At the 2017 Grammys, Adele won the Album of the Year, which is arguable the most prestigious award that is given. Since the artists don’t know if they are going to win or not, they likely do not prepare their speech very thoroughly, and it typically represents their current emotional state when they are presented the award.
Eye Contact
As soon as her name is announced, Adele begins to cry. Despite this, she immediately addresses her audience with humble little “hi’s” to different people in the audience while making eye contact. However, as she begins speaking, she looks down often towards the ground or towards her award and only occasionally looks up. Perhaps it was because of the nerves or her humbleness, but she couldn’t hold eye contact with the audience until she began speaking directly to Beyoncé. She seemed to gain more confidence and direction with her speech as it went on, and as it went on her eye contact with the audience also increased.
Obviously for our purposes when speaking in class, we should hold eye contact with the audience for the duration of the speech. We should avoid looking down or at our presentation or anything in the room except for the audience. This exudes confidence and knowledge just through the simple power of looking directly at your listeners.
Pathos
Adele’s entire speech relied on emotion. She emphasizes how she does not deserve the award, but Beyoncé does. She speaks about how difficult it was for her to raise a child and also continue producing her music, but receiving the Grammy made her feel like it was all worth it. She spoke about how Beyoncé’s album was so empowering to her and so many others and that’s why she deserved the Album of the Year award over herself. Her speech was so powerful, in fact, that she brought Beyoncé to tears, and likely many others.
Organization
Her speech did not really have a beginning, middle, and end, but this is likely due to the fact that this was a speech of passion, and she just kind of said what came to mind. I think she believed she would not receive the award because it was obvious she thought Beyoncé deserved it more. However, in a successful speech, it is important to have an intro, body, and conclusion in order to portray the message clearly and confidently. It just flows better this way.
Obviously, there is no way I can criticize Adele. I’m sure she could an amazing speech if she put more planning into it. However the speech she gave at the Grammy’s still captivated the audience and was over rather successful. Hopefully, no one will cry while they give their next speech.