Cultural Differences in Public Speaking

Video Transcript

"Hey there. We are talking about words and word choices when you're writing a great speech for public speaking. I want to talk to you briefly about culture. The world that we live in today is becoming increasingly more culturally diverse all over America. And that's real exciting, but something you have to take into consideration when you're writing your speech. All right. If you've never had the opportunity to travel the world I'm here to tell you that we use some very, very different word choices for things. In fact, the first time I went to Ireland I was doing a big project with the Catholic diocese directing a show and the first night we were there the priest came up to me and he ask me what time he could knock me up in the morning. Well, I didn't quite know how to respond to that because I know what knocked up means in America. Well, what he was asking is what time could he knock on the door and wake me up in the morning. So you have to again take a look at your audience, see what kind of cultural makeup you have, do a little research on what they say, how they say it, what's offensive because you don't want to ever offend any part of your audience for cultural reasons. Okay?"