial expression changes quite quickly, dependently on changes in the contents and dynamics of his speech, as well as the feedback of the audience. Sometimes, when making pauses and allowing the audience to express their emotions, Barack Obama allows himself to maintain the same facial expression for longer time. During these moments, he looks thoughtful and, thus, intrigues the audience. However, while this tool seems to work in the case of the Victory Speech, it can be too pretentious in other cases, when the audience requires non-stop dynamics.
Similar tool is used with regard to the eye contact. During the whole speech, Obama tends to maintain eye contact with the audience. However, when he is silent and thoughtful, he allows himself breaking this eye contact for a moment.
Pauses play a crucial part in the speech as a tool that helps Obama bring structure to it, as well as maintain contact with the audience by letting people express themselves during them. In other words, pauses convert monologue by Obama into his first dialogue with his electorate. Apart from pauses, the speaker uses relatively slow tempo of speaking, providing the audience with the opportunity to effectively “digest” what is being said and get engaged into the “dialogue” that takes place during pauses. It is important to note that the speech is delivered very clearly due to the fact that words are pronounced separately, and key points are emphasized with the help of both intonation and gestures.
As it was mentioned above, inflection plays a key role in making the speech not monotones and emphasizing key word combinations or phrases, such as “moving the country forward”, “all of you are family”, “ America that is not threatened by debt..” etc. Modulation of Obama’s becomes softer, when he refers to values that are shared by all Americans, such as importance of family and children, generosity and compassion.
Analysis of the way the Victory Speech was delivered by Barack Obama allows concluding that he utilized wide range of presentation delivery strategies in order to make his speech engaging and appealing for listeners. Thus, it represents a good example of learning effective strategies of speech delivery.
Works cited
Obama, Barack. “Victory Speech 2008”. Online video clip. Youtube. YouTube, 19 October 2012. Web. 27 December 2014
