Identifying Audiences - Assignment Example

Same as with most valuable tools, identification of audience could be used in excess. Adaptation of the speech to the audience is different from telling them what they exactly need to hear. It does not mean grandstanding or even kowtowing to the audience. Adaptation does guide the styles as well as choices of content made by a speaker for a representation. Adaptation of the audience does involve trying to walk a fine line in between over and under adapting. Audiences in a speech situation bring expectations about the speaker, topic as well as occasion.

Violation of the expectations of the audience could negatively impact the speech’s effectiveness. For instance where a Politian is giving a speech in the memorial of a mayor who is diseased, then the expectations of the audience are that he praises the mayor. If the speaker talks about some legislations the there is a probability if losing credibility since the audient may be offended. In a business talk the speaker is not expected to talk about how the business will fail in less than a year unless that was the main issue expected by the audience.

However, there may also be situations where violation of the expectations of the audience can be a strategy quite effective (UMC Web Team, 2007). In any occasion, the knowledge of topic on any occasion may widely vary; hence, it will be useful for a communicator to find out what the audience does know on that topic. A speaker should not at any one given time overestimate the knowledge of the audience on the same topic. If a speaker does lounge a discussion that is quite technical and the audience is not familiar with, they might likely loose the interest and fail to follow the speaker.

Also underestimating the knowledge of the audience drastically could lead to a speech, which sounds condescending. It is always advisable to try to dig up what is the knowledge of the audience on