Public Speaking Tips for Facial Expression
A bit niche? Maybe.
But your face is part of your presentation.
It can be used to show your emotions, to express your conviction, and show empathy.
One of my regular challenges as a Public Speaking coach is working with Anglo-Saxon men!
I do not want to characterise or pigeonhole, but let me give you the picture.
On balance, one might say that women are usually more expressive than men.
Allan Pease's books and seminars on the differences between men and women would highlight the difference between most women who would actively listen to their conversation partner and reflect the emotion being shared with comments like:
‘Oh no!’ and ‘OMG’ and ‘Really!’ and the occasional ‘I am sure I would have died!’
whereas the men were characterised as listening with a poker face, nodding occasionally and maybe offering some advice at the end.
In these more modern times of gender fluidity, it is no longer acceptable to be too pedantic about expressing these differences and I certainly know a few women who are impossible to read and a few men who effuse with empathy.
However, as a rule of thumb, maybe we can still say that men are less likely to mirror expression than women.
Add to this, Northern Europe and Southern Europe (Other parts of the world will have their own comparisons and contrasts).
For us in the UK, we might characterise an Italian or a Southern French person as more likely to be particularly expressive in how they communicate whereas a Norwegian or Dane is more likely to be the ‘strong silent type’.
So putting all that together, a Northern Germanic male is less likely to overtly express their emotional make-up during a speech than a Southern Latin female.
Much of this can be worked on with a focus on structure, gestures, keywords, and emotive vocabulary.
The transformation might be called the miracle of the Anglo-Saxon man!
There are many ways to keep our face alive and responsive.
10 tips for responding facially
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Find neutral
Sometimes we can be so overwhelmed by an expressive speaker that the whole experience becomes exhausting; a face that is never still and a constant level of excitement that might be best characterised by imagining someone putting their fingers into a live plug socket.
Speaking is about contrasts: loud and soft, fast and slow, high and low and if the face is also to be used as an active part of the presentation, it must also be capable of contrast. Let’s compare it to Heavy Rock music: once you get used to the level of volume and aggression, it no longer means anything, because there is no longer any contrast within it. Once you get used to the level, you could probably even go to sleep in the same room, as the predictability of the sound becomes hypnotic and almost soothing.
I remember sitting in the garden with a couple of people in Windsor, just under the flight path to Heathrow airport.
Every few minutes we had to break off conversation under the shadow of a landing plane.
‘Does that start to annoy you?’ I asked.
‘Does what start to annoy?’ they replied!
Similarly, a face that is permanently in motion will also lose its impact.
As the saying goes:
‘Your face up to the age of forty is what nature has given you;
your face after the age of forty is your own fault!’
Some of us may have developed a permanent scowl or look of amazement, which has become our ‘resting’ expression. Some comedians have developed a permanent expression that suggests they are always on the edge of hilarity, however, I remember how the face of Harpo Marx, the ‘mute fool’ from the Marx brothers, would transform into intense focus whenever he played the harp.
His resting face was far from the expression he had when he was clowning.
We will all have some form of neutral expression when we are resting.
Maybe this is one of the great advantages of my Anglo-Saxon men, a neutral resting face – in fact, no expression at all!
My point is that if you can find your neutral face, you know where you can start from.
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Mirror and Reflect
The Roman poet Horace tells us that ‘if you want me to feel an emotion, you must first feel that emotion yourself.’
If you want to rouse indignation or anger in me, you must demonstrate those emotions in your delivery.
If you want me to be angry, show me how angry you are.
If you want me to feel confused, show me how confused you are.
If you want me to be impressed, show me how impressed you are.
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The Eyes
‘If looks could kill!’
‘The look of love.’
‘Eyes on stalks.’
Eye contact, as we know, is a key tool for speakers to connect with their audience.
Good eye contact is interpreted as a show of confidence and honesty.
If you want to transmit passion and conviction, you can achieve that through maintaining strong eye-contact:
Rather than quickly scanning the room, maybe linger a little longer on individual faces in the audience.
Let the strength of eye contact show the audience that you stand by what you say.
Also – maintaining good eye contact when answering a question, will show respect and regard for the questioner.
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Eyebrows
There is a reason we have evolved with eyebrows. Raised eyebrows can show a level of disbelief or surprise.
If you want to express your amazement at a new law or a decision, raising your eyebrows is a signal that can be read from right across a room.
You quote someone and want to express your bewilderment at their statement, you might not even have to say anything as just a moment’s silence and two raised eyebrows will express your feeling entirely and by using the power of the pause together with the eyebrow gesture, you create a moment that is not just visually significant, but also aurally, as you allow the silence to contrast with the sound of your voice.
eyebrows go up – they can also go down!
Lowered eyebrows can be used to express, anger, confusion, or disagreement.
You never want to degenerate into a caricature of an old silent movie star, but used sparingly (remember your neutral face) your facial expression can reinforce the meaning of your words or be used in dramatic contrast to the sound of your words, by accompanying a moment of silence.
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Eye movement
Students of Neuro Linguistic Programming will know the significance of how eye movement indicates how we access our memories and feelings. We do not need to understand the theories and science to instinctively know through our daily experience that eyes looking upward are likely to be associated with thinking or accessing a picture of something and eyes down are likely to be associated with feelings. Another way of considering it is that eye up expresses looking outward and eyes down expresses looking inward.
Eye contact in speaking creates contact between the speaker and the audience. New speakers, nervous speakers will often find themselves looking up to the ceiling or looking down to the floor.
Looking up to the ceiling gives the impression of:
’I am trying to remember what comes next.’
Looking to the floor gives the impression of:
‘I am not very comfortable here.’
However, when used deliberately during a presentation, sharing a vision, imagining a better future or remembering a significant event from the past, allowing your eyes to be raised upward will reinforce sense of creating or grasping a concept, whereas if you want to impart a sense of reflection, introspection or even pain, that will be more naturally expressed with eyes lowered.
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Smile
A great piece of news for all speakers is that most of the time an audience cannot tell the difference between someone who is extremely motivated and someone who is petrified and usually that is expressed in something that looks like a smile. Recently there has been a TV trailer for a comedy series where one of the characters is reduced to screaming hysterics by the appearance of ghosts. We understand that the person is having an extreme panicked melt-down, but one of the ghosts innocently leans in and asks:
‘Are you laughing?’
So as long as you keep your Fear of Public Speaking within bounds, your expressions of anxiety will be interpreted as ‘positive emotion’.
A smile makes you seem confident; it makes you seem comfortable and it makes you seem open and approachable. The fact that the impetus for the smile might come from fear does not change its appearance.
Knowing your ‘neutral face’ will also help here, as you do not want to be simply grinning from ear to ear all through the presentation. Once again, as with the reference earlier to Heavy Rock music, there needs to be contrast to create an impression.
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Lips
Smiling is just one way of arranging your lips. You can ‘let your jaw drop’ to mirror a response of bewilderment or surprise, ‘purse your lips’ to express doubt or consideration, or bare your teeth either to express aggression or in some cases embarrassment.
Please avoid amateur dramatics!
I have experienced too many speakers who over-rehearse their gestures and we do not want our facial expressions to seem forced. Just like the best gestures, they should follow naturally from the meaning that we intend to impart, but when used well they can reinforce the natural pauses and breaks in our words so that rather than a pause being no more than a moment of silence between ideas, that silence can be reinforced through a momentary facial expression
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Nod
Nodding and smiling will let the room know that you are open and receptive, especially when answering questions.
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No expression!
This is where the neutral face is very useful, as sometimes you may want to cover a subject that is already so laden with emotion, that adding an extra layer seems inappropriate. Spokespeople delivering troubling information will often choose to deliver it in a completely emotionless manner.
Above all…
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Be congruent
Expression is not a layer that can be added after the words.
Words have meanings and choosing words that are already overflowing with resonance means that the speaking should simply allow that meaning to flow through them so that the gestures and emphasis flow naturally from the meaning.
Our job as speakers is to express meaning and facial expressions that are alive and reflective of meaning will help to impart our message all the more effectively.
