Dissecting Donald Trump's Speaking

As a public speaking coach, I'm devastated that we're coming to the end of Obama's tenure as president; he is one of the most elegant, eloquent and erudite speakers in history. Now it seems inevitable that Donald Trump will carry the Republican nomination and that makes it an appropriate time for our technical analysis of his speaking. As always, I'll steer clear of commenting on the political content of his speaking and base this entirely on the technicalities of his communication.

Always perfectly groomed, with his tie in a full Windsor, Trump always wears low-cut jackets with extremely padded shoulders. Clearly, the conveyance of physical strength is a key driver in his image. Is his hair being parted so far to the left part of an effort of boost his masculinity?

Vocally, his resonance placement is slightly prejudiced to the tinny-sounding head placement, although the presence of some chest placement ensures that his emotional conviction is communicated in his voice. Some heavy graining in his voice may be the result of scarring on his vocal folds -sometimes an indication that a person frequently raises their voice. Whilst this sounds quite nice now and compensates for his head resonance placement (graining can create weight in the voice), it is irreversible and will probably get worse unless he learns to support his voice correctly. The head resonance placement is super-efficient with air and I can't hear any problems in his breathing.

Trump uses his inflections very aggressively. His speaking is littered, even saturated, with held inflections. These are normally used to prevent another person from interjecting. Even at the lectern, where the chance of an interjection is near-zero, almost every sentence ends without vocally completing the thought. On the occasions that he does complete the thought, he tends to do so with a horrible minor inflection. There are parts of the US where this has become a characteristic of the accent but New York is not one of them -in fact it has especially heavy use of the downward major. I think he uses minor inflections through fear that using the downward major is inviting retort. What it really does is give the impression that he doesn't entirely believe what he is saying.

In recent weeks, Trump's use of eye-lines has deteriorated more then any other part of his skill-set. On 16th June 2015, when he gave his campaign announcement speech, his eye-lines were sustained and moved naturally on the change of thought. More recently, his eye-lines have become fleeting, rapidly moving from focal points at the back of the audience. This looks insecure and implies rapid or chaotic thought shifts.

His gesturing has also deteriorated, although it was really a mess from the start. Certainly, his gestures are bold -I'll give him that- and he uses good width in his movements, which communicates status very effectively. However, frequently his gestures are completely inappropriate for what he is saying. His love of precision gestures, where the index fingertip (or all the fingertips) are brought to the tip of the thumb, will communicate that he is being precise and accurate but destroy any conveyance of care or empathy when he is saying “I love our soldiers”. He does this again and again and it must in part account for the “not nice person” image that he complains about. Then, when talking about “our enemies” he uses open-handed gestures, such as the 'encompass', which is about the most welcoming of all gestures. He also uses lots of beat gestures, punctuating the language with hammering movements of his hand. Beat gestures work well when used with controlled speed and slight curve (think Clinton thumb!) but such staccato movements are pushing him onto the plosive consonants and his vowels are suffering. If there is a single part of his skill-set that is damaging his speaking more than any other, it is his lack of vowels. We show our feelings through the length of our vowels (think words “amaaaazing” and “beeeaaaatiful”) and Trump is all consonants. He must avoid leaning back and pouting childishly when he takes criticism -it looks hurt.

It isn't all bad news. He is bombastic and entertaining, as a speaker, and his wide gestures certainly make him memorable. Whilst these would be positives in the business world, as a President he runs the risk of becoming more memorable than his content. He needs more containment and a certain poker face -two things he lacks at the moment.