The Role And Importance Of Language In Presentation

A presentation is basically communication in a formal and organized way, and so the use of the correct language is important.

Language for introduction.
Language for making things clear.
Language for focusing.
Language for handling questions.
Language for closing.

Language for introduction: the language for introduction should be positive and polite, inviting the audience to be interested. Using words or phrases that hook your audience to what you have to say can be a good start. The audience will not be interested if they do not see benefit in any form in the presentation, so the presenter should try to highlight the benefit of the audience in the presentation this will help them drive their point home and also get an element of personal involvement from the audience. The sentence structure has to be correct. The presenter can then link to the start.
Language to make things clear: this language is used when the presentation has started, the presenter can highlight issues or create a link between issues by using phrases like “in relation to…I’d like to highlight…etc” the use personal context can also keep the audience glued and interesting. Contradiction can also help the audience in focusing on some specific content. It is very important to make sure the audience clearly understands what the presenter has to say and so phrases like “in case of...In summary…my own view to this…are there any questions?” are used.
Language for focusing: to stress explicitly phrases like “we need to focus on” should be used; repetition is another factor that helps the audience grasp and focus on some specific content. Some presenters have to literally wake their audience up where phrases like “Look…Listen…” are used. Some presenters like to emphasis with contrast (In reality…Infact…) etc. A presenter’s best friend is rhetorical questions, they help the audiences refocus and also gives the presenter a chance to shift from problem to solution.
Language for handling questions:

ü Respond: a response can be given as a positive acknowledgement (thanks for the question) a neutral acknowledgement (yes, I understand) or a clarification (are you asking about?), which ever suitable to the presenters style and the question asked.

ü Answer: a question was asked to be answered. The presenter should ensure the answer is to the point and answers the question in full.

ü Check: after answering a question the presenters fail to ask for more questions. The presenter needs to ask if the audience is happy and satisfied with the answer. They refrain from doing so because the presenter thinks the next question is on its way, but when it’s not, the presenter can be left in an awkward situation.

ü Encourage: if one person in the audience has been answered the presenter needs to move to the next question proactively and quickly, this will encourage people to ask more questions. The presenter can also be specific in encouraging some specific person in the audience to ask questions.

ü Return to the presentation: presenters make a mistake of spending too much time on questions, if no more questions are being asked; it is advisable to guide the audience back to the presentation.

Language for closing: the conclusion of any presentation should be gradual and be to the point, to start the conclusion it should be signaled so that the audience gets more attentive and they are listening carefully as usually the end is the most important part of the presentation. After summarizing the points, the presenter should conclude giving a final recommendation to the audience. It is customary to thank the audience at the end. The presentation is usually done if a bit of information has to be conveyed or the audience has to be persuaded to do a particular job. This can be done by highlighting the key benefits and inspiring the audience, thereby developing a feel good factor in the audience. If the presentation is such, one can also call for questions.

Taking more questions: a presenter can face some or more of the questions like:

ü Not knowing the answer or having the information asked for.

ü Questions that are not related to the topic.

ü The audience takes up controversial topics.

ü The questioner keeps asking questions and does not give others a chance.

In such situations the presenter needs to keep his calm and deal with the question after going through the CAR quickly. The presenter should not be rude or aggressive no matter what.

Rahul Gonsalves for naashtapaani.com