Presentation language

Public Communication in different cultures

It is important to study the public speaking style of each culture. Speaking styles that may be effective at home may spell disaster abroad.

Many cultures, particularly in non-Western nations, have been called “ high-context communication societies. ” In these societies, the meaning of the spoken word is sometimes implicit. The message is likely to be understood from physical context, non-verbal cues, or the social status and credibility of the speaker. Statements may not be explicit and categorical. Spoken words may not have literal meaning. There is a tendency to use metaphors and aphorisms.

On the contrary, North Americans emphasize the spoken word, and the message is usually clearly articulated through words. Ambiguity is avoided and the communication is explicit. For the most part, spoken words have literal meaning. In North America, communicators often are told to get to the point and not beat around the bush. Such cultures are called low-context societies.

To most Western corporate communicators, business and religion may be seen to be mutually exclusive. In the United States, people tend to separate religion from other aspects of life. In a serious business negotiation or other interaction, some societies, such as many Arab and African ones, may start and end the transaction by seeking God’s will, guidance and protection.

Sometimes a speaker can unwillingly generate hostility in an audience by making a cultural faux pas. When making a presentation, pointing with the index finger to emphasize a remark is considered acceptable by most Westerners. However, many Asian cultures consider this rude, and prefer gestures of indication to be made with the whole hand.

Try to use the following key phrases in your presentation.

Presentation Language

v Introduction Good evening, everyone. Thank you for inviting me to speak on... Tonight I am going to talk about... v Introducing your talk I would like to start by... I shall begin by... I’d like to begin by.. Then I will speak about... Thirdly I will talk about... And lastly... v The main part of the talk Let us begin with... Firstly... secondly... thirdly... lastly... First of all... then... next... After that...finally... To start with... later... to finish up... However... Moving on to... Let me turn now to... Turning to... What does that mean for us? My third point deals with... Let’s look at this in more detail. And last but not least... A good example of this is... To illustrate this point,..

v Summing up/conclusion So, in conclusion, you can see that... We’ve looked at... Let’s recap, shall we? I’d like to sum up now... Let me remind you, finally, of some of the points I’ve made. If I can just sum up the main points... Let me summarise briefly what I’ve said. v Questions and answersI’ll come back to this question later in my talk. I won ‘t comment on this now,... We’ll be examining this question in more detail later on. Does anyone have any questions? v Saying thank you and ending your talk I hope I have been able to tell you a little about… I think that’s a good place to stop. Before I sit down I would first like to thank... for… Thank you all for listening so attentively. Thank you for listening.

Presenting a product (Team presentation)
Open the presentation	Good morning, everybody, thanks for coming. I’m (name) and this is (partner). As some of you already know, (partner) and I have been working on this project for some time. By the end of this afternoon’s presentation, we hope/think/feel confident you’ll be as excited about this idea as we are
Arouse interest	As the world’s leading provider/a major player in the world of..., we pride ourselves on... For us,... is not just a business - it’s...
Introduce product/ service	OK. And now the moment you’ve all been waiting for! Ladies and gentlemen, the new...
Describe product/ service	The main features/benefits/selling points are... And, as you’d expect... Now, I know what you’re thinking: how can...? So, let me reassure you. We’ve really done our homework on this one.
Close	We really do believe the... could be a bestselling product/first-class service and an excellent addition to our current range of.../enormously successful sideline to our main business. OK, to wrap things up. The... has been fully costed. A complete breakdown is included in the report. What we need now is the go-ahead from you. Thank you very much.
Open Q&A session	Thank you, (partner). OK, we’d like to throw this session open now for questions and suggestions. As (partner) said, we need your authorisation to move on to the next stage. So, over to you!

Дата добавления: 2014-11-20