Speech is a multicomponent act. This unique form of communication has historically developed and improved in the course of human interaction. It involves at least two parties: the speaker and the listener, who perceives the information addressed to him. Despite the apparent simplicity, this is a rather complicated process.
Components of oral speech
Sounds uttered 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 - the alternation of stressed syllables and words. Poetic speech is especially rhythmic.
- Melody is an element of expressiveness of speech, the movement of the voice up and down. For example, by the end of a declarative sentence, the voice drops, and by the end of an interrogative sentence, it rises.
- The expressiveness of speech is its ability to be remembered and focus the listener's attention on itself due touse of various expressive means of the language.
If the speaker is not sufficiently proficient in the 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 they will understand them distortedly.
What pragmalinguistics studies
Linguistics is the science of language. One of its disciplines, speech pragmatics, studies the meaning of different language components in the variety of their combinations and conditions of use.
One and the same phrase can carry a different meaning. It depends on what information the speaker puts into it, what components of oral speech he uses, in what situation it is used. For example, a friendly "Hello!" can turn into a threatening one if he accompanies it with appropriate facial expressions, movements, intonations, or this word is uttered 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.
Communication units - what is it?
Oral communication includes the following units:
- Speech event - speech contact for the purpose of communication by creating a message text by one of the communicants and understanding it by others.
- Speech situation in which there is contact between the participants of communication. It dictates the choice of speech means, the rules of communication. For example, a young man declares his love to a girl and asksher 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.
- Discourse is a kind of speech practice: dialogue, lecture, interview, etc. Its type is chosen 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 influence the course of a speech event.
Composition
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 perceives as a joke, another considers 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.
Speech event includes the text that the speaker verbally states. In essence, it is an oral work, the purpose of which is to give persuasive information to the listener. It is equally important to correctly select such a component of a speech event as a speech situation (time, place, rules of communication, composition of participants).
Addresser
One of the components of the event is the addresser, that is, the author and sender of speech information. It is important to remember what constitutes a speech event: it is the contact of its two participants.
The addresser must have some special skills and personal qualities to arouse and maintain interest in the subject of conversation:
- be erudite, prepared to talk on a specific topic;
- have competent, expressive, accurate, logical, accessible, figurative speech;
- to navigate the situation well, to know the characteristics of the audience (level of interest, education, social status);
- own the psychological techniques of establishing feedback with recipients, which stimulates mutual interest and desire to continue communication;
- observe ethical rules and norms of verbal communication.
Even the appearance of the speaker can make the interlocutor to communicate with him or, conversely, repel, divert attention from the subject of discussion.
Destination
The addresser, 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 respects its success depends on the extent to which its 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, andthen it is consciously formed in oneself by the person himself, otherwise there is a misunderstanding of the meaning of the speech addressed to him. He is promoted by such negative habits: focusing on the appearance of the speaker, on the features of his speech, being distracted by extraneous sounds, thoughts, obsessive movements, inability to listen to the end of the addresser's speech, haste of conclusions and conclusions. This often has far-reaching consequences.
For example, inattentively listened to instructions or instructions of the production master pull a long train of violations in the actions of subordinates and ultimately lead to a large volume of defective products.
Means of speech 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, utterance tempo. These tools make speech more interesting, attract and hold the attention of the listener.
The task of convincing someone of something is quite difficult, therefore, in addition to verbal means of speech interaction, non-verbal ones are also used, not related to the pronunciation of sounds, words, phrases. Participants in a speech event often do not themselves 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 by external behavioral signs can guess how the opponent feels and how sincere he is in his statements. These external signals are an incentive for the speaker to select such verbal and non-verbal means that will make the listener concentrate, think in the right direction.
The choice of verbal and non-verbal means largely depends on gender, age, social status, cultural level of communication partners, on the topic and purpose of the conversation, speech situation.
Rules of speech interaction
The correct structure of a speech event is not the only condition for its effectiveness. The result depends largely on how the communicants observe the accepted rules of verbal and non-verbal interaction. For example:
- respect the partner's point of view and listen carefully to it, treat him as an equal, not show superiority;
- do not fix attention on his appearance and style of clothing, on speech defects and defects, but take into account his psychological and physical condition;
- keep negative emotions in the process of communication, use only normative vocabulary;
- listen to your partner, looking at him, without being distracted by third-party objects;
- draw conclusions only after listening to the end of the speaker;
- demonstrate support and interest in the statements of the opposite side with approving gestures, facial expressions, short remarks;
- use only proven evidence base.
Many communication rules are conditionednational customs, corporate traditions and may have the opposite meaning, for example in different countries.
Therefore, if some speech events are coming, their participants should get acquainted with the ethical norms and features of the style of speech interaction of the other side in order to correctly perceive and interpret their unusual forms during communication.
