In “Dwight’s Speech” from The Office, Dwight gives an acceptance speech [0:30-2:30] for winning Dunder Mifflin’s Top Salesman of the Year. Although this scene is meant as comical (Jim pranked Dwight into taking lines from famous dictators), we can still analyze Dwight’s delivery.
Right off the bat, Dwight uses lots of gestures. He swings his arms and pounds the podium. Although it is good to use gestures, you want to use simple and relaxed hand motions. Dwights are intimidating and distracting; they take away focus from what he is saying. Next, eye contact. Dwight uses little to no eye contact. This is likely because of two reasons: the first, he is nervous. We can tell this because the amount of sweat he gives off and the fact that is took him many minutes to make it on stage. Also, since he plagiarized his speech (which also is definitely a no-go when giving your speech) and he did not practice much, he was not prepared and thus, read off his script.
A positive in Dwight’s speech is his volume. He speaks with a loud, authoritative tone throughout his speech, especially as he grew in confidence as the speech progressed. He was also clear in his dialect – the audience can understand the words he says, even if the context does not relate.
I think he does a good job of entertaining his audience; he does a good job with engaging the audience, especially with the use of his ‘repeat after me’ phrases to conclude. This keeps the audience listening, and as proven by the loud responses and claps, Dwight was successful. However, due to his many distractions and lack-of-context in his speech, it is poor. The loud smashing detracts from the words, and the words do not relate at all to being a successful salesman, but rather to power and authority…both of which obviously confused the audience, especially at the beginning.