Speech Communication Lectures
Speech Communication Lectures
LECTURE 1 THE NATURE OF COMMUNICATION 1. A definition of communication 2. Components of communication 3. Contexts of communication LECTURE 2 PERCEPTION: THE PROCESS OF UNDERSTANDING 1. A definition of perception 2. Differences in perception 3. Activities in perception LECTURE 3 SELF-AWARENESS AND SELF-CONCEPT 1. Self-awareness 2. Self-concept 3. Gender differences in self-concept 4. Improving self-concept LECTURE 4 ACTIVE AND EMPHATIC LISTENING. CRITICAL LISTENING AND THINKING 1. The listening process 2. Types of listening 3. Critical listening 4. Critical thinking LECTURE 5 NONVERBAL AND VERBAL CODES 1. Definition and identification of nonverbal codes 2. Vocal cues 3. Verbal codes: sets of words 4. Words as an obstacle to communication LECTURE 6 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION 1. Functions and principles of interpersonal communication 2. Principles of intercultural communication 3. Small group communication, leadership, and conflict resolution LECTURE 7 TOPIC-SELECTION AND AUDIENCE ANALYSES 1. Selecting and limiting the topic 2. Analyzing your audience 3. Methods of audience analysis 4. Adapting to the audience LECTURE 8 DELIVERY AND VISUAL AIDS 1. Models of speech delivery 2. Vocal and bodily aspects of speech delivery 3. Visual aids 4. Helpful hints for speech delivery
LECTURE 9 THE INFORMATIVE AND PERSUASIVE SPEECH 1. Preparing an informative speech 2. Presenting information to an audience 3. Preparing a persuasive speech 4. Persuasion and the goals of persuasive speaking
LECTURE 1 THE NATURE OF COMMUNICATION 1. A definition of communication 2. Components of communication 3. Contexts of communication Key terms: action, code, communication, context, decoding, dyadic communication, encoding, feedback, interaction, interpersonal communication, intrapersonal communication, meaning, message, noise, nonverbal codes, public communication, receiver, sharing, small group communication, source, transaction, understanding, verbal codes. REFERENCES: 1. Pearson J. C., Nelson P. E. Understanding and Sharing: an Introduction to Speech Communication, Brown and Benchmark, 1994, 474 p. 2. Burgoon J. C., Buller D. B., Woodell J. K. Nonverbal Communication. The unspoken dialogue. N. Y., 1989. 3. Fromkin V. A. Speech Errors as Linguistic evidence. The Hague: Mouton, 1973. 4. Halliday M. A. K., Hasan R. Language, context and text: aspects of Language in a Social-semiotic perspective. Oxford, 1990. 5. Searle J. R. Linguistics and the philosophy of language //Linguistics and neighboring disciplines. Amstertdam ets., 1975. 6. . . . , . 2004. 7. . . // . ., 1990. 8. . . . , 1990. 1. A DEFINITION OF COMMUNICATION Experts say we spend more time talking and listening than any other activity. Even though we spend much of our life communicating, many of us realize that we need improvement. We need improved communication skills in our personal lives and on the job. The word communication is used in a variety of ways. Communication comes from the Latin communicare, which means to make common. Communication is defined as the process of understanding and sharing meaning. Communication is considered a process because it is an activity, exchange, or set of behaviors not an unchanging, static product. C is an activity in which we participate. C is a process that requires understanding. Understanding, or grasping, the meaning of another persons message does not occurs unless the two communicators can elicit common meanings for words, phrases, and non-verbal codes. In addition to understanding, C involves sharing. Consider the popular use of the word sharing. We share a meal, we share an event, we share a sunset. Sharing is a gift that people exchange. We can also share with ourselves when we allow ourselves time to relax and daydream, time to consider who we are what our goals are. We share with others when we talk to them alone or in larger groups. Regardless of the context, communication involves sharing. What exactly is understood and shared in the C process? When we use language for expression, meaning is the shared understanding of your feelings. When you use language for pragmatic purposes, meaning is the appropriate response that indicates the message was understood. For example, you ask for a drink, and the other person gives you one. Meaning is the message you construct in your mind as you interpret the message sent. Our communication is viewed from the perspective of self. As Carl Rogers wrote: Every individual exists in a continually changing world of experience of which he or she is the center. As participants in C, we are limited by our own view of the situation.
Dean Barnlund, a communication theorist, introduced the idea that communication is viewed from ones own perspective in his discussion of the six persons involved in every two-person communication situation. These six persons emerge in the following ways: 1. How you view yourself 2. How you view the other person 3. How you believe the other person views you 4. How the other person views himself or herself 5. How the other person views you 6. How the other person believed you view him or her. Even when we talk to ourselves, C involves other people. We view C from our own perspective and with our unique perceptual processes; however, the self we know is largely learned from others. The child, through verbal and nonverbal symbols, learns to accept roles is response to the expectations of others. We establish our self-image, the sort of person we believe we are, by the ways other people categorize us. The positive, negative and neutral messages others offer us enable us to determine who we are. Our self-definition, then, arises through our interactions with others. C also involves others in the sense that the competent communicator considers the other persons needs and expectations as he or she selects appropriate and effective messages to share. The competent communicator understands that a large number of messages can be shared at any time, but sensitivity and responsiveness to the other communicator are essential. Thus, we observe that C begins with the self, as defined largely by others, and involves others, as defined largely by the self. 2. COMPONENTS OF COMMUNICATION There exist such components of C: PEOPLE. People are involved in the human C process in two ways. They serve as the sources and the receivers of messages. The source is the component that initiates a message. The receiver is the component that absorbs, or takes in, the message. Individuals do not perform these two roles independently. Instead, they are the source and the receiver of messages simultaneously and continually. MESSAGE. The message is the verbal and nonverbal form of the idea, thought, or feeling that one person (the source) wishes to communicate to another person or group of persons (the receivers). It is content of the interaction. The message includes the words and phrases we use to communicate our ideas as well as our facial expressions, bodily movements, gestures, touch, tone or voice, and other nonverbal codes. The message may be relatively brief and easy to understand, or it may be long complex. Some messages are intentional, while others are accidental. CHANNEL. The channel provides the mode by which a message moves from the source of the message to the receiver of the message. Both light waves and sound waves are major channels when we interact with another person, and we can see and hear him or her. Similarly, if we are watching television or a movie, we are rely on both light waves and sound waves. Some forms of C require only one channel. For instance, we rely on sound waves alone when we listen to the radio. We rely exclusively on light waves when we read a book or when we read the print on the computer monitor. FEEDBACK. Feedback is a receivers verbal and nonverbal response to the sources message. Let us say you need to find a restroom in an unfamiliar building. You say to a person passing quickly past, Excuse me, can you, but the person keeps on going without acknowledging your inquiry. This is zero feedback, a case in which the intended receiver did not acknowledge your message. What if the person turns before you finish your question and says, What did you say?. That is feedback indicating the receiver did not fully understand your inquiry. The best feedback indicating in this situation would be an answer to your question concerning the location of the restroom. CODE. People have ideas or thoughts they wish to express, and they express them in the form of messages. How do our thoughts become messages? We use codes to share our ideas with others. We typically use the word code to describe the secret language that children use or to refer to specialized, stylized, or shortened languages, such as Morse code. For our purposes, however, a code is any systematic arrangement or comprehensive collection of symbols, letters, or words that have arbitrary meanings and are used for communication.
Two major types of codes are used in communication: verbal codes and nonverbal codes. Verbal codes consist of words and their grammatical arrangement. All language are codes. The English symbols, letters, and words we use are arbitrary. Nonverbal codes consist of symbols that are not codes, including our bodily movements, our use of space and time, our clothing and other adornments, and sounds rather than words. Nonverbal codes should not be confused with non-oral codes. All non-oral codes such as bodily movement are nonverbal codes. Nonverbal codes include oral codes, such as pitch, duration and rate of speech, as well as sounds, like eh and ah. Nonverbal codes refer to all codes that do not consist of words. ENCODING AND DECODING. If C involves the use of codes, the process of communicating can be viewed as one of encoding and decoding. Encoding is defined as the act of putting an idea or thought into a code. Decoding is assigning meaning to that idea or thought. For instance, suppose you are interested in purchasing a new car and you are trying to describe a compact model to your father who wants to help you buy a car. You might visualize the car that belongs to your best friend, picturing the black leather interior, red racing stripe, and the sporty design. Putting this vision into words, you might say a compact car into words that describe the model. Your father, on hearing this, decodes your words and develops his own picture. His encounters with larger cars affect this process. As a result of your definition, he envisions a sedan. As we can see, misunderstanding often occurs because of the limitations of our language and the inadequacy of our descriptions. Nonetheless, encoding and decoding are essential in sharing our thoughts, ideas, and feelings with other people. NOISE. Noise is any factor that hinders your reception of messages. It can be physical noise, such as loud sounds; distracting sights, such as a bit of food on someones face; or unusual behavior, such as a person standing too close. Noise also can be mental, psychological, or semantic, such as daydreaming about a loved one, worry about the bills, pain from a tooth, or uncertainty about what another persons words are supposed to mean. 3. CONTEXTS OF COMMUNICATION C occurs in a context, a set of circumstances or a situation. C occurs between two friends, between the lecturer and the audience that fills in auditorium. The importance of the context is less obtrusive in some situations and of greater importance in other situations. The number of people involved in communication affects the kind of C that occurs. We may communicate with ourselves, with another person, or with a large number of others. The differences among these situations affect our choices of the verbal and nonverbal codes we will most appropriately use. INTRAPERSONAL COMMUNICATION is the process of understanding and sharing meaning within self. Why would we need to communicate with ourselves? Suppose you and your dating partner of two years share the same attitude toward education and a future career. You plan to attend graduate school together next year and later operate your own business. One day, your friend informs you that he or she intends to work after graduation this year in the familys business. This action, in your opinion, will seriously limit your future together. When you begin to share your feelings with your friend, your friend becomes angry with you and replies it is just one more example of your narrow-mindedness. You probably feel a certain amount of psychological discomfort. IC occurs when we evaluate or examine the interaction that occurs between ourselves and others. Intrapersonal C is not limited to such times, however. This form of C occurs prior to, and during, other forms of C as well. For instance, you argue with yourself during a conversation in which someone asks you to do something you dont really wish to do. IC is far more complex than it may appear. Intrapersonal C involves our central nervous system, our brain hemispheres, and our ability to think. Intrapersonal C involves the gathering, storing, and retrieving of information and is surrounded by three components: 1) the cognitive component, which includes meanings the language; 2) the affective component, which contains attitudes and self-concept; 3) the operational component, which includes listening and speaking. IC is not restricted to talking to ourselves; it also includes such activities as internal problem solving, resolution of internal conflict, planning for the future, emotional catharsis, evaluations of ourselves and others, and the relationships between ourselves and others. IC involves only the self, and it must be clearly understood by the self because it constitutes the basis for all other communication.
INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION is the personal process of understanding and sharing meaning between ourselves and at least one other person when relatively mutual opportunities for speaking and listening occur. IC occurs for a variety of reasons: to solve problems, to resolve conflicts, to improve our perception of ourselves. Through our IC, we are able to establish relationships with others that include friendship and romantic relations. DYADIC COMMUNICATION a subset of interpersonal C, simply refers to two-person C and includes interviews with an employer or teacher; talks with a parent, spouse or child; and interactions among strangers, friends. The most basic form of interpersonal communication is a dyad (an encounter or conversation between two people). Some dyads exist over a long period of time, as in a marriage or partnership. Communicating well in a dyad requires good conversational skills. Communicators must know how to start and end the conversation, how to make themselves understood, how to respond to the partner's statements, how to be sensitive to their partner's concerns, how to take turns, and how to listen. Together, these abilities are called communication competence. Shyness or reluctance to interact is called communication apprehension. Persuasion is the process of convincing others that one's ideas or views are valuable or important. SMALL GROUP COMMUNICATION another subset of interpersonal C, refers to C involving three or more people. SGC occurs in social organizations (clubs, civic groups, business settings) for the purpose of problem solving or decision making. PUBLIC COMMUNICATION is the process of understanding and sharing meaning with a number of other people when one person is generally identified as the source (speaker), and others are recognized as receivers (listeners). The speaker adapts his or her message to the audience in an attempt to gain maximum understanding. Public C or public speaking, is recognized by its formality, structure and planning. PC most often has the purpose of informing or persuading, but it can also have the intent of entertaining, introducing, announcing, and welcoming. The interpersonal, intrapersonal and public contexts, in which C can occur can be categorized on the basis of the number of people involved, the degree of formality or intimacy, the opportunities for feedback, the need for prestructuring messages, and the degree of stability of the roles of speaker and listener. Questions for self-control: 1. What is the definition of communication? 2. What are two ways that communication begins with self? 3. How does communication involve other people? 4. What are the differences among action, interaction, and transactional models of communication? 5. What are the seven components of communication? 6. What are five ways that intrapersonal, interpersonal and public communication differ from each other? Tasks for individual work: 1. Write the project: Why should you study communication? Prove your point of view. 2. Find information on the following topic: Symbols and alphabets. 3. Point out the main ideas of successful communication. 4. Discuss the following topic: Communication at a distance: early methods, postal services, telegraphy, telephone, radio, television, computers. 5. Discuss the following topic: Communication among animals.
LECTURE 2 PERCEPTION: THE PROCESS OF UNDERSTANDING 1. A definition of perception 2. Differences in perception 3. Activities in perception Key terms: active perception, closure, creative perception, figure and ground, filtering, inherent meaning, interpretation, interpretive perception, objective perception, organization, passive perception, proximity, selection, selective attention, selective retention, similarity, stereotyping, subjective perception. REFERENCES: 1. Pearson J. C., Nelson P. E. Understanding and Sharing: an Introduction to Speech Communication, Brown and Benchmark, 1994, 474 p. 2. Burgoon J. C., Buller D. B., Woodell J. K. Nonverbal Communication. The unspoken dialogue. N. Y., 1989. 3. Fromkin V. A. Speech Errors as Linguistic evidence. The Hague: Mouton, 1973. 4. Halliday M. A. K., Hasan R. Language, context and text: aspects of Language in a Social-semiotic perspective. Oxford, 1990. 5. Searle J. R. Linguistics and the philosophy of language //Linguistics and neighboring disciplines. Amstertdam ets., 1975. 6. . . . , . 2004. 7. . . // . ., 1990. 8. . . . , 1990. 1. A DEFINITION OF PERCEPTION Perception is mental process through which we interpret that which we sense. Perception, process by which organisms interpret and organize sensation to produce a meaningful experience of the world. Sensation usually refers to the immediate, relatively unprocessed result of stimulation of sensory receptors in the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, or skin. Perception, on the other hand, better describes ones ultimate experience of the world and typically involves further processing of sensory input. In practice, sensation and perception are virtually impossible to separate, because they are part of one continuous process. Our sense organs translate physical energy from the environment into electrical impulses processed by the brain. For example, light, in the form of electromagnetic radiation, causes receptor cells in our eyes to activate and send signals to the brain. But we do not understand these signals as pure energy. The process of perception allows us to interpret them as objects, events, people, and situations. Without the ability to organize and interpret sensations, life would seem like a meaningless jumble of colors, shapes, and sounds. A person without any perceptual ability would not be able to recognize faces, understand language, or avoid threats. Such a person would not survive for long. In fact, many species of animals have evolved exquisite sensory and perceptual systems that aid their survival. At one time the experts tended to see perception as passive. Passive perception means that people were like video recorders who tended to receive what they sensed in the same way. Perception was objective; receivers did not add to or change what they sensed. The things they sensed had inherent meaning: a chair was a chair, and that all there was to it. Now Perception is considered more active. Active perception means that we are all diffent video cameras. We aim the camera differently and at different things, our lenses are different, we see different colors, and our sound systems pick up different sounds. P is subjective and creative: we interpret what we sense; we make it our own; and we add to and subtract from what we see, hear, smell, and touch.
2. DIFFERENCES IN PERCEPTION P is subjective, active and creative. Differences occur in P because of physiological factors, different past experiences, and differences in present feelings and circumstances. Physiological factors. Gender may be an important physiological difference to be considered in P. Some authors have suggested that hemispheric differences in the cerebral cortex of the brain are sexlinked. These differences are said to account for females language facility and fine hand control and males spatial and mathematical abilities, as well as their increased likelihood of suffering with dyslexia, stuttering, delayed speech. However, conclusive evidence has not been established for an anatomic difference between the brain structures of human females and males. Differences in P also arise from temporary conditions. A headache, fatigue, or injured finger can cause you to perceive a critical comment when a friendly one is being offered. Other physiological needs like hunger or thirst may also affect your perceptive skills. Past experiences. A concept called perceptual constancy refers to the idea that our past experiences lead us to see the world in a way that is difficult to change. At your age you already have certain ways that your perceptions invite you to respond to wealthy people, professors, clean air, and foreign cars. Your perceptual constancy, the tendency to keep seeing the world in the future the way you see it in the past, is influenced by such factors as your roles, culture and co-culture. Another basic factor in perception is culture. What we see, hear, taste, touch, and smell is conditioned by our cultures. Our perceptions are largely learned; and the greater the experimental differences among people, backgrounds, the more similarly they perceive the world. Your co-culture affects your perceptions of the world as well. Male or female, single or married, young or old all these co-cultures influence perceptions. Rural children are more apprehensive about communicating with others than are urban children. Women and men tend to see the world differently, communicate about it differently, and even practice and perceive communication itself differently. Women, for example, tend to see talk relational, as a way to share and understand feelings. Men, on the other hand, tend to see talk as instrumental, as a way to achieve some task. Present feelings and circumstances. Your daily, monthly, or yearly cycle may affect how you perceive stimuli. You might perceive stimuli more acutely in the cooler months of winter than you do in the warmer summer months. If you have even spent a night alone in a large house, a deserted dormitory, or an unfamiliar residence, you probably understand that perceptions are altered by circumstances. Most people experience a remarkable change in their hearing at night when they are alone. Creaking, scraping, cracking sounds are heard, although none was heard in the daytime. The lack of other stimuli including light, other sounds, and other people with whom to talk coupled with a slight feeling of anxiety, provide circumstances that result in more acute hearing. 3. ACTIVITIES IN PERCEPTION According to the most recent information, people engage in three separate activities during perception. None of use is aware of these separate processes because they occur quickly and almost simultaneously. Each activity is involved in our perceptions. These three activities include selection, organization and interpretation. Selection. None of us perceives all the stimuli in our environment. Our selectivity is of at least two types. First, we are selective in the stimuli to which we attend. Selective attention means we focus on certain cues and ignore others. We might be turned in to the low music piped in on an elevator but not notice the conversation held by the couple standing nearby. Second, we select the stimuli we will recall or remember. Selective retention means we categorize, store, and retrieve certain information, but we discard other information. If you played the car radio, try to remember one of the songs, or public-service announcements you heard. Although your attention may have been drawn to a particular song or message this morning, you may find that you cannot remember anything you heard. Your mind has discarded the sounds you heard from the radio.
The relationship between selection and communication can be clarified by the concept of stereotyping. Stereotyping is the process of placing people and things into established categories, or of basing judgments about people or things on the categories into which they fit, rather than on their individual characteristics. Stereotyping has a negative connotation because we sometimes exhibit hardening of the categories, placing items in inappropriate categories, or we do not recognize that others categorize differently than we do. Stereotyping involves selective attention and selective retention. Another way of looking at selective attention is filtering. Filtering is the many ways that our development screens and changes what we perceive. Organization. All of us tend to organize the stimuli in our environment. We organize stimuli in a number of ways. One method of organizing is to distinguish between figure and ground. Let us look at some examples of how figure and ground work in communication encounters. A man whose spouse was famous found that whenever they were together at a public occasion, people flocked to talk with his spouse and ignored him. She was figure, he was ground. Another way of organizing stimuli is described as closure. We engage in closure every time when we fill in information that does not exist. Closure functions in our communication interactions. You see two people standing face to face and looking deep into each others eyes, and you fill in your inference that they are lovers. We also organize stimuli according to their proximity. The principle of proximity, or nearness, operates whenever we group two or more things that happen to be close to each other. When we group according to proximity, our assumption is birds of a feather flock together, even though we know this is not always true. You use proximity when you communicate. Two people enter the room together, and you assume that the well-dressed people with bulging briefcases are lawyers, and when you see a person standing behind a counter in the store you assume he or she is salesperson. Similarity also helps us to organize stimuli. We sometimes group elements together because they resemble each other in size, color, or other attributes. Similarity is useful as you organize messages. To understand the relationship between the organizing of stimuli and communication, see such an example. When you enter the room, your tendency is to organize the stimuli, or people there, into specific groups. Your primary focus in on acquaintances and friends the figure rather than on the strangers, who function as the ground. You talk to friends sitting near the doorway as you enter, due to their proximity. You then seat yourself near a group of students you perceive as having interests identical to yours, thus illustrating similarity. Lastly, you notice your instructor arrive with another professor of communication; they are conversing enthusiastically, laughing, and smiling. Closure is a result of your assumption that they have a social relationship outside of the classroom. Interpretation. Interpretative perception means that you determine what stimuli mean, that perception is blend of internal states and external stimuli. The more ambiguous the stimuli, the more room we have for interpretation. The basis for the well-known inkblot test lies in the principle of interpretation of stimuli. In our interpretation of stimuli, we frequently rely on the context in which we perceive the stimuli, or we compare the stimuli to other stimuli. Sometimes there are helpful cues. Context provides cues for how an action, object, or situation is to be interpreted or perceived. Not seeing the double the in the sentence would be no problem for a reader who was trying to comprehend meaning, but a proofreader would be in jeopardy if it were missed. Individuals will never see the world identically, but gaining commonality in perceptions comes mainly through sharing. Understanding perception and its role in C is key to both the problems and the solutions in our contemporary society. Questions for self-control: 1. What is the difference for communicators between the passive and the active views of perception? 2. What are three causes for differences in perception? 3. What are three activities that occur in perception? 4. Why do differences in perception occur?
5. What are some examples that illustrate how figure and ground, proximity, closure, similarity, and perceptual constancy function in communication situations? Tasks for individual work: 1. Write the project: Motion perception. 2. Write the project: The role of experience in perception. 3. Find out an information about principles of perceptual organization 4. What is an example from your own life in which you and another person interpreted the same even differently? 5. Prepare an information: Perceptual constancy: lightness constancy, color constancy, shape constancy, size constancy. 6. How does your race, culture, role, and co-culture affect your perception? 7. Find examples of visual illusions.
LECTURE 3 SELF-AWARENESS AND SELF-CONCEPT 1. 2. 3. 4. Self-awareness Self-concept Gender differences in self-concept Improving self-concept
REFERENCES: 1. Pearson J. C., Nelson P. E. Understanding and Sharing: an Introduction to Speech Communication, Brown and Benchmark, 1994, 474 p. 2. Burgoon J. C., Buller D. B., Woodell J. K. Nonverbal Communication. The unspoken dialogue. N. Y., 1989. 3. Fromkin V. A. Speech Errors as Linguistic evidence. The Hague: Mouton, 1973. 4. Halliday M. A. K., Hasan R. Language, context and text: aspects of Language in a Social-semiotic perspective. Oxford, 1990. 5. Searle J. R. Linguistics and the philosophy of language //Linguistics and neighboring disciplines. Amstertdam ets., 1975. 6. . . . , . 2004. 7. . . // . ., 1990. 8. . . . , 1990. 1. SELF-AWARENESS An early step in considering yourself as a communicator is to contemplate your own selfawareness, your sense of self, your accommodation with your past, your plans for future, and all the prejudices, and possibilities that are you. Let us explore the notion of self-awareness in a chronological fashion by looking at your past, present and future. Your past goes all the way back to how you were reared, or the way your family taught you to think, believe, and behave. You began a spontaneous creature who rolled into a ball and cried when hungry, angry or frustrated. Over time, your elders took some of that spontaneity out of you until you behaved like an adult: you ate at meal times, cried little if at all, held your anger in check. Your emotions as well as your physical responses were altered to make you responsible for your own behavior. Once you mastered language, symbolic interactions the messages and feedback you receives from family, friends, etc Your self-awareness also considers your potential, your future prospects. Abraham Maslow called this concept self-actualization and saw it as the highest order in his hierarchy of human needs. Carl Rogers labeled the self-actualized person as the fully functioning person; Charles Morris identified it as the the open self, and Theodore Landman wrote of the beautiful and noble person. All these writers held an optimistic, empirically based view that recognized that self-awareness leads to self-actualization. You have a future, and the seeds of it are in what you are today. The more you know yourself and become self-aware, the more you can get in touch with yourself and with what you think of yourself, and how and why you communicate with others. 2. SELF-CONCEPT Self-concept is each persons consciousness of his or her total, essential and particular being. Included in self-concept are all of our physical, social and psychological perceptions about ourselves. These perceptions are a result of our past, present, projected experiences, and interactions with our environment including the people in our environment. The importance of others in determining self-concept cannot be overemphasized. We do not move from the spontaneous beings we are as children to complex adults without the intervention of countless other people. Our self originates in interactions with others. Our communicative exchanges tell us what our roles are and encourage, or discourage, us from internalizing specific predispositions.
There are four different self (according to Johari Window): open self, blind self, hidden self, unknown self. The open self. Contains information about yourself known both to you and others. It might be your name, nickname, gender, and religious affiliation or membership. The blind self. Consists of information known to others but not known to you. Included here would be your behaviors of which you are unaware, such as blinking frequently when you feel threatened, interrupting others when they talk to you. Also included here are occurrences no one has told you about you were adopted, you nearly died in infancy. The hidden self. Includes information you are aware of about yourself but you have not shared with others. You might have done something about which you are embarrassed or ashamed. The unknown self. Includes information that no one knows. Our lives are a script with characters and plot changes of which we are currently unaware. Until hey are played out, these potentialities remain part of our unknown self. Watzlawick, Beavin, and Jackson have suggested other people respond to us in three distinct ways. These responses include confirmation, rejection, and disconfirmation. Confirmation. Occurs when others treat us consistently with who we believe we are. Confirmation is not only satisfying , it strengthens our established self-concept. Rejection. Occurs when others treat us inconsistently with our self-definition. Disconfirmation. Occurs when others fail to respond to our notion of self, or when others respond in a neutral way. Self-concept is consist of self-image and self-esteem. Self-image is descriptive part of self, while self-esteem is the evaluative part of self. Self-image is the picture you have of yourself, the sort of person you believe you are. Included in our self-images are the categories in which we place ourselves, the roles we play, and the other ways we identify ourselves. Self-esteem is how we feel about ourselves, how well we like ourselves. To have high self-esteem is to have a favorable attitude toward yourself. To have low self-esteem is to have an unfavorable attitude toward yourself. Self-consciousness is excessive concern about self-esteem. It is characterized by shyness, embarrassment, and anxiety in the presence of others. Self-concept is in process. Our self-concepts change with the situation, the other person or people involved, and our own moods. Our self-concept is originally formed by the treatment we receive from others and our relationships with them. It is maintained largely through our interaction with others. 3. GENDER DIFFERENCES IN SELF-CONCEPT From the time we are born, we are treated differently because of our biological gender. We dress male and female babies in different kinds of colors of clothing. Parents respond differently to male and female infants. We describe male and female babies with different adjectives: boys are strong, solid and independent, while girls are loving, cute, and sweet. People describe identical behavior on the part of infants differently if they are told the infant is a boy or a girl. Since the messages about gender roles are abundant, we may be surprised children do not develop specific gender role conceptions earlier than they currently do. Before the age of three, children have little notion of their gender role, but between the ages of three and five, gender roles develop. Between the ages of five and seven, gender constancy, or the tendency to see oneself consistently as a male or female, develops in most people. Our culture tends to be masculinist, that is, masculine attitudes, predispositions, and characteristics are more highly valued than are those associated with femininity. The tendency of women to act in a feminine manner within our culture, which may be perceived as being biased toward men, often causes women to report lower self-esteem than men do. Although some studies have not reported differences between women and men, most research provides evidence of lower self-esteem in women than men. Other specific factors alter the relationship between ones biological gender and ones self-concept. For instance, a womans sense of being home- or career-oriented makes some difference in how she defines her self-esteem. Women who are home-oriented base their self-esteem more on friendships and social abilities and less on intellectual and technical abilities, while career-oriented women tend to base their self-esteem on intellectual and technical abilities rather than on friendships and social abilities.
Single women also tend to be higher in self-esteem than marries women. Their higher esteem may be based on their paid employment, on spending less time at home. Single women value personal growth and achievement, stating they are self-determined, while married women value personal relationships and describe themselves with associated characteristics and household activities. 4. IMPROVING SELF-CONCEPT Altering our self-concept is not a simple matter. One of the factors that makes change difficult is that people who know us expect us to behave in a certain way. In fact, they helped to create and maintain the self-concept we have. Another problem in altering our self-concept occurs even when we have changed and others recognize we have changed. Sometimes, we hamper the development of our self-concept. If we wish to change our self-concept to improve our ability to communicate with others, at least two steps are essential. First, we need to become aware of ourselves; second, we need to establish a positive attitude toward ourselves and toward others. The first step is not an automatic, natural process. We are conditioned to be out of touch with ourselves. We need to develop sensitivity to our own feelings and our own thoughts. It is essential we acknowledged all of our feelings. We are all more familiar with certain aspects of ourselves than others. If we have low self-esteem, we probably focus on those aspects of ourselves that we see as problems. If we have high self-esteem, we ignore our liabilities and focus on our assets. All of us have negative as well as positive characteristics, and it is important we recognize both of these aspects of ourselves. To become more aware of ourselves, it is also necessary that we focus on ourselves, rather than on others. Instead of using your parents perception of you, try to establish your own view. The second step in changing our self-concept establishing a positive attitude toward ourselves and others is more difficult than increasing self-awareness. If we are to alter our self-concept, we must strive for the situation in which we believe that we, and other people also, are worthy of liking and acceptance. We need to reject highly critical attitudes about both ourselves and others. We need to develop the belief that we, and others, have potentialities worthy of respect. We need to free ourselves of anxiety, insecurity, and tendency to be highly evaluative. Questions for self-control: 1. How is self-awareness related to communication? 2. What are the differences between self-concept and self-esteem? 3. How can you improve self-concept? 4. Name and explain two components of self-concept? Tasks for individual work: 1. Write the project: How has your self-concept changed over the last five years?. 2. What does Johari Window look like in your relationship with your professor? Your parents? Your best friend? 3. What are some examples of confirmation, rejection, and disconfirmation? 4. What is the relationship between gender differences and self-concept?
LECTURE 4 ACTIVE AND EMPHATIC LISTENING. CRITICAL LISTENING AND THINKING 1. The listening process 2. Types of listening 3. Critical listening and thinking Key terms: active listening, defensiveness, emphatic listening, experimental superiority, feedback, hearing, listening, mental distractions, negative feedback. Neutrality, physical distractions, self-focus, stereotypes. REFERENCES: 1. Pearson J. C., Nelson P. E. Understanding and Sharing: an Introduction to Speech Communication, Brown and Benchmark, 1994, 474 p. 2. Burgoon J. C., Buller D. B., Woodell J. K. Nonverbal Communication. The unspoken dialogue. N. Y., 1989. 3. Fromkin V. A. Speech Errors as Linguistic evidence. The Hague: Mouton, 1973. 4. Halliday M. A. K., Hasan R. Language, context and text: aspects of Language in a Social-semiotic perspective. Oxford, 1990. 5. Searle J. R. Linguistics and the philosophy of language //Linguistics and neighboring disciplines. Amstertdam ets., 1975. 6. . . . , . 2004. 7. . . // . ., 1990. 8. . . . , 1990. 1. THE LISTENING PROCESS Listening is the process of receiving and interpreting aural stimuli. In other words, it is figuring out what you heard. Hearing and listening are different. Hearing is simply the act of receiving sound. Listening means that you have to apply your brain to the sounds you hear by interpreting them or by giving them meaning. You hear with your ears; you listen with your brain. Steps in listening: 1) Stimuli 2) Ears hear stimuli 3) Nerves transmit sensation to the brain 4) The brain attends to the stimuli 5) The stimuli is assigned meaning 6) The stimuli is placed in short-term or long-term recall and affects how future sounds will be treated Listening and hearing are different activities, most of us have been in situations where people assumed they were the same. Similarly, many people incorrectly believe they listen well. Most of the evidence, is in the other direction. In general, when tested immediately after being presented with a message, people recall about half of what they have heard, even when they have been informed they will be tested on the information. When they are tested two months later, they recall only about a quarter of information. However, students do recall more information if they have been told that they will be tested and graded on the information. Listening is a fundamental component of communication, and we spend a great deal of time engaged in the activity. A classic study shows that we spend more than 40 percent of our time engaged in listening. Similarly, we listen to a great extent than we engage in any other form of verbal communication. Each day we spend 32% of our time listening to mass media, 21% in face-to-face listening, 17% reading, 16% speaking, 14 writing. Over half of your time (53 percent) is spent listening to either the mass media or to other people.
2. TYPES OF LISTENING We engage in L for a variety of reasons for appreciation, discrimination, comprehension, evaluation, empathy and therapy. L also can be distinguished in terms of purpose, behavior of the listener, nature of the information under discussion, communication setting, etc. There are such types of L: active L, emphatic L, and critical L. Active L is involved listening with a purpose. AL is desirable in both interpersonal C and public speaking. AL requires activity on the part of the listener and is characterized by movement, change, and responsiveness on the part of the listener. AL implies feedback is offered to the speaker. The responses must be received and interpreted by the speaker. Feedback allows us to monitor our C with others and to avoid many misunderstandings. There is a difference between positive and negative feedback. Positive feedback includes such nonverbal behaviors as positive facial expression, smiling, laughing, a forward body lean, increased touching, and movement toward other person. Positive feedback results in speakers increasing the length of their messages, decreasing linguistic errors and nonfluencies, and decreasing feelings of defensiveness (the tendency to protect ourselves against danger of intimacy). Negative feedback is characterized by frowns and other negative facial expressions, movement away form the speaker, decreased touching, a focus on people other that the communicator, decreased eyes contact, and general non-responsiveness. Negative feedback results in a message of decreasing length, an increasing number of linguistic errors and nonenfluencies, and increasing feelings of defensiveness on the part of the speaker. Not all feedback is clear, nor is all feedback useful. For feedback to be effective, the speaker needs to be able to understand a listeners response, the speaker must be able and willing to accept the information, and the speaker must be able to act on the information. First, if you are a listener and want to provide effective feedback, you must carefully choose any words you intend to use so the other communicator will understand what you mean. Second, to help the other communicator accept the information you are providing, you need to consider his or her feelings, attitudes, and values. Avoid loaded terms that might produce emotional reactions. Attempt to be descriptive, rather that evaluative. State your perceptions as opinions, rather than as absolute and indisputable facts. Refer to specific, observable behavior, rather than general or global issues. Discuss the relevant behavior, rather than a person. Communicate acceptance of the other person and his or her right to view the world in a manner different from your own. Third, to help the other communicator act on your feedback, you may need to examine the content of your response. Do not provide feedback to individuals about things over which they have no control. Consider how improvement may occur once the other individual has received your feedback. Suggest specific outcomes, rather than leaving the person bombarded with general information. Empathic L is involved L with a purpose. EL has the additional characteristic, however, of attempting to understand another person. Empathy is the ability to perceive the other persons view of the world as though it were our own. EL is the type of L that has total understanding of the other person as its goal. When we listen with empathy to others, we do not need to feel the same emotions they are experiencing. Types of listening: 1. Appreciative listening Undertaken by people principally concerned with something other than the primary message. Come to hear and enjoy a famous speaker. Like to hear a good presenter. Like to be in the audience on a special occasions. 2. Discriminative listening Auditors are attempting to draw inferences about unstated mattersabout what speakers really think or believe or feel.
An important dimension of listeningespecially of listeners judgments regarding emotional impact, speaker credibility, the urgency of some problemhas to do with relatively sophisticated inferences auditors draw from (rather than find in) speeches. Therapeutic listening Auditor acts as a sounding board for the speaker as that person attempts to talk through a problem, work out a difficult situation, or express deep emotional stress or confusion. Actually is more typical of interpersonal than of public communication. Special social bonding between speaker and listener occurs; the speaker-audience relationship itself becomes recognized and even celebrated. 4. Listening for comprehension Most common auditory activity. The listener wants to gain additional information or insights being provided by the speaker. In a meeting or classroom. Critical listening Most sophisticated kind of listening. Demands that auditors become fully engaged with the message in order not simply to understand it, but to interpret it, judge its strengths and weaknesses, and assign some worth to it. Evaluate commercials, political campaign speeches, advice given you by career counselors, or arguments offered by people for or against some plan of action on the job. 3. CRITICAL LISTENING Both are extremely important to the communication process, because we must be able to make critical distinctions when we are receiving and when we are sending messages. Critical listening is defined as the type of listening that challenges the speakers message and that evaluates its accuracy, meaningfulness, and utility. Critical listening involves capturing the information, establishing standards of appraisal, and applying the standards to the materials. Effective note taking will assist you in capturing the information you hear. Critical thinking is reasonable, reflective thinking that is focused on deciding what to believe or do. Critical thinking is important to you now as a student, and it will continue to be of value throughout your life. Some of the activities related to critical thinking include distinguishing between observations and inferences, categorizing emotional, logical, and personal proofs, and understanding types of arguments. When people listen critically, their goal, in addition to understanding and remembering, is to evaluate (assess, interpret) what they are hearing. Whereas attentive listening emphasizes nonverbal skills along with some verbal skills, critical listening emphasizes critical thinking skills. Like Attentive listening, Critical listening is related to Asking Questions. Listening attentively enables you to ask good questions of clarification; listening critically provides the basis for good probing questions. Listed below are four critical thinking skills and two critical listening skills. Remember that practice is the key to successfully incorporating these skills into your communication repertoire. A. Critical Thinking Skills 1. Questioning and challenging (from a position of goodwill and mutual goals) 2. Recognizing differences (e.g. between facts and opinions) 3. Forming opinions and supporting claims (determining what you think and why) 4. Putting ideas into a broader context (avoiding tunnel vision and bias) B. Critical Listening Skills 1. Review and Preview as you listen: this involves anticipating where the speaker is going next, how the argument will be developed and what issues have been and/or should be covered. 2. Mapping as you listen: determining the thesis or purpose, identifying the main points, assessing the adequacy of the main points Questions for self-control: 1. What is the difference between hearing and listening? 2. What are two main kinds of listening?
3. What are some examples of things that tend to interfere with effective listening? 4. How do status and stereotypes interfere with effective listening? Tasks for individual work: 1. Write the project: Suggestions for improving your listening 2. Can you cite examples of ineffective listening form your own experience? 3. Can you explain with examples self-focus, defensiveness, and experimental superiority? 4. Find out what verbal and non-verbal behaviors are associated with effective listening?
LECTURE 5 NONVERBAL AND VERBAL CODES 1. 2. 3. 4. Definition and identification of nonverbal codes Vocal cues Verbal codes: sets of words Words as an obstacle to communication
Key terms: clichs, co-cultures, code, colloquialisms, concreteness, connotative meaning, dating, decode, denotative meaning, descriptiveness, encode, general semantics, indexing, inferences, jargon, metatalk, neologisms, red-flag words, personal language, semantics, slang, street language, symbol. REFERENCES: 1. Pearson J. C., Nelson P. E. Understanding and Sharing: an Introduction to Speech Communication, Brown and Benchmark, 1994, 474 p. 2. Burgoon J. C., Buller D. B., Woodell J. K. Nonverbal Communication. The unspoken dialogue. N. Y., 1989. 3. Fromkin V. A. Speech Errors as Linguistic evidence. The Hague: Mouton, 1973. 4. Halliday M. A. K., Hasan R. Language, context and text: aspects of Language in a Social-semiotic perspective. Oxford, 1990. 5. Searle J. R. Linguistics and the philosophy of language //Linguistics and neighboring disciplines. Amstertdam ets., 1975. 6. . . . , . 2004. 7. . . // . ., 1990. 8. . . . , 1990. 1. DEFINITION AND IDENTIFICATION OF NONVERBAL CODES Nonverbal codes are codes of communication consisting of symbols that are not words. Bodily movements, facial expression, use of space, touching, vocalies, and clothing and artifacts are all nonverbal codes. Bodily Movement and Facial Expression The study of posture, movement, gestures, and facial expression is called kinesics, a word derived from the Greek word kinesis meaning movement. Some popular books purport to teach you how "to read" nonverbal communication, so you will know who is sexually aroused, who is just kidding, and who you should stay away from. Nonverbal communication, however, is more complicated than that. Interpreting the meaning of nonverbal communication is partly a matter of assessing the other person's unique behavior and considering the context. You don't just "read" another person's body language; instead, you observe, analyze, and interpret before you decide the probable meaning. Assessing the other person's unique behavior means that you need to know how they usually act. A taciturn person might be unflappable even in an emergency situation. A person who never smiles may not be unhappy, and someone who acts happy might not actually be happy. You need to know how the person expresses him- or herself before you can interpret what the nonverbal communication means. To look more deeply into interpreting nonverbal communication, let us consider the work of some experts on the subject: Albert Mehrabian on the body, and Paul Ekman and Wallace Friesen on nonverbal movement and facial expression. Mehrabian studied nonverbal communication by examining liking, status, and responsiveness. 1. Liking was often expressed by leaning forward, a direct body orientation (e.g., standing face to face), close proximity, increased touching, relaxed posture, open arms and body, positive facial expression, and more eye contact (i.e., looking directly at the other person). 2. Status, especially high status, is communicated nonverbally by bigger gestures, relaxed posture, and less eye contact. Male bosses will talk to subordinates while leaning back in their desk chair with their hands behindtheir head and their elbows out (very relaxed), but you practically never see a subordinate acting the same way. 3. Responsiveness in nonverbal communication is exhibited by moving toward the other person, by spontaneous gestures, by shifting posture and position, and by facial expressiveness. In other words, the face and body provides positive feedback to the other person.
Space Two concepts considered essential to the study of the use of space are territoriality and personal space. 1. Territoriality refers to our need to establish and maintain certain spaces as our own. In a shared dormitory room, the items on the common desk area mark the territory. On a cafeteria table, the placement of the plate, glass, napkin, and eating utensils mark the territory. In a neighborhood, it might be fences, hedges, trees, or rocks that mark the territory. All are nonverbal indicators that signal ownership. 2. Personal space is the personal bubble of space that moves around with you. It is the distance you maintain between yourself and others, the amount of room you claim as your own. Large people usually claim more space because of their size, and men often take more space than women. Observe, for example, who claims the armrests in the lecture hall to see who takes them as part of their personal bubble. Hall was the first to define the four distances people regularly use. His categories have been useful in understanding the communicative behavior that might occur when two communicators are a particular distance from each other. Beginning with the closest contact and the least personal space and moving to the greatest distance, Hall's four categories are intimate distance, personal distance, social distance, and public distance. 1. Intimate distance extends from you outward to eighteen inches and is used by people who are relationally close to us. Used more often in private than in public, this intimate distance is employed to show affection, to give comfort, and to protect. It usually shows positive response because we tend to stand and sit close to people to whom we are attracted. 2. Personal distance ranges from eighteen inches to four feet, and it is the distance used by most Americans for conversation and other nonintimate exchanges. 3. Social distance ranges from four to twelve feet and is used most often to carry out business in the workplace, especially in formal, less personal situations. The higher the status of the other person, the greater the distance. 4. Public distance exceeds twelve feet and is used most often in public speaking such situations as lecture halls; churches, mosques, and synagogues; courtrooms; and convention halls. Professors often stand at this distance while lecturing. Distance, then, is a nonverbal means of communicating everything from the size of your personal bubble to your relationship with the person to whom you are speaking or listening. In fact, sex, size, and similarity seem to be among the important determiners of your personal space. Cultural background can result in great differences in the human use of space and the interpretation, by others, of that use of space. As our world continues to shrink, more of us than ever will be working in multinational corporations, regularly traveling to different countries, and interacting with people from a variety of backgrounds. Sensitivity to space differences in different cultures and quick and appropriate responses to those variations may become imperative to survival. Touching Tactile communication is the use of touch in communication. Because touch always involves invasion of another's personal space, it is not a kind of communication that can be ignored. It can be welcome as when a crying child is held by a parent or unwelcome as in sexual harassment, but our need for and appreciation of tactile communication starts early in life. Schutz observes, The unconscious parental feelings communicated through touch or lack of touch can lead to feelings of confusion and conflict in a child. Sometimes a "modern" parent will say all the right things but not want to touch the child very much. The child's confusion comes from the inconsistency of levels: if they really approve of me so much like they say they do, why don't they touch me? Touch varies with each co-culture. The findings relating touch with gender indicate that On this last point, it is interesting to observe who can touch whom among people in the workplace. Although sexual harassment rules have inadvertently stopped nearly all touch except for handshaking, the general nonverbal principle is that the higher status individual gets to initiate touch, but it is not reciprocal. The president might pat you on the back for a job well done, but in our society you don't pat back. Further, it is not only co-culture but culture that determines the frequency and kind of nonverbal communication. People from different countries handle nonverbal communication differentlyeven something as simple as touch. 2. VOCAL CUES Nonverbal communication does include some sounds as long as they are not words. We call them paralinguistic features. The prefix para means along side or parallel to, so paralinguistic means "along side the words or language," namely sound features that accompany language in oral communication. The paralinguistic feature we are examining here are vocal cues, which include the following:
Pitch. The highness or lowness of your voice Rate. How rapidly or slowly you speak Inflection. The variety or changes in your pitch Volume. The loudness or softness of your voice Quality. The unique resonance of your voice, such as huskiness, nasality, raspiness, and whininess Sounds and silence. Such nonword sounds as mmb, bub, and abb and pauses or absence of sound used for effect in speaking. Pronunciation, articulation, and enunciation refer not to what accompanies the word but how the word itself is correctly or incorrectly handled. Pronunciation is whether or not you say the word correctly. Articulation is whether or not your mouth, tongue, and teeth coordinate to make the word understandable to others. A lisp is an example of an articulation problem. Enunciation is whether or not you combine pronunciation and articulation to produce a word with clarity and distinction, so it can be understood. A person who mumbles has an enunciation problem. These vocal cues are important because they are linked in our minds with a speaker's physical characteristics, emotional states, personality characteristics, sex differences, and even credibility. Vocal cues frequently convey information about the speaker's physical characteristics, such as age, height, appearance, and body type. For example, we associate a high-pitched voice with someone who is female rather than male, someone who is younger rather than older, and someone who is smaller rather than larger. We visualize someone who uses a loud voice as being taller rather than shorter, and larger rather than smaller. People who speak quickly may be thought to be nervous rather than calm. People who tend to speak slowly and deliberately may be given credit as high-status individuals or people who have high credibility. Sex differences are also related to vocal cues. Men and women demonstrate different intonational patterns. For instance, women tend to state declarative sentences with an upward inflection to suggest a question rather than a declaration. Vocal cues can help a public speaker establish credibility with an audience and can clarify the message. Pitch and inflection can be used to make the speech sound aesthetically pleasing, to accomplish subtle changes in meaning, and to tell an audience whether you are asking a question or making a statement, being sincere or sarcastic, or being doubtful or assertive. A rapid speaking rate may indicate you are confident about speaking in public or you are nervously attempting to conclude your speech. Variations in volume can be used for emphasis or to create suspense. Enunciation is especially important in 3. VERBAL CODES: SETS OF WORDS Language is a code, symbols, letters, or words with arbitrary meanings arranged according to the rules of syntax and used to communicate. Syntactics is the study of word arrangement. A simple example is that in English we usually place the subject before the verb and the object after the verb. Other languages have other rules of syntax, including reading from right to left. We encode by translating our thoughts into words. When we listen to verbal communication in words we translate, assign meaning or decode, the words into thoughts of our own. Because language is an imperfect means of transmission, the thoughts of one person never really become the thoughts of another person entirely Words as Verbal Symbols To understand language, you need to understand what words mean, the nature of words. First, it will help you to know that words are arbitrary. They have no inherent meanings, and they have only the meanings we give them. When lots of people use a word to indicate some object or idea, the word is placed in the dictionary. Placing a word in the dictionary, however, does not keep it from changing, so the dictionary is simply a record of how a word may be used now and a history of how it was used in the past. Language is dynamic, ever changing, and always interesting to study. Second, words are abstractions, simplifications of what they stand for. People who study semantics, the study of meaning, say "the map is not the territory." This expression means that a map is a simplification and abstraction of the area it depictsthe actual roads, hills, and towns. Your community may be a dot on a large map. That dot greatly oversimplifies what is really there. Similarly, the word videogame is a broad term for thousands of individual games. The statement "The word is not the thing" sums up the idea. Third, words organize and classify reality. Because you cannot account for all of the individual things in the world when you speak, you lump them into groups; so all four-legged items with seats and backs are called chairs, all two-legged living things with arms and faces are called people, and all multiple-dwelling buildings are called apartments Language is used to classifyin this caseby gender, height, hair color, weight, and adornment.
Another way of saying that words are arbitrary, that they are abstractions or simplifications, and that they organize and classify reality is to say that words are symbols. Words represent something without being that something: the word is not the thing. An entire field called general semantics was started by Count Alfred Korzybski with the noble notion of changing the world through careful use of language. The general semanticists encouraged some practices that made language more certain to engender shared meanings. Two such concepts to be introduced later in this chapter are dating and indexing. Their contribution included the use of precise, concrete, specific language to encourage the transmission and reception of symbols as accurately as possible. Cultural Influence on Language Usage This European experience is similar to experiences all of us have had in this country. People often assume their words have an inherent, intrinsic meaning that is universally understood. Unfortunately, this is not correct. Co-cultural Influence on Language Usage The heading for this section is a lesson in language. For five editions of this text it said "Subcultural Influence on Language Usage" until some intelligent student pointed out that subculture can mean "less than" as in the word subordinate. Co-culture seems to be a better label since it implies coexistence and does not have the negative connotation. Co-cultures are groups within our dominant American culture that have a separate identity by race, organization, or interest. Co-cultures can include African Americans, Latinos, and Asians; survivalists, environmentalists, and corporations; or musicians, motorcyclists, and gangs. We are interested in how these groups' use language to communicate, to include and exclude, and to establish identity within the group. Women can be classified as a co-culture, a marginalized group in our society with lower pay, lower status jobs, and more working for white collar managers. Women speak English but their use of language differs from that used by men. A distinction is frequently made between the denotative and connotative meanings of words. Denotative meaning refers to an agreed-upon meaning or a dictionary meaning for a term. Connotative meaning refers to an individualized or personalized meaning that may be emotionally laden. Denotative meanings are understood and shared by a large number of people. They are meanings people hold because of a common social experience with a word. For example, the word chair is generally understood similarly by others through their essentially common experience with the objects we call chairs. Connotative meanings are limited to a single person or to a very small number of people. They are meanings others have come to hold because of a personal or individual experience with a word. Red-flag words provide an example of connotative meaning and refer to words that tend to stir up negative responses. These words are often upsetting enough to interrupt or stop communication between people. They include racial epithets; comments about one's mother; using man-linked words to refer to women (e.g., the postmaster is a woman); scornful terms for people in careers, such as the army, the police force, or internal revenue; and words that label you as mentally or physically deficient ("you retard" or "you whimp"). Sometimes ordinary words can become red-flag words when they temporarily have increased significance. "Terminate an unwanted pregnancy" becomes the more negatively charged "murder a preborn child." The Influence of the Situation and Setting on Language Usage Not only do the meanings of words vary in different cultures and co-cultures and among different individuals, they also vary with the same person, depending on the situation and the setting. We can see how this happens by looking at the number of denotative meanings for a word provided in a dictionary. For example, the Oxford English Dictionary provides twenty-one separate definitions and many more subtypes for the word close; the word clear has twenty-seven definitions and many subtypes; the word bead has sixty-six definitions with two to four subtypes of each definition; and the word come has sixtynine definitions, but nearly two hundred definitions when all the subdefinitions are counted. 4. WORDS AS AN OBSTACLE TO COMMUNICATION In this section, we consider how language can actually be a major obstacle to communication. We will see that people sometimes use language in unconventional ways or to distort or alter meaning. Unconventional Language Usage People sometimes use language in unusual ways, and clear communication is almost impossible when individuals do not follow language conventions. For example, people sometimes break the semantic and syntactical rules that others agree on, and sometimes they replace cultural language rules with those from a particular co-culture. At other times, more personal decisions dictate the choice of words and the structuring of them. For instance, we use language in an unconventional way when we
make errors in grammar, word choice, or the structure of our sentences; or when we use colloquialisms, cliches, euphemisms, slang, jargon, regionalisms, or street language. Similarly, incorrect syntax creates problems. If someone told you, "I like to write on my book," you might not be sure if he liked to write and scribble on the cover of his book or if he liked writing and was authoring a book. The statement he made suggests the former conclusion. If he had been trying to express the latter, he should have said, "I like writing my book." Colloquialisms include words and phrases used informally. Metatalk refers to talk in which the meaning is beyond the words. For instance, everyday phrases like "Call me," "How are you," "Let's have lunch," and "We must get together" do not derive their meaning from the words. "Call me" generally means you are too busy to talk right now and the other person should call if he or she really needs to talk. "Call me" translates as "I can't talk now." "How are you?" is a greeting that acknowledges the other person's presence. The speaker is not inquiring about his or her physical or psychological health. "Let's have lunch" is a mildly positive comment suggesting that the two people might get together, but only if they are both without other plans. "We must get together" is similarly positive, but the likelihood that the speaker will actively attempt to arrange a social occasion is very low. Cliches are words or phrases that have lost their effectiveness because of overuse. Examples include "Don't cry over spilled milk," "As old as the hills". Euphemisms, sometimes called double talk, are inoffensive words substituted for words considered offensive. Regionalisms are words or phrases specific to a particular region or part of the country. Jargon is the technical language developed by a professional group, such as physicians, educators, electricians, economists, and computer operators. Slang refers to a specialized language of a group of people who share a common interest or belong to a similar co-culture. Today, students use a final not to deny the sentence they just said as in "She's really a nice person not;" Yeah right; kickin' as in "That's a kickin do" (that's an attractive hairdo); or dissed as in "You really dissed him" (you really disrespected him). However, the half-life of slang is so brief that even these expressions will be out-of-date in nine months. Street language consists of words or phrases specific to one locality. Questions for self-control: 1. What are three basic steps involved in critical listening? 2. What are the primary errors made by poor note takers? 3. How can you take effective notes to improve your listening? 4. Why should you learn how to think critically when listening? 5. What is the difference between observation and inferences? 6. What is the difference between truth and validity? Tasks for individual work: 1. Write the project: Origins of slang, its formation and position in the language. 2. Write the project: Role of the words in communication and understanding between different social groups. 3. Can you identify logical, emotional, and personal proofs when you hear them? 4. Do you know what questions to ask in determining if someone is speaking or writing logically? 5. Can you identify a logical fallacy when you hear it?
LECTURE 6 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION 1. Functions and principles of interpersonal communication 2. Principles of intercultural communication 3. Small group communication, leadership, and conflict resolution Key terms: affection, aggressiveness, avoiding, bargaining, behavioral flexibility, bonding, complementarity, control, defensiveness, differentiation, inclusion, initiating, integrating, intensifying, proximity, relational development, , relational maintenance, responsiveness, self-disclosure, similarity, terminating, accommodation, argot, assimilation, cant, co-cultures, co-languages, ethnocentrism, slang, jargon, appointed leader, autocratic leadership, collaboration, commitment, compromise, conflict, denial, emergent leader, panel, power, productivity, suppression, symposium. REFERENCES: 1. Pearson J. C., Nelson P. E. Understanding and Sharing: an Introduction to Speech Communication, Brown and Benchmark, 1994, 474 p. 2. Burgoon J. C., Buller D. B., Woodell J. K. Nonverbal Communication. The unspoken dialogue. N. Y., 1989. 3. Fromkin V. A. Speech Errors as Linguistic evidence. The Hague: Mouton, 1973. 4. Halliday M. A. K., Hasan R. Language, context and text: aspects of Language in a Social-semiotic perspective. Oxford, 1990. 5. Searle J. R. Linguistics and the philosophy of language //Linguistics and neighboring disciplines. Amstertdam ets., 1975. 6. . . . , . 2004. 7. . . // . ., 1990. 8. . . . , 1990. 1. FUNCTIONS AND PRINCIPLES OF INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION Interpersonal communication is the process of sending and receiving information or communication with another person. This process happens in an environment using different kinds of communication media. This communication could be verbal or nonverbal. This kind of communication is subdivided into dyadic communication, public communication, and small-group communication. What do we mean when we talk about interpersonal communication? The Contextual View One way of defining interpersonal communication is to compare it to other forms of communication. In so doing, we would examine how many people are involved, how physically close they are to one another, how many sensory channels are used, and the feedback provided. Interpersonal communication differs from other forms of communication in that there are few participants involved, the interactants are in close physical proximity to each other, there are many sensory channels used, and feedback is immediate. An important point to note about the contextual definition is that it does not take into account the relationship between the interactants. The Developmental View We have many different relationships with people. Some researchers say that our definition of interpersonal communication must account for these differences. These researchers say that interacting with a sales clerk in a store is different than the relationship we have with our friends and family members. Thus, some researchers have proposed an alternative way of defining interpersonal communication. This is called the developmental view. From this view, interpersonal communication is defined as communication that occurs between people who have known each other for some time.
Importantly, these people view each other as unique individuals, not as people who are simply acting out social situations. Functions of Interpersonal Communication: Interpersonal communication is important because of the functions its achieves. Whenever we engage in communication with another person, we seek to gain information about them. We also give off information through a wide variety of verbal and nonverbal cues. Gaining Information One reason we engage in interpersonal communication is so that we can gain knowledge about another individual. Social Penetration Theory says that we attempt to gain information about others so that we can interact with them more effectively. We can better predict how they will think, feel, and act if we know who they are. We gain this information passively, by observing them; actively, by having others engage them; or interactively, by engaging them ourselves. Self-disclosure is often used to get information from another person. Building a Context of Understanding We also engage in interpersonal communication to help us better understand what someone says in a given context. The words we say can mean very different things depending on how they are said or in what context. Content Messages refer to the surface level meaning of a message. Relationship Messages refer to how a message is said. The two are sent simultaneously, but each affects the meaning assigned to the communication. Interpersonal communication helps us understand each other better. Establishing Identity Another reason we engage in interpersonal communication is to establish an identity. The roles we play in our relationships help us establish identity. So too does the face, the public self-image we present to others. Both roles and face are constructed based on how we interact with others. Interpersonal Needs Finally, we engage in interpersonal communication because we need to express and receive interpersonal needs. William Schutz has identified three such needs: inclusion, control, and affection. Inclusion is the need to establish identity with others. Control is the need to exercise leadership and prove one's abilities. Groups provide outlets for this need. Some individuals do not want to be a leader. For them, groups provide the necessary control over aspects of their lives. Affection is the need to develop relationships with people. Groups are an excellent way to make friends and establish relationships. Principles of Interpersonal Communication: These principles underlie the workings in real life of interpersonal communication. They are basic to communication. We can't ignore them 1. Interpersonal communication is inescapable We can't not communicate. The very attempt not to communicate communicates something. Through not only words, but through tone of voice and through gesture, posture, facial expression, etc., we constantly communicate to those around us. Through these channels, we constantly receive communication from others. Even when you sleep, you communicate. Remember a basic principle of communication in general: people are not mind readers. Another way to put this is: people judge you by your behavior, not your intent. 2. Interpersonal communication is irreversible You can't really take back something once it has been said. The effect must inevitably remain. Despite the instructions from a judge to a jury to "disregard that last statement the witness made," the lawyer knows that it can't help but make an impression on the jury. 3. Interpersonal communication is complicated No form of communication is simple. Because of the number of variables involved, even simple requests are extremely complex. Theorists note that whenever we communicate there are really at least six "people" involved: 1) who you think you are; 2) who you think the other person is; 30 who you think the other person thinks you are; 4) who the other person thinks /she is; 5) who the other person thinks you are; and 6) who the other person thinks you think s/he is. 4. Interpersonal communication is contextual In other words, communication does not happen in isolation. There is:
Psychological context, which is who you are and what you bring to the interaction. Your needs, desires, values, personality, etc., all form the psychological context. ("You" here refers to both participants in the interaction.) Relational context, which concerns your reactions to the other person--the "mix." Situational context deals with the psycho-social "where" you are communicating. An interaction that takes place in a classroom will be very different from one that takes place in a bar. Environmental context deals with the physical "where" you are communicating. Furniture, location, noise level, temperature, season, time of day, all are examples of factors in the environmental context. Cultural context includes all the learned behaviors and rules that affect the interaction. If you come from a culture (foreign or within your own country) where it is considered rude to make long, direct eye contact, you will out of politeness avoid eye contact. If the other person comes from a culture where long, direct eye contact signals trustworthiness, then we have in the cultural context a basis for misunderstanding. 2. PRINCIPLES OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION
Intercultural communication principles guide the process of exchanging meaningful and unambiguous information across cultural boundaries, in a way that preserves mutual respect and minimises antagonism. For these purposes, culture is a shared system of symbols, beliefs, attitudes, values, expectations, and norms of behaviour. It refers to coherent groups of people whether resident wholly or partly within state territories, or existing without residence in any particular territory. Hence, these principles may have equal relevance when a tourist seeks help, where two well-established independent corporations attempt to merge their operations, and where politicians attempt to negotiate world peace. Two factors have raised the importance of this topic: improvements in communication and transportation technology have made it possible for previously stable cultures to meet in unstructured situations, e.g. the internet opens lines of communication without mediation, while budget airlines transplant ordinary citizens into unfamilar milieux. Experience proves that merely crossing cultural boundaries can be considered theatening, while positive attempts to interact may provoke defensive responses. Misunderstanding may be compounded by either an exaggerated sensitivity to possible slights, or an exaggerated and over-protective fear of giving offence; some groups believe that the phenomenon of globalisation has reduced cultural diversity and so reduced the opportunity for misunderstandings, but characterising people as a homogeneous market is simplistic. One product or brand only appeals to the material aspirations of one self-selecting group of buyers, and its sales performance will not affect the vast multiplicity of factors that may separate the cultures. Research methods for communication and culture: The Semiotics of Communication analyses the verbal and non-verbal codes used to transfer information between people. Should these people have different cultural backgrounds, they may interpret verbal and non-verbal signals differently. Empirical methods for researching such differences propose that culture is learned by listening to, and observing the behaviour of, other members within the group. Direct and indirect interactions ensure that culture is passed from person to person and from generation to generation. The research methods are predominantly objective and quantitative, observing behaviour without considering the reasons behind it, and cataloguing the types of behavior identified as common within each culture. Data collection by observation is the primary method because intervention by the observer to ask for an explanation of the behaviour may produce unreliable subjective data and skew future behaviour when individuals are aware that they are being observed. What can go wrong? People from different cultures encode and decode messages differently, increasing the chances of misunderstanding, so the safety-first consequence of recognizing cultural differences should be to assume that everyones thoughts and actions are not just like ours. Such assumptions stem from potentially devastating ignorance and can lead to much frustration for members of both cultures. Entering a culture
with this type of ethnocentrism, the assumption your own culture is correct, is another byproduct of ignorance and cultural misunderstanding. Main types of misunderstanding are: 1) Language Even when two people think they can speak each other's language, the chance of error is high. Usages and contextual inferences may be completely different between cultures. So even though one speaker may have learned the vocabulary of the other's language, selecting the most appropriate words, with the correct intonation, spoken with appropriate eye contact while standing a proper distance from the other are all critical even before one considers the propriety of the topic to be discussed. 2) Rights, values, and needs Some cultural characteristics will be easy to identify, e.g. whether people are conscious of status or make displays of material wealth. But many rights are assumed, values are implied, and needs are unspoken, (e.g. for safety, security, love, a sense of belonging to a group, self-esteem, and the ability to attain one's goals). 3) Assumptions People may misinterpret each other's motives. For example, one group may assume that they are simply exchanging information about what they believe, but the other believes that they are negotiating a change in behavior. This is most likely to arise when the parties are not completely honest with each other from the outset. Individuals may wish to protect their privacy, corporations may be concerned about industrial espionage, and politicians may be bound by requirements of secrecy in the national interest. Nevertheless, clarifying the purpose of the interaction is essential to eliminating confusion, particularly if vested interests are involved. 4) The situation If time is not a factor and those interacting approach their meetings with good will and patience, effective communication is more likely. But, if the parties are under pressure (whether generated by external circumstances or internal needs), emotions may colour the exchange. Prejudice is a short-cut decision-making tool. In a crisis, fear and anger may trigger more aggressive tactics, particularly if the meeting is being staged under the gaze of the news media. 3. SMALL GROUP COMMUNICATION, LEADERSHIP, CONFLICT RESOLUTION Communication may also occur in small groups, such as families, clubs, religious groups, friendship groups, or work groups. Most small-group interaction involves fewer than ten people, and the communicators need the same communication skills as in a dyadic conversation. However, additional factors called group dynamics come into play in a small group. A group may try to work toward a consensus, a general sense of understanding or agreement with others in the group. Groupthink may occur, in which a group reaches consensus so quickly that its members mistakenly ignore other good ideas. Small-group members may experience disagreement or even conflict. Some members may be more persuasive than others and form sides, or cliques, within the group. A special case of small-group interaction occurs in organizations where there is work to do or a task for the group to perform. Or several small groups may need to interact among each other within a single organization. In these cases, the groups must communicate well, both among themselves and with other groups, so that their members can perform their work effectively and make good decisions. Problems sometimes arise in organizational communication between supervisors and workers, or between different groups of workers who are responsible for different parts of a task. Therefore, small-group communication skills can be as necessary as conversation skills in the workplace or other organizational activities. Size. Most researchers define a small group as having at least three and no more than twelve or fifteen members. A group needs to have at least three members, otherwise it would simply be a dyad. With three members, coalitions can be formed and some kind of organization is present. Too large of a group (more than twelve or fifteen members) inhibits the group members' ability to communicate with everyone else in the group. Interaction. A group's members must be able to communicate freely and openly with all of the other members of the group. Groups will develop norms about discussion and group members will develop roles which will affect the group's interaction.
Goals. A group must have a common purpose or goal and they must work together to achieve that goal. The goal brings the group together and holds it together through conflict and tension. Types of Small Groups Groups form to accomplish some objective. The objective may be to complete some kind of task or it may be to promote the interpersonal relationships between the group members. Many groups, however, fulfill both of these functions. Read more about the various types of groups and then complete the interactive activity and the quiz at the end of this unit. Social Groups. While all groups will have both social and task dimensions, some groups are predominantly social in their orientation. Examples of these groups would be families and social clubs. These groups provide for our safety and solidarity needs and they help us develop self-esteem. Work Groups. Work groups function to complete a particular task. In a work group, the task dimension is emphasized. The group members pool their expertise to accomplish the task. Examples of this would be workplaces, campus organizations, or juries. There are several types of work groups, based on the work of Ivan Steiner Additive Work Group: All group members perform the same activity and pool their results at the end. An example of this would be gathering signatures for a petition drive. Conjunctive Work Group: Group members perform different, but related, tasks that allow for the completion of a goal. Every group member must complete their task in order for the group task to be completed. An example of this would be an assembly line, in which each worker performs tasks that together build a completed car. Disjunctive Task: Members meet to determine the best alternative for a problem or issue. There are two types of disjunctive tasks: Tasks: o Judgment Task: Group members must choose one correct answer from all alternatives. o Decision-Making Task: Group members must choose the best alternative from a set of options. There is no one correct answer for a decision-making group. Contrived or Emergent Groups. Some groups form spontaneously, such as a group of friends. Other groups are contrived, that is, they are formed for a specific purpose. Organized clubs, social groups, or committees are contrived groups. Interpersonal Conflict Conflict is a part of most every interpersonal relationship. Managing conflict, then, is important if the relationship is to be long-lasting and rewarding. Defining Conflict. Conflict has been defined as "an expressed struggle between at least two interdependent parties who perceive incompatible goals, scarce resources, and interference from the other party in achieving their goals". Important concepts in this definition include "expressed struggle," which means the two sides must communicate about the problem for there to be conflict. Another important idea is that conflict often involves perceptions. The two sides may only perceive that their goals, resources, and interference is incompatible with each other's. Common Problems in Conflict Management. Researchers have identified several problems that typically arise in conflict situations. First, the parties will simply avoid the conflict. This can be damaging, because it can lead to greater problems in the future. It is usually best that the individuals discuss their differences. Second, individuals involved in conflict may blame the other individual. Often, individuals go beyond the specific behavior in question and blame the character of the person. When people use words such as, "He's such a slob," they are engaging in blame the other behavior. A final problem that is often encountered in conflict management is adopting a win-lose mentality. Focusing on each individual's goals/outcomes will help avoid using a win-lose strategy. Defensive climate. The climate in which conflict is managed is important. Dyads should avoid a defensive climate, which is characterized by these qualities: Evaluation: judging and criticizing other group members. Control: imposing the will of one group member on the others. Strategy: using hidden agendas. Neutrality: demonstrating indifference and lack of commitment. Superiority: expressing dominance. Certainty: being rigid in one's willingness to listen to others.
Supportive Climate. Instead, individuals should foster a supportive climate, marked by these traits: Description: presenting ideas or opinions. Problem orientation: focusing attention on the task. Spontaneity: communicating openly and honestly. Empathy: understanding another person's thoughts. Equality: asking for opinions. Provisionalism: expressing a willingness to listen other the ideas of others. Additional Tips. A few final tips can help insure that conflict is successfully managed: Conflict Can Be Constructive. Recognize that conflict can strengthen your relationships. Be Prepared. Plan how you will communicate about conflict in order to create a supportive climate. Be Involved. Do not withdraw from the conflict or avoid conflict situations. Withhold Quick Retorts. Be careful about what you say and how you say it. Review. Summarize what you have discussed and make plans to continue the discussion if time permits immediate resolution. Leadership Leadership is concerned with control and power in a group. Leadership can be aimed at either maintaining the interpersonal relationships in the group or prodding the group to achieve its task. Groups will sometimes have two leaders: one for the social dimension and one for the task dimension. There are also three main perspectives on leadership. First, some researchers believe some people are born with traits that will make them a good leader. A second perspective is that the group's leader selects an appropriate leadership style for the given task. A third way of understaning leadership says that to some degree, leaders are born with traits that make them good leaders, but that they also learn how to become a leader and use strategies appropriate to a given situation. Learn more about leadership and then complete the interactive exercise at the end of the discussion. One-Best-Style. This approach says that in a given situation, one particular style of leadership is most effective. There are four main styles: Autocratic: Leader uses his or her authority to make decisions. Democratic: Authority is shared and all group members help make decisions. Laissez-faire: A "hands-off" style in which the leader allows the group to make its own decisions. Abdacratic: No one in the group exercises leadership. This style, says researchers, leads to group disintegration and is followed by autocratic leadership. Good Leaders are Born". This approach says that people are born with traits that make them effective leaders. The challenge for the group is to find a person with these traits Contextual. This approach says that leaders are to some degree born with leadership traits, but that the situation, personalities of other group members, pressures on the group, and group norms also determine leadership.
Questions for self-control: 1. A small group must contain at least how many members? a) Two b) Three c) Four d) Five 2. A group must share a common goal. a) True b) False 3. A group can have no more than _____ members. a) Five b) Six c) Ten d) Fifteen 4. It is important for all group members to be able to communicate freely and openly with every other group member. a) True b) False 5. Focusing on the goals and outcomes that each individual would like to accomplish is a good conflict management strategy a) True b) False 6. A supportive climate includes the quality of empathy. a) True b) False 7. Inaccurate perceptions about how the other feels can lead to conflict.
a) True b) False 8. A supportive climate includes statements of certainty. a) True b) False Tasks for individual work: 1. Write the project: Problems that may occur in small groups. 2. Write the project: Improving intercultural communication 3. Analyze different intercultural and co-cultural conflicts that take place nowadays in the world. Why did they appear? Suggest your own ways of their solving. 4. Describe the small group to which you belong. How do you choose a leader? How do you solve conflicts?
LECTURE 7 TOPIC-SELECTION AND AUDIENCE ANALYSES 1. Selecting and limiting the topic 2. Analyzing your audience 3. Methods of audience analysis Key terms: attitudes, audience analysis, audience interest, audience knowledge, belief, brainstorming, captive audience, demographic analysis, heterogeneous, homogenous, inference, involvement, observation, personal inventions. REFERENCES: 1. Pearson J. C., Nelson P. E. Understanding and Sharing: an Introduction to Speech Communication, Brown and Benchmark, 1994, 474 p. 2. Burgoon J. C., Buller D. B., Woodell J. K. Nonverbal Communication. The unspoken dialogue. N. Y., 1989. 3. Fromkin V. A. Speech Errors as Linguistic evidence. The Hague: Mouton, 1973. 4. Halliday M. A. K., Hasan R. Language, context and text: aspects of Language in a Social-semiotic perspective. Oxford, 1990. 5. Searle J. R. Linguistics and the philosophy of language //Linguistics and neighboring disciplines. Amstertdam ets., 1975. 6. . . . , . 2004. 7. . . // . ., 1990. 8. . . . , 1990. 1. SELECTING AND LIMITING THE TOPIC Group brainstorming is a useful technique for selecting a topic for group discussion. Individual brainstorming can be equally effective for finding a topic for your public speech. Brainstorming is thinking of as many topics as you can in a limited time so you can select one topic that you will be appropriate for you and your audience. Another way to find a topic for your speech is to conduct personal inventories of your reading and viewing habits. Choosing one topic from thousands of possible topics requires some self-analysis. Personal inventories should help you identify your own interests and preferences including some you may not have been fully aware you have. After you have selected a possible topic area, you should evaluate the topic to see if you have the appropriate involvement in and knowledge of the subject. Involvement is simply a measure of how much a topic means to you. There are two measures of involvement: 1. How much time you put into a topic area; 2. How much effort you expend with a particular interest. After you have selected a topic area and determined your own involvement in the subject, you need to assess your personal knowledge of the subject. Your knowledge about the topic comes primarily from three sources: yourself, other people, and such resources as books, films, magazines, television, and newspapers. First determine what you know about your subject from your own experience. Next, you should turn to other people who might know more about the topic than you do. It is important to remember that, when you get information from another person or from some recourse, you must credit that person or recourse. In other words, you must tell your audience that you got the information form someplace other than your personal experience.
2. ANALYZING YOUR AUDIENCE Before selecting a topic, try to find out what kind of information your listeners might find interesting, useful, or necessary. To analyze your audience, consider the following points: 1. background information: What characteristics do your listeners share: nationality, field of study, occupation, age, sex, etc.? As much as possible, try to relate your message directly to their common characteristics. 2. current situation: What goals, experiences, or problems do your listeners share? People are usually interested in topics that affect them directly: their work, school, hobbies, interests, health, family, friends, community, city, and so forth. 3. wants and needs: What are your listeners' wants and needs? According to psychologists, many people want or need: to have friends, family, romance, and companionship to enjoy success -- personally, professionally, emotionally to be valued and appreciated by others to have self-respect and self-confidence to earn or save money to be safe and secure to save time and/or effort to be happy Of course, these wants and needs vary from person to person, group to group, and culture to culture, so you should try to decide which of these apply to your listeners. 4. level of English: If your listeners are mainly nonnative speakers of English, are they all at the same level of ability or of mixed abilities? To make your message clear, you need to use language that everyone can understand. 5. knowledge of the subject: How much do your listeners already know about your proposed subject? What new information or insights can you provide? Clearly, you do not want to waste your listeners' time by repeating information they already know. Furthermore, you do not want to present a topic that is too technical or too specialized for them. There are four levels of audience analysis: 1. Captive and voluntary audiences. Captive audience is an audience that did not choose to hear a particular speaker or speech. 2. Demographic analysis. This analysis is based on the kind of characteristics you write on forms: name, age, sex, home-town, race, major subject. Such information can be important to public speakers because it can reveal the extent to which they will have to adapt themselves and their topics to that audience. 3. Audience interest in and knowledge of the topic. The following are another way to ask the same questions about interest and knowledge in a topic. 4. The audiences attitudes, beliefs, and values. An attitude is a tendency to respond favorably or unfavorably to some person, object, idea, or event. A belief is a conviction. They are usually considered more solid than attitudes, but our attitudes often spring form our beliefs. Values are the deeply rooted beliefs that govern our attitudes. 3. METHODS OF AUDIENCE ANALYSIS Interactive strategies call for communicating with audience members. Using these strategies requires what Berger calls "interrogation" and "self-disclosure." These strategies can include formal or informal methods. Formal interactive strategies often utilized to analyze audiences for political speeches, marketing research, and other formal addresses. They obtain excellent data, but require careful planning. You will want to ask your instructor before employing these methods:
conducting a survey forming a focus group questioning the audience members individually All of these methods require careful planning. You will want to make sure your questions are clear, use several types of questions, and be as brief as possible. Informal methods involve simply talking with audience members. One simple way to get people to talk with you is self-disclosure, which means discussing yourself, your opinions, and your feelings, and listening for their response. By doing this, you can set the topic for discussion and hope your partner keeps to the topic. Most people are willing to help, since they know they will have to give speeches, too. Active strategies are any methods you use to gather information about your audience from outside sources, not from audience members directly. They take a little more work than passive strategies, but often obtain better information. Berger dubs these strategies a "reconnaisance approach" since the audience members do not know you are gathering information about them. Passive strategies of information-gathering are those that do not directly affect your subject, and do not require much effort on your part. Berger calls these strategies a "hide in the bushes approach", since your subjects may not even know you are gathering information. For instance, how could find out which exhibits at a rodeo were the most popular? Non-passive ways: - you could ask everybody what they saw, - you could survey perhaps a hundred people, - or you could set people at each exhibit to count people. These methods would take a lot of work! Using a passive strategy, you could walk around at the end of the day and see where the ground was most worn by people's feet, and that might give a pretty good idea of which exhibits attracted the most people. Other methods: 1. Observation of the behavior and characteristics of the audience. 2. Inference. 3. The questionnaire.
Questions for self-control: 1. Name two measures of involvement. 2. Which points can help you in analyzing your audience? 3. What strategies are useful in audience analysis? 4. What does passive strategy mean? 5. Name four levels of audience analysis. What do they mean? Tasks for individual work: 1. Write the project: Observation of the behavior and characteristics of the audience 2. Imagine that you prepare a speech for your group mates. Analyze this audience and suggest your own methods to interest them. 3. Find information about the questionnaire usage in audience analysis. 4. What is inference, and how can it help to be successful in audience analysis? 5. How does brainstorming help you to select a topic that will be appropriate for you and your audience?
LECTURE 8 DELIVERY AND VISUAL AIDS 1. Models of speech delivery 2. Vocal and bodily aspects of speech delivery 3. Visual aids Key terms: articulation, bodily movement, delivery, enunciation, extemporaneous mode, eye contact, facial expression, fluency, gestures, impromptu mode, manuscript mode, memorized mode, modes of delivery, pause, pitch, projection, pronunciation, rate, visual aids, vocalized pauses, vocal variety, volume. REFERENCES: 1. Pearson J. C., Nelson P. E. Understanding and Sharing: an Introduction to Speech Communication, Brown and Benchmark, 1994, 474 p. 2. Burgoon J. C., Buller D. B., Woodell J. K. Nonverbal Communication. The unspoken dialogue. N. Y., 1989. 3. Fromkin V. A. Speech Errors as Linguistic evidence. The Hague: Mouton, 1973. 4. Halliday M. A. K., Hasan R. Language, context and text: aspects of Language in a Social-semiotic perspective. Oxford, 1990. 5. Searle J. R. Linguistics and the philosophy of language //Linguistics and neighboring disciplines. Amstertdam ets., 1975. 6. . . . , . 2004. 7. . . // . ., 1990. 8. . . . , 1990. 1. MODELS OF SPEECH DELIVERY Delivery is the presentation of the speech by using your voice and body. There are four modes of delivery: 1. Extemporaneous mode. It is carefully prepared and practiced, but it is delivered without heavy dependence on notes. It is characterized by considerable eye contact, freedom of movement and gestures, the language and voice of conversation, and the use of an outline or key words to keep the speaker from reading or paying undue attention to the written script. 2. Impromptu mode is a speech delivered without notes, plans, or formal preparation and characterized by spontaneity and informal language. 3. Manuscript mode is the speech delivered with a script of the exact words to be used. 4. Memorized mode is a speech committed by memory. 2. VOCAL AND BODILY ASPECTS OF SPEECH DELIVERY To vocal aspects belong: 1. Pitch is the highness or lowness of the speakers voice, its upward and downward movement, the melody produced by the voice. 2. Rate is the speed of delivery, or how fast you say your words. 3. Pauses are an intended silence during a speech. 4. Volume is the relative loudness of your voice. 5. Enunciation is the pronunciation and articulation of words. 6. Fluency is the smoothness of delivery, the flow of the words, and the absence of vocalized pauses. Bodily aspects of delivery: 1. Gestures movements of the head, arms and hands we use to describe to another part of the speech.
2. Facial expression consists of eyebrows that rise and fall; eyes that twinkle, glare, and cry; lips that put or smile; cheeks that can dimple or harden; and a chin that can jut out in anger or receded in yielding. 3. Eye contact refers to sustained and meaningful contact with the eyes with persons in the audience. 4. Bodily movement what speaker does with his or her entire body during a speech presentation. 3. VISUAL AIDS Simple visual aids can serve as your notes when speaking. Carefully select your titles. These titles alone can serve as "triggers" to what you want to say next. If you know your subject well and have rehearsed your presentation, your visual aids should be all you need to "jog" your memory. If you forget something that's okay; the audience would never know. Using visual aids has 4 important advantages: You don't have to worry about what you're going to say next - Your next visual aid has your next major idea on it. Use effective titles which properly capture the main message of the visual aid. Visual aids allow you to move around the room - inexperienced speakers don't want to move around. Movement helps you to relax and adds energy to your presentations. Movement also allows the listeners to follow you and pay closer attention to you. You can have good eye contact with your audience - You can look at your audience all the time, except when you look briefly at your visual aid. That's okay since the audience will also look at your visual aid. This will help them see your message as well as hear your message. Your Audience feels comfortable knowing you're on your planned track - Well designed visual aids show that you have a plan and have properly prepared and you are following your plan. Your visual aids don't have to be only word charts; they can include diagrams, pictures and graphs. NOTE: When you use visual aids, always introduce your visual aid before you actually show the visual aid. Rehearse your presentation with your actual visual aids. It is very important that you are very familiar with your visual aids. Make sure your message and visual aids match. There is nothing worse than showing a visual aid which does not go along with what you are saying. To visual aids belong: 1. Posters/Flip/Charts ADVANTAGES: - easy and inexpensive to make and update - portable and transportable - left in view of the audience - good for interaction with the audience 2. Opaque and overhead projectors ADVANTAGES: - good for large gropus - easy to create - easy to transport - provide an informal atmosphere - open to interaction with groups - easy to update 3. Movies and slides ADVANTAGES: - professional in appearance - good for large groups DISADVANTAGES: - unsuitable for large groups -anxiety-provoking for facilitator handwriting or poor spelling
with
poor
DISADVANTAGES: - impermanent; they yellow with age - require less common equipment
DISADVANTAGES: - formal and impersonal - shown in the dark - not good for discussion and interaction
- more difficult to update than other visual aids - require special equipment 4. Videotapes ADVANTAGES: - professional in appearance - good for large or small groups
DISADVANTAGES: - more expansive than other visual aids - requires special equipment - not good for discussion and interaction - require accurate cueing
5. Samples, Examples, and Mock-Ups ADVANTAGES: - real-world/authentic - three dimensional - sometimes inexpensive and readily available - experience may be tactile/auditory as well as visual
DISADANTAGES: - sometimes difficult or impossible to acquire - often difficult to handle or distribute - require storage space - usually out of natural environment
6. Computer Projections (e.g., PowerPoint) ADVANTAGES: DISADVANTAGES: - professional in appearance - require special equipment/facilities - evidence of preparation - require initial training to create - good for large or small group - require significant time to create - easy to integrate with classroom discussion - require basic graphics/composition skills - animated - up-to-date technology - easy to update Questions for self-control: 1. Name models of speech delivery. What do they mean and how do they work? 2. What are the differences between vocal and bodily aspects of speech delivery? 3. How do visual aids help to make your speech successful? 4. What are the advantages of using visual aids? 5. What aspects belong to visual aids? Where and in what way can you use them? Tasks for individual work: 1. Write the project: Models of speech delivery: advantages and disadvantages. 2. Prepare your own presentation on any topic using different kinds of visual aids. 3. Where and when can you use visual aids? How do they help to make your speech persuasive? 4. Prepare information about such additional visual aids as chalkboards, you as a visual aids, photographs, drawing, models and physical objects, handouts.
LECTURE 9 THE INFORMATIVE AND THE PERSUADIVE SPEECH 1. 2. 3. 4. Preparing an informative speech Presenting information to an audience Special skills for informative speaking Persuading an audience
Key terms: informative speech, information hunger, rhetorical question, information relevance, organizing content, informative content, information overload, extrinsic motivation, emotional appeals, motivational appeals, persuading speech. 1. PREPARING AN INFORMATIVE SPEECH To prepare an IS, you should know: 1. the intent and the goal of informative speaking; 2. the kinds of topics that best lend themselves to informative speaking; 3. the kinds of immediate behavioral purposes of informative speaking and how to determine if you have fulfilled them. The goal of informative speaking. Understanding the goal or intent of IS requires you understand the the end product you seek and how to reach that end in ways that enlighten the audience and clarify the topic. The end product of IS is to increase an audiences knowledge or understanding of a topic. Clarifying a topic for a audience is a primary goal of IS, but a second concern is to make the topic of an IS interesting and significant to the audience. We arise an audiences interest in a topic by showing how the subject can be of importance, by relating stories of our own experiences with the subject, and by demonstrating gaps in the audiences knowledge they will want to fill. Besides being interesting, the IS should meet the standard of significance. The significance of your message is its importance and meaningfulness to, or its consequence for, the audience. Topics for IS. Selecting a topic for an informative speech and narrowing the topic to the length restrictions of the speech are early concerns for the informative speaker. IS is to be predominantly informative; that is most of the content of the speech should focus on increasing audience knowledge and clarifying concepts for greater understanding. Behavioral purposes for informative speeches. Two important questions for the informative speaker are: 1. What do I want my audience to know or do as a result of my speech? 2. How will I know if I am successful? The effects of an IS are known unless you make the effects behavioral; that is, your speech should result in behavioral or observable change. The most common immediate behavioral purposes in an IS are to encourage audience members to dot he following: Describe differences or similarities among objects, persons, or issues. Distinguish among different things. Compare items. Define words, objects, or concepts. State what they have learned. 2.PRESENTING INFORMATION TO AN AUDIENCE If you, as an informative speaker, want to relate to an audience, you should first select and narrow a topic and analyzing an audience. Then, you will be ready to adapt your topic and purposes to your audience. Audience analysis should help you to determine how much audience members already know and how much you will have to tell them to engender understanding. Then, you will have to decide how to generate information hunger, achieve information relevance, employ extrinsic motivation, select content, and avoid information overload in tour speech. 1. Information hunger. An IS is more effective if the speaker can generate information hunger in the audience; that is, if the speaker can create a need for information in the audience. Inf.hung, is easiest to create when a speaker has analyzed the audience and believes hunger for the information can be aroused.
Rhetorical questions, questions asked for effect with no answer expected, are just one method of arousing information hunger. 2. Information relevance. A second factor relating an IS to an audience is information relevance, the usefulness of the information to the audience. When selecting a topic for an informative speech, the speaker, should carefully consider the relevance of the topic. People expose themselves first to information that is supportive or that fits in with what they already believe or know, people reject less supportive information first, so an audiences predisposition toward a topic can determine whether an audience will come to hear a speech and whether an audience will listen. 3. Extrinsic motivation the reasons why the audience should listen. An audience is more likely to listen to, and comprehend, a speech if there are reasons outside the speech itself for concentrating on the content of the speech. Extrinsic motivation is related to the concept of information relevance. 4. Informative content. - the main and sub points, the illustrations and examples used to clarify and inform. 5. Information overload. The informative speaker needs to be wary about amount of information included in a speech. The danger is information overload, providing much more information tan the audience can absorb either in amount or complexity or both. 6. Organizing content. In organizing tour IS, you should determine which ideas, points, or supporting materials are of greatest importance. 3. PERSUADING AN AUDIENCE Audience may be persuaded in a variety of ways. 1. Motivational appeals. One motivating force is what our body tells us to do. The physical basis of motivation explains our need for air, water, food, What our minds tell us to do. This psychological basis of motivation is based on our sense of rationality, as well as on our emotions, feelings and perceptions. What other people want us to do. This force is a powerful social motivator that encourages us to conform to roles and norms. 2. Speaker credibility. A highly credible speaker has more impact on an audience tan a speaker with low credibility. A persuasive speaker who is seen as similar to the audience is more likely to be effective than one who is perceived as dissimilar. 3. Logical appeals. Motivational appeals and speaker credibility are just two ways to persuade an audience; a third important method is the use of reasoning or logic to convince an audience. The main ingredients of logical appeals are propositions and proofs. The persuasive speaker can use a wide array of evidence to demonstrate the wisdom of retaining present practices or changing current policies, such as; quotations from authoritative persons, conclusions from studies and reports, or experiences of individual injured or helped by current policies. 4. Emotional appeals are often seen as diametrically opposed concepts, most of our behavior is based on a mixture of emotional and rational reasons., A speaker may persuade an audience to accept his or her immediate behavioral purposes for emotional, rather than logical, reasons. The emotional appeal that has received the most attention from researches is the fear appeal. Fear appeals are not only emotional appeals. Many unethical speakers use race, religion, nationality, sexual preference, and anger to inspire their audience to action. Special organizational considerations. The pattern used most often in persuasive speaking are problem-and solution, cause-and-effect, and topical-sequence. Besides choosing a basic pattern of organization, you need to consider how much to say in your introduction. Other organizational considerations in PS concern placement of your arguments, presenting one or more sides of the issue, whether or not to include counterarguments, and using familiar or novel arguments in your speech. Questions for self-control: 1. What is the goal if informative speech? 2. What are two important questions for the informative speaker? 3. How do you choose topics for informative speaking?
4. What are the most useful factors in preparing informative speech? Tasks for individual work: 1. Write the project: Special organizational considerations of persuasive speech 2. Prepare informative speech to your group mates using the most common immediate behavioral purposes in an informative speech. 3. When can you use persuasive speech? Name the most important aspects that can make persuasive speech successful.
SUMMERISING QUESTIONS 1. The view of communication that suggests that one person sends a message and the other person receives it. a) Action b) Message c) Noise d) Meaning 2. Any systematic arrangement or comprehensive collection of symbols, letters, or words that have arbitrary meanings and are used for communication. a) Meaning b) Code c) Message d) Action 3. A set of circumstances or a situation a) Source b) Understanding c) Context d) Feedback 4. The receivers verbal and nonverbal responses to the sources messages. a) Interaction b) Feedback c) Message d) Context 5. The view of communication that describes communicators as continually sending and receiving messages at the same time. a) Sharing b) Interaction c) Transaction d) Understanding 6. A code consisting of any symbols that are not words, including nonword vocalizations. a) Nonverbal codes b) Verbal codes c) Feedback d) Sharing 7. The organization of perception so some stimuli are brought into focus while other stimuli form the background. a) Closure b) Similarity c) Figure and ground d) Sharing 8. The organization of stimuli into meaningful units or wholes according to their perceived physical or psychological distance from each other. a) Selective retention b) Similarity c) Proximity d) Closure 9. The process of placing people and things into established categories, or of basing judgments about people or things on the categories into which they fit, rather than on their individual characteristics. a) Perceptual constancy b) Proximity c) Stereotyping d) Sharing
10. The view that perceivers are mere recorders of stimuli. a) Passive perception b) Subjective perception c) Interpretive perception d) Active perception 11. The feeling that occurs when others treat us in a manner inconsistent with our self-definition. a) Confirmation b) Rejection c) Disconfirmation d) Understanding 12. Our attitudes and feelings toward our self-image; how well we like ourselves. a) Self-esteem b) Self-image c) Self-awareness d) Self-concept 13. Involved listening with a purpose a) Empathetic listening b) Active listening c) Passive listening d) Therapeutic listening 14. The physiological process by which sound is received by the ear. a) Listening b) Empathy c) Hearing d) Speaking 15. Positive responses to the speakers messages including positive facial expression, forward lean, smiling, increased touching, and such statements as I understand, I agree. a) Experiential superiority b) Negative feedback c) Positive feedback d) Experiential feedback 16. The process of receiving and interpreting aural stimuli. a) Listening b) Hearing c) Defensiveness d) Speaking 17. Reasonable, reflective thinking that is focused on deciding what to believe or do. a) Inferences b) Division c) Critical thinking d) Critical speaking 18. Propositions and their justification. a) Arguments b) Division c) Emotional proof d) Justification 19. The extent to which a conclusion may be logically derived from its propositions; correct form of an argument. a) Validity b) Observations c) Justification d) Division 20. Ornaments or adornments we display that hold communicative potential; examples include jewelry, hairstyles, cosmetics, and automobiles.
a) Vocal cues b) Artifacts c) Proxemics d) Kinesics 21. Communicating by touch a) Proxemics b) Artifacts c) Kinesics d) Tactile communication 22. All the oral aspects of sound except words themselves, part of paralanguage. a) Paralinguistic features b) Vocal cues c) Nonverbal codes d) Verbal codes 23. Groups within dominant culture that have a separate identity by race, organization, ot interest. a) Cultures b) Co-cultures c) Peoples d) Nations 24. Words and phrases used informally, such as Have a happy day, Take care now, See you. a) Slang b) Neologisms c) Colloquialisms d) Jargon 25. Individualized or personalized meaning for a term; the emotional content of words. a) Paraphrasing b) Denotative meaning c) Decoding d) Connotative meaning 26. To assign meaning to verbal codes we receive. a) Encode b) Decode c) Denotative meaning d) Code 27. To put an idea or thought into a code. a) Encode b) Code c) Paraphrasing d) Decode 28. Talk in which the meaning is beyond the words, such as How are you, Call me. a) Jargon b) Slang c) Street language d) Metatalk 29. New words that come into usage as other terms become outdated. a) Jargon b) Neologisms c) Metatalk d) Slang 30. Words or phrases specific to one section of one city used by a group to demonstrate their unity. a) Regionalisms b) Street language c) Metatalk d) Slang
31. The language of the individual, which varies slightly from the agreed-upon meanings because of past experiences and present conditions. a) Red-flag words b) Metatalk c) Personal language d) Slang 32. The need to be cared for by others; one of the three basic interpersonal needs satisfied through interaction with others. a) Control b) Bonding c) Affection d) Terminating 33. The idea that we tend to select our friends from people who demonstrate positive interest in us. a) Responsiveness b) Terminating c) Bonding d) Stagnating 34. The process of understanding and sharing meaning among individuals from different cultures. a) Tolerance of ambiguity b) Co-cultural communication c) Misinterpretation of codes d) Intercultural communication 35. Groups of people who are united by a common element and who have a culture of their own within the dominant culture. a) Culture b) Co-culture c) Co-language d) Nation 36. Small assemblies invited together to solve problems and make decisions; consist of a few people (usually more than two but fewer than twenty) with a mutually interdependent purpose and a sense of belonging. a) Small group communication b) Culture c) People d) Nation 37. The clash of wills or ideas. a) Compromise b) Consensus c) Cohesiveness d) Conflict 38. Listing or naming as many ideas as a group or an individual can within a limited period of time. a) Commitment b) Brainstorming c) Conflict d) Consensus 39. Combining part of two conflicting plans to create a third a plan that partially satisfies each conflicting party of a group; a recommended method of conflict resolution. a) Conflict b) Collaboration c) Cohesiveness d) Compromise 40. The collection and interpretation of data on the demographics, attitudes, values, and beliefs of the audience obtained by observation, inferences, questionnaires, or interviews. a) Audience analysis
b) Audience knowledge c) Audience attitudes d) Audience interest 41. A conviction; often thought to be more enduring than an attitude and less enduring than a value. a) Attitudes b) Compromise c) Observation d) Belief 42. A predisposition to respond, favourably or unfavourably to some person, object, idea, event. a) Attitudes b) Observation c) Belief d) Compromise 43. What the speaker does with his or her entire body during a speech presentation. a) Facial expression b) Eye contact c) Bodily movement d) Gestures 44. The extent to which a speaker looks directly at the audience; an aspect of bodily delivery. a) Eye contact b) Bodily movement c) Gestures d) Facial expression 45. The absence of vocal sound used for dramatic effect, transition, or emphasis of ideas; an aspect of vocal delivery. a) Volume b) Rate c) Pause d) Pitch 46. The presentation of the speech by using your voice and body to reinforce your message. a) Projection b) Enunciation c) Visual aids d) Delivery 47. Any item that can be seen by an audience, for the purpose of reinforcing a message. a) Projection b) Enunciation c) Pronunciation d) Visual aids 48. The loudness or softness of a persons voice; an aspect of vocal delivery. a) Rate b) Volume c) Pitch d) Pause 49. An inquiry asked for effect with no answer expected. a) Explanation b) Rhetorical question c) Persuasive speech d) Question 50. A speech whose purpose is to get audience members to understand or learn. a) Informative speech b) Explanation c) Persuasive speech d) Questions
INDIVIDUAL RESEARCH WORKS (PROJECTS): 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Small group communication, leadership, and conflict resolution Communication apprehension and speaker credibility Finding information Information sources Finding appropriate supporting materials Using evidence as proof Organizing your speech Gaining and maintaining audience attention, arousing audience interest, stating the purpose, establishing your qualifications. 9. Organizing a bibliography 10. Environmental factors of listening 11. Types of listening
12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. Appreciative listening Discriminative listening Therapeutic listening Critical listening Dialogic listening Evaluative listening
18. Intercultural and co-cultural communication 19. Methods of audience analysis 20. Vocal and bodily aspects of speech delivery 21. Interpersonal relationships