Conversation Skills Overview

Conversation Characteristics

• Conversation is a collaborative, informal social interaction where speakers and listeners exchange roles dynamically.
• It's driven by shared goals and involves different types of communication: informational, personal/emotional, relational.

Purpose of Conversation

• Conversations serve various functions: gaining information, influencing others, creating positive feelings.

Conversation Stages

• Conversation follows a five-stage model: opening, feedforward, business, feedback, closing.

Opening

• Establishes connection & sets tone for further interaction
• Must be consistent with the overall conversation
• Self-references, other-references, relational references and context references can be incorporated

Feedforward

• Provides context and anticipates the direction of the discussion.
• Defines the tone of the conversation.

Business

• Contains the main topic of the conversation; the most extended stage.
• Purpose for the opening and feedforward elements.

Feedback

• Crucial for communication effectiveness.
• Positive feedback encourages continued communication, while negative feedback suggests adjustments are needed.
• Can be focused on the person or the message, immediate or delayed, low or high monitoring, supportive or critical.
• Effective feedback focuses on behavior/message, avoiding judgment of motives.

Closing

• Indicates satisfaction or desire for future communication.
• Can schedule further interactions.

Conversational Maxims

• Maxim of Quantity: Provide relevant information without excess or omission. Violations occur by providing irrelevant detail.
• Maxim of Quality: Be truthful and avoid exaggeration or minimizing, violating the maxim if lying, exaggerating or minimizing.
• Maxim of Relation: Stay relevant to the topic, avoid irrelevant discussion.
• Maxim of Manner: Use understandable language and avoid ambiguity.