Public Speaking Chapter 1 Key Terms

Communication Basics

• Stagefright is anxiety over giving a speech in front of an audience, while positive nervousness is controlled nervousness that helps energize a speaker.
• Visualization is mentally imagining oneself giving a speech successfully.
• A channel is the means of communicating a message, and feedback is the nonverbal message sent from a listener to a speaker.
• Interference (noise) is anything that impedes the communication of a message, and ethnocentrism is the belief that one's own culture is superior to other groups' cultures.

Types of Listening

• Appreciative listening is listening for pleasure or enjoyment.
• Empathetic listening is listening to provide emotional support to a speaker.
• Comprehensive listening is listening to understand the message of a speaker.
• Critical listening is listening to evaluate a message for the purpose of accepting or rejecting.
• Pseudolistening is pretending to listen, while insulated listening avoids listening to something one doesn't want to deal with.
• Defensive listening takes others' comments as personal attacks, and ambushing uses only the part of the message that can be used to attack the speaker.
• Active listening gives attention to a speaker in a genuine effort to understand the message.

Speech Preparation

• Brainstorming is a method of generating ideas.
• A specific purpose is a phrase that states precisely what the speaker hopes to accomplish.
• A central idea (thesis) is a one-sentence statement that encapsulates the main idea of a speech.

Audience Analysis

• Demographic audience analysis focuses on factors such as race, ethnic, religion, etc.
• Situational audience analysis focuses on factors such as the size of the audience, physical setting, occasion, etc.
• Stereotyping is creating an oversimplified idea by assuming all group members are alike.
• Attitude is a frame of mind in favor of or opposed to a belief, person, idea, etc.

Supporting Materials

• An example is a specific case used to represent or illustrate a group of something.
• A brief example is a specific instance, while an extended example is a story or narrative anecdote with some length to illustrate a point.
• A hypothetical example describes an imaginary or fictional example.
• Statistics are numerical data, and mean, median, and mode are measures of central tendency.
• Testimony is a quotation or phrase used to support a point, and can be classified as expert testimony or peer testimony.
• A direct quotation is a word-for-word testimony.

Organizing a Speech

• Chronological order is a pattern where the main points of a speech follow a organized time pattern.
• Spatial order is a directional pattern, while causal order shows a cause-and-effect relationship.
• Topical order divides a speech into logical and consistent subtopics.
• Problem-solution order is a persuasive speech method where the first point shows a problem and then the second point shows the solution.
• Connectives are words or phrases that connect ideas of a speech, and transitions indicate a shift in the speech.