Speech is a multicomponent act. This unique form of communication has historically been developed and improved in the course of human interaction. It involves at least two parties: the speaker and the listener, perceiving the information addressed to him. Despite its apparent simplicity, this is a rather complicated process.
Spoken components
Sounds made by a person add up to words, words form phrases. These are the main four components of speech.
Their absence would make our speech inexpressive, monotonous, like the speech of a robot.
- Tempo is the speed of pronunciation of sounds, syllables, words and phrases.
- Rhythm is an alternation of stressed syllables and words. Poetic speech is especially rhythmic.
- Melody is an element of expressiveness of speech, movement of voice up and down. For example, by the end of the narrative sentence, the voice drops, and by the end of the interrogative - increases.
- The expressiveness of speech is its ability to remember and focus on the listener’s attention through the use of various expressive means of the language.
If the speaker does not possess enough variety of speech means, then the listeners will not be able to fully understand the meaning of his speech, the feelings that he wants to convey, or will understand them distorted.
What pragmalinguistics studies
Linguistics is the science of language. One of its disciplines, speech pragmatics, studies the meaning of different linguistic components in the diversity of their combinations and application conditions.
The same phrase can carry a different meaning. It depends on what information the speaker puts into it, what components of spoken language it uses, in what situation it is used. For example, a welcoming “Hello!” Can turn into a threatening one if it accompanies it with appropriate facial expressions, movements, intonations, or this word is spoken in a deserted place by a stranger.
Thus, linguistic pragmatics analyzes and studies the activities of subjects and objects in the process of their speech communication and the process of mutual exchange of information in a speech situation.
What are units of communication?
Oral communication includes the following units:
- A speech event is a speech contact for the purpose of communication by creating a message text by one of the communicants and understanding it by the other.
- The speech situation in which contact occurs between participants in communication. She dictates the choice of speech means, rules of communication. For example, a young man declares his love to a girl and asks for her hands. Or he fights off a group of robbers on the street. Obviously, such different situations dictate the choice of completely different speech means and rules for their resolution.
- A discourse is a type of speech practice: dialogue, lecture, interview, etc. Its type is selected depending on the speech event. For example, a teacher explains a new lesson to students, a subordinate reports to his boss about his work, a journalist interviews an actor.
So, many external and internal factors affect the nature of the course of a speech event.
Structure
The task of a speech event is the exchange of information between communicating people. Their speech and personality characteristics affect the understanding and evaluation of this information and the assessment of the personality of the interlocutor. What one will take as a joke, the other will consider it an insult. This means that all components of a speech event must be thought out by their initiator. This is required to prevent such misunderstandings.
A speech event includes a text that the speaker spells out verbally. In fact, this is an oral work, the purpose of which is to give convincing information to the listener. It is equally important to choose the right component of a speech event, such as a speech situation (time, place, rules of communication, composition of participants).
Addresser
One of the components of the event is the addressee, that is, the author and sender of voice information. It is important to remember what constitutes a speech event: this is the contact of two of its participants.
The addressee must have some special skills and personal qualities in order to arouse and maintain interest in the subject of conversation:
- to be erudite, prepared for a conversation on a specific topic;
- have a competent, expressive, accurate, logical, accessible, figurative speech;
- well-versed in the situation, know the characteristics of the audience (level of interest, education, social status);
- own psychological techniques for establishing feedback with recipients, which stimulates mutual interest and a desire to continue communication;
- comply with ethical rules and norms of verbal communication.
Even the appearance of the speaker can have an interlocutor to communicate with him or, conversely, repel, distract attention from the subject of discussion.
Destination
The addressee, or the initiator of contact with another person (or persons), plans a speech event, a speech situation in order to get the desired result from communication. But in many ways, his success depends on how much his addressee has a culture of verbal communication, that is, the person with whom he intends to communicate.
The role of the addressee in a speech event is to actively perceive the speech addressed to him, otherwise it is perceived fragmentarily, erroneously. This leads to the fact that the goal of communication is not achieved, there are misunderstandings, contradictions between its subjects.
The habit of being an attentive listener is brought up from childhood, and then consciously formed in oneself by the person himself, otherwise there is a misunderstanding of the meaning of the speech addressed to him. Such negative habits contribute to him: to concentrate on the speaker’s appearance, on the features of his speech, to be distracted by extraneous sounds, thoughts, obsessive movements, inability to listen to the addressee’s speech to the end, haste of conclusions and conclusions. Often this has far-reaching consequences.
For example, carelessly listened to instructions or instructions of the master of production pull a long train of violations in the actions of subordinates and lead to a large amount of defective products.
Means of verbal interaction
Speech is not only a means of transmitting and receiving information, but also a tool for influencing other people. The purpose of this is to achieve coincidence of points of view on problems, in order to convince the communication partner to think, and then act as the addressee wants. For this, various means of sounding speech (verbal) are used: intonation, voice power, rate of pronunciation. These tools make speech more interesting, attract and hold the listener's attention.
The task of convincing someone of something is quite difficult, therefore, in addition to verbal means of verbal interaction, nonverbal means are also used that are not associated with the pronunciation of sounds, words, phrases. Participants in a speech event often do not notice how they change their posture, body movements, facial expressions, depending on what and with what degree of expression they pronounce or hear.
Experienced interlocutors on external behavioral signs can guess what feelings an opponent feels and how much he is sincere in his statements. These external signals are a stimulus for the speaker to select such speech and non-speech means that will make the listener concentrate, think in the right direction.
The choice of verbal and non-verbal means largely depends on the gender, age, social status, level of culture of the communication partners, the topic and purpose of the conversation, and the speech situation.
Rules for verbal interaction
The correct structure of a speech event is not the only condition for its effectiveness. The result depends largely on how well the communicants adhere to the accepted rules of speech and non-speech interaction. For example:
- respect the partner’s point of view and listen carefully to her, treat him as an equal, and not demonstrate superiority;
- not to fix attention on his appearance and style of clothing, on speech imperfections and defects, but to take into account his psychological and physical condition;
- restrain negative emotions in the process of communication, use only normative vocabulary;
- listen to the partner, looking at him, not being distracted by third-party objects;
- to draw conclusions only after listening to the speaker to the end;
- demonstrate support and interest in the statements of the opposite side with approving gestures, facial expressions, short remarks;
- use only proven evidence base.
Many rules of communication are determined by national customs, corporate traditions and may have the opposite meaning, for example, in different countries.
Therefore, if any speech events are coming up, their participants should get acquainted with the ethical standards and features of the style of speech interaction on the other hand in order to correctly perceive and interpret their unusual forms in the course of communication.