STYLISTIC VARIATION IN THE LANGUAGE OF PRESENTATIONS

Introduction

In my presentation today I'd like to review the performance of Aqua-Sparkle.

Signposting

I'll be developing three main points.

Describing performance

The brand performed well… or The sector has shown good growth.

Analysing performance

A particular reason for this is...or A key problem is...

Building arguments

Over the last six months there's been a 20 per cent in­crease in our business. And, as a result, the work load has increased considerably… or If we recruit our staff, our costs will increase.

Concluding the presentation

So, to summarise/sum up...or So, as we've seen in this presentation today...or My suggestion would be/is to set up a project group.

Handling questions

Rephrasing the original question:

So, what you're ask­ing is... Asking further questions to clarify the question: When you say... do you mean... ?

Introducingyourself presupposes a wide range of standard choices:

Name + Relevant information

I'm — (the name). I work for_______ (name of the company), or My name is _______ (the name) and, as you know, I work as a consultant for_______ (name of the company).

Stating the purpose of the presentationcan also be done in a variety of ways:

This morning I'm going to be talking about/telling you/ showing you/reporting on/taking a look at... In my presentation I'll be proposing... In my presentation today I'm going to explain... The subject/topic of this presentation is. What I'd like to do this morning is to present the results of our study.

Signposting a presentationis done with the help of a number of recurrent phrases:

I'll start off by... And then I'll go on to... First, I'll give you... Second,... Lastly,... My presentation will be in two main parts. In the first part I'll... And then I'll... Firstly, I'd like to... Secondly, we can... And I'll finish with...

Variation is an indispensable part of a natural language. Knowl­edge of a number of ways of expressing a certain content or pur­port is important.

STYLISTIC VARIATION IN THE LANGUAGE OF PRESENTATIONS

The choice of a particular style depends on the audience. A presenter should do his best to tailor his presentation to the level of his audience. In stylistic terms, there will be a certain amount of difference between, for example, addressing one's co-workers in a company and speaking before an audience of pro­spective investors. The former could be either neutral or infor­mal (an interplay of both would not be unusual), whereas the latter would be mostly neutral and formal. The two extracts given below illustrate formal (1) and informal (2) styles in business pres­entations:

(1) Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'm here to­day to tell you about our company's financial position. I've divided my presentation into four parts. Firstly, I want to talk about the current financial situation. Sec­ondly, I'd like to examine our performance over the past year. Thirdly, I'll look at the prospects for the next twelve months. Finally, I'll make some recommendations. I'll be happy to answer questions at the end of my presentation. Right. I'd like you to look at this graph...

(2) Hi, I'm Dominique Lagrange. Good to see you all. As you know, I'm Creative Director of DMK. I'm going to tell you about the ideas we've come up with for the ad campaign. I'll give you the background and talk , you through the results of the market study and tell you all about our concept. If you're not clear about anything, go ahead and ask any questions you want.

Mark Powell urges students to exercise "al­ternative ways" of expressing things. He further advises: "At each stage choose the expression you would feel more comfortable using..." (p. 10) and draws a line between fairly formaland more friendlyphrases and utterances:

FAIRLY FORMAL

Erm, perhaps we should begin.

Good morning, ladies and gentle­men.

On behalf of..., may I welcome you to...

My name's...

For those of you who don't know me already,

I'm responsible for...

MORE FRIENDLY

OK, let's get started. Morning, everyone.

Thanks for coming.

I'm...

As you know,...

I'm in charge of...

This morning I'd like to discuss/ report on/ present...

If you have any questions you'd like to ask, I'll be happy to answer them…or Perhaps we can leave any ques­tions you may have until the end of the presentation.

What I want to do this morning is.._% talk to you about... tell you about... and show you...

Feel free to ask any questions you like as we go along and don't worry, there'll be plen­ty of time left over for ques­tions at the end.

Date: 2015-12-18; view: 887