Delivery of the talk

Because Anand Giridharadas’ TED talk about the two Americas is available as both text and video, we are able to analyse the speaker’s delivery of the talk. If you are working with the talk as part of the STX English A exam assignment from August 20, 2019, you must make references to the video.

Right from the start it is clear that Giridharadas is a confident public speaker. His general appearance is relaxed since his clothing style is almost informal. His body language is mostly calm: He does not move about much on the stage, and he maintains eye contact with as many members of his audience as possible. He does make a few hand gestures to illustrate his points, though. One notable example is when impersonating Stroman, the white supremacist who shot Bhuiyan, a Bangladeshi immigrant, in the face: The speaker points a threatening finger at the audience (00:06), like Stroman might have done at his victim.

We can use the sa...