Practical Argumentation

by George K. Pattee

The next thing for a speaker to learn is how to stand. He should not take a natural posture, as some writers say, unless that posture is one of strength and, to some degree, of grace. A student without training will usually stand with his head protruding forward, his shoulders drooping, his body twisted, and his feet far apart, with all his weight on one leg. Such an attitude is enough to condemn one even before he begins to speak. A slipshod appearance suggests slipshod thinking and reasoning. A speaker should always stand erect, with his head back, chin in, shoulders rolled back and down; either the feet should be near together with the weight of the body on both, or one foot should be slightly in advance of the other with the weight of the body entirely on the rear foot. In the latter case, the leg on which the body rests must form a straight line with the body, there being no unsightly bulging at the hip; and the leg on which the body does not rest must be slightly bent at the knee. This posture is not difficult to attain if one will practise it frequently, endeavoring in his everyday life to walk and stand in a soldierly manner. On the other hand, erectness should not be carried to such an extreme as to become stiffness. A debater's object is to be forceful and pleasing. In striving for this end, he should always remember that he can very easily err in either of two directions.

A debater should allow his hands, for the most part, to hang naturally at his sides. There may be a great temptation for him to put them in his pockets, but he should resist this for two reasons: such a procedure is not considered good form, and his hands are less available for instant use in the making of gestures. If one is delivering a lengthy argument, there is no particular harm in putting one hand behind the back for a short time, or even in front of the body along the waist line, provided this can be done in an easy, natural manner; but in the case of a short speech, one will do well to keep his hands at his sides. They must hang naturally in order not to attract attention, being neither closed tightly nor held rigidly open. If one will follow these directions, his hands and arms may feel awkward, but they will not appear so.

Another important principle in the matter of position requires that a debater shall keep his eyes fixed on his audience. He must not look at the floor, at the ceiling, or at the walls. He must look at the people he would convince. Only in this way can he hope to hold their attention. Only in this way can he win their confidence and reach their feelings. To look into space means to debate into space.

In the next place, a speaker must beware of falling into ludicrous and disgusting habits of deportment. Nervousness will often cause one in the presence of an audience to keep making an unsightly gesture, a peculiar twitch or step that will absolutely ruin his whole speech. Some speakers have been known to change their weight from one foot to the other as often as twenty or thirty times a minute. Other speakers have adopted a peculiar jerk of the head or a constant shrugging of the shoulders that is most disagreeable to see. Still others keep constantly opening and shutting their hands. For years one speaker of some small prominence spent the greater part of his time while on the platform in tugging at his coat, apparently in an effort to make it fit better around the collar. All such actions as these are to be carefully guarded against.

A debater, however, is not expected to stand perfectly still: he should use considerable interpretative and emphatic action. To begin with, he ought not to stand all the time in exactly the same spot. Monotony of position is to be avoided as well as monotony of action or of voice. He will rest himself and his audience if he will occasionally move about, taking two or three steps at a time. In doing this he must never go backward; he must never retreat. If, for any reason, he began his speech while standing near the rear or the centre of the stage, he should move forward; if he cannot go forward, he may move back and forth near the edge of the platform. The best time for one to change his position is at the conclusion of a paragraph. A paragraph division, it will be remembered, indicates a change in thought. If a debater, therefore, makes a longer pause than usual at this point, and in addition alters his position slightly, he helps interpret his argument. He does for the hearer exactly what indentation does for the reader.

GESTURES. So much has been said and written about gestures that a student is often puzzled to know whose advice to follow and what to do. Some writers say that no gestures at all are desirable; others deem them necessary, but declare that they should never be made unless they are spontaneous and natural. In the light of such conflicting advice, what will determine the proper course for a student to follow? The answer to this question lies in a consideration of the ultimate object of a course in debating. If it is to give students some facility in expressing their thoughts before an audience, if it is to train students for practical work in business and professional life, then those men who are recognized as the polished and powerful speakers of the day should be taken as models. Most of these, it will be found, use gestures. There is but one reasonable course, then, for the student to follow: he should make gestures. They may be crude and awkward at first, but only by practice can he ever hope to improve them.

The best method of procedure, undoubtedly, is for the beginner to become familiar with two or three of the most common gestures, learning how to make them and just what they signify. He should then use them. They may seem mechanical and ungainly at first, but constant practice both in private and before a class will soon enable him to make them with considerable emphasis and ease. From this point on, the road is clear. The knowledge that he can use his hands to good advantage, even in a limited way, will soon cause him to make gestures spontaneously. Nor will he be limited to the few with which he started. In the midst of an explanation and in the heat of an impassioned plea, he will find himself using gestures that he had not thought of before. The awkward and premeditated gesture with which he began will have become forceful and spontaneous.

The gestures that a student should first learn to use must be illustrated to him by his instructor. To see a gesture made several times gives one a better idea of how to make it and of what it means than could a dozen pages in a text-book. The choice of gestures, too, may rest with the instructor. It makes no particular difference with what ones a debater begins, provided that they are simple in execution and are such as he will wish to use in practically every debate into which he enters. Ordinarily, the best ones for a beginner to practice on are those indicating emphasis. If he wishes for a wider field, he might also try to use gestures indicating magnitude and contrast. When he has finished with these, he should hesitate before deliberately introducing many others. A debate is not a dramatic production, and it should in no wise savor of melodrama.

VOICE. Correct position and forceful gestures are very important, but upon no one thing does the success of a debater, aside from his argument, depend so much as upon his voice. One may move his audience in spite of an awkward posture and in the absence of all intelligent gestures, but unless his voice meets certain requirements, his case is almost hopeless. Above all else a speaker's voice must be distinct.

Distinctness depends upon several things. First, the voice must be loud enough to be heard without difficulty in every part of the room. To produce this result, one should speak especially to those in the rear, carefully watching to see whether he holds their attention; at the same time he must be careful not to shout in a manner unpleasant to those sitting nearer him. The stress laid by public speakers upon the matter of loudness is well illustrated by a story told of one of the foremost orators of the day. It is said that he invariably stations some one in the back of the audience to signal to him when his voice is either too low or unnecessarily loud.