Oral Communication (Secondary School, BOE 1993) PDF

# **Inglés (Secundaria), Tema 5 (BOE 1993)** ## **Oral Communication. Elements and Norms Governing Oral Discourse.** ### **Introduction.** Oral communication involves the use of speech and is very often associated with conversations. There are many other occasions when we communicate orally. Eggi...

# **Inglés (Secundaria), Tema 5 (BOE 1993)** ## **Oral Communication. Elements and Norms Governing Oral Discourse.** ### **Introduction.** Oral communication involves the use of speech and is very often associated with conversations. There are many other occasions when we communicate orally. Eggins classifies spoken interactions in two big groups: conversations (interactions which are interpersonnally motivated) and encounters (which are pragmatically motivated), depending on the communicative purpose of the speakers. There are many types of oral communication: * **Casual conversations.** * **Discussions** headed by a chairperson who selects who is to speak next, e.g. according to parliamentary rules. * **Debates** in which the 'pro' and the 'con' sides are allotted turns and times in advance. * **Rituals** in which each participant's turns and words are completely specified in advance. ## **Oral Communication. Characteristics.** ### **Differences Between Spoken and Written Language.** Speakers have a much greater range of possibilities at their command than writers. Apart from the actual words they use, they can vary their intonation and stress, which helps to show which part of what they are saying is most important. By varying the pitch and intonation in their voice, they can clearly convey their attitude to what they are saying, too; they can indicate interest or lack of it, for example, and they can show whether they wish to be taken seriously. At any point in a speech event, speakers can rephrase what they are saying; they can speed up or slow down. This will often be done in response to the feedback they are getting from their listeners, who will show through a variety of gestures, expressions and interruptions, that they understand/do not understand. Not all speakers have the benefit of such immediate listener feedback, however. Even speechmakers may be able to discern through the expressions and atmosphere on an audience how their message is getting across, speakers on the telephone, for example, have to rely on the words and the use of intonation, pitch and stress only, without being able to see all the visual clues that would help them to know what the other person is thinking. ### **Formal Characteristics of Spoken English**. * First person narration, involvement of the speaker in the speech. * Preference of the active voice over the passive. * Much coordination: parataxis. * Contractions. * Slurring ('kinda' kind of; 'wanna' want to). * Discourse fillers (um..., er...; well...; you know...): hesitation devices. * Repetition of lexical words, reformulation, redundancy. * Expressive, interaction, tag questions, intonation emphasizers, body language. * Verb tense shifting. * Use of hedges (kind/sort of, just), and vague terms (thing). * False starts, reformulation, topic changes. * Deictic 'this/that' instead of 'the'. * Bigger number of function words than lexical words, leading to. * Less lexical density (please, see 'Topic 6'). * Use of ellipsis: * in replies (Where did you guys park? -Right over there), * in condensed questions (You should go to the Salsa Club. Not your thing?), * in question-and-answer sequences (Did you talk to Mary? -No. Why, did she call?), * in condensed directives (No crying; Up the stairs, now), * in elliptic exclamatives (How wonderful. Good for you?), * as well as the ellipsis of subject (Don't know), * of operator (That too early for you?), or both (Do you want me to hire a video camera while I'm at it? -Yeah, be great). ## **Elements and Norms Governing Oral Discourse.** ### **Elements of Oral Discourse.** The field which has studied elements of spoken language in conversations is called Conversation Analysis (CA). CA has identified a system of management of conversations, that is the way in which people exchange the opportunity to speak, and is called "turn-taking". It turns out to be more complex than our intuitions might suggest. **The term adjacency pair** is a formalisation of our intuitive understanding that conversations proceed by participants taking up what the last person has said in a regular way; the two utterances together form what is called an "adjacency pair". **First pair parts** (like questions, invitations and orders) are regularly followed by certain kinds of responses, or **second pair parts** (which in these cases would be answers, acceptances, and compliances respectively). One of the possible ways to describe norms which govern oral communication is in the form of Grice's theory of **Cooperative Principle**. It is a set of four maxims, which are supposed to be tacitly accepted by participants in a conversation. According to Grice, oral exchanges are an example of cooperation between the participants who try to contribute in a way which is in accordance with the perceivable goal or direction of the conversation. If any of the participants flouts this principle of cooperation, oral communication breaks down or becomes senseless. Grice's Cooperative Principle consists of four categories, which in turn are further analysable in terms of maxims: * **The category of quantity**: Give the right amount of information, i.e. * Make your contribution as informative as possible. * Do not make your contribution more informative than required. * **The category of quality**: try to make your contribution one that is true, i.e.: * Do not say what you believe to be false. * Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence. * **The category of relation**: be relevant. * **The category of manner**: be perspicuous, i.e.: * Avoid obscurity of expression. * Avoid ambiguity. * Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity). * Be orderly. ## **Routines and Formulae.** Speakers avail themselves of techniques which have been developed in order to allow participants in oral discourse to communicate more efficiently. **Routines** are more or less unvarying procedures used to construct discourse. They can be applied to a formal speech, a sermon , an informal conversation etc, for instance, by indicating the participants in a debate, allocating times for them, using strategies to butt in, etc (see topic 34 for examples of debate routines). **A formula** is a fixed form of words used as a conventional or ceremonial expression. Formulae in oral discourse could also be considered forms used by speakers in order to compensate for the indefiniteness typical of spoken language. -they include tags, greetings or politeness formulae in everyday exchanges. ## **Oral Communication Strategies.** Oral communication is a highly social activity and as such it has also been analysed from the point of view of politeness as a factor which influences speakers' behaviour. Brown and Levinson presented a theory of politeness strategies based on universal wants for negative and positive face. Depending on perceived dimensions of distance and power, both face wants are played off against each other in interaction using different strategies of deference and solidarity politeness. The core of this theory consists of the concepts of negative and positive face. When people interact in public, they are concerned to preserve and present a public image that has two aspects. The positive aspect of a person's public face is his or her concern to be thought of as a normal, contributing member of his or her social world. Since the speaker's face is his or her public image, his or her positive face wants are to be seen as a supporting member of that public. At the same time, though, a person wants to preserve some sphere of his or her individuality, his or her own territory within which he or she has the right of independence of movement and decision. Within his or her private sphere, the speaker wants the right not to be imposed upon. This aspect of face, because it asserts the right to be independent of the social world, is negative face. Social interaction in Brown and Levinson's view consists in each speaker playing off his own positive and negative face wants against those of other interactants. **Politeness strategies** are the coding of communication which provide in each case the carefully calculated balance of these wants, which are continually under negotiation in public communication. - **Notice**, attend to hearer (H). - **Exaggerate** (interest, approval, sympathy with H). - **Claim in-group membership** with H. - **Claim common point of view**, opinions, attitudes, knowledge, empathy. - **Be optimistic.** - ** Indicate that the speaker wants H's wants and is taking them into account.** - **Assume or assert reciprocity.** Any application of these strategies in real communication involves adjustments in accordance with deference strategies which often contradict the solidarity one, maintaining a balance in the conversation. One important point to remember is that such concepts as, for example, an exaggerated show of interest is viewed in different ways in different cultures. A member of one culture can see a concrete show of interest as exaggerated whereas one from another culture can view it as insufficient or normal. ## **Didactic Transposition.** We have the formidable task of transferring this pragmatic knowledge to our students in a way which will ensure its incorporation into their communicative competence. Some of the points to teach here are easier (like routine greetings) and others much more complicated (different forms of disagreeing). However, only by bearing in mind all the aspects of oral communication will we be able to make our syllabus complete. ## **Conclusion.** A pragmatic analysis of the language we use becomes fundamental nowadays. This analysis will be useful in order to avoid problems that may appear in oral communication such as discourtesy. As speakers but also as listeners, we will be required to manage with all the norms and strategies required in oral speech. ## **Legislative References.** * Decree 102/2023, of May 9, which establishes the organization and the curriculum of the stage of Compulsory Secondary Education in the Autonomous Region of Andalusia. * Decree 103/2023, of May 9, which establishes the organization and the curriculum of the stage of Baccalaureate in the Autonomous Region of Andalusia. * Order of May 30, 2023, which develops the curriculum of the Compulsory Secondary Education in the Autonomous Region of Andalusia, regulates certain aspects of attention to diversity and individual differences, and establishes regulations for evaluation of the learning process and the transit process between the different educational stages. * Order of May 30, 2023, which develops the curriculum of the Baccalaureate stage in the Autonomous Region of Andalusia, regulates certain aspects of attention to diversity and individual differences, and establishes regulations for evaluation of the learning process. ## **Bibliography.** * Biber, D. et alii. 1999. _Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English_. London: Longman. * Clark, H. & Clark, E. 1977. _Psychology and Language_. New York: HBJ. * Halliday, Μ.Α.Κ. 1970 _Language Structure and Language Function_, in J. Lyons (ed.) _New Horizons in Linguistics_. Penguin. * Halliday, Μ.Α.Κ. 1985. _Spoken and Written Language_. Oxford University Press. * Harmer, J. 1991. _The Practice of English Language Learning_. London and New York: Longman. * Martín-Cabeza; M. A. (2003). _The Study of Language Beyond the Sentence_. Editorial Comares. ## **Webliography.** * The Linguist List, an article. http://www.ling.ed.ac.uk/linguist//issues/16/16-1688.html * A conversation analysis transcript. http://www-staff.lboro.ac.uk/sca1/trans3.htm ## **Sample Summary.** ### **Introduction.** Oral communication makes use of one of the channels which are available to us as language users the oral channel. The nature of this channel offers numerous possibilities to people who communicate orally, and very often oral communication patterns are common to all the users, in the form of norms or established routines, facilitating communication in this way. In order to be able to comment on these and other points of this topic, it is necessary to look for explanations in different theories, such as conversation analysis or politeness theory, which together provide answers to how oral communication works. ### **Oral Communication. Characteristics.** After defining oral communication in the introduction, one could ask what types of oral communication actually exist. Among different typologies, we can find one with regard to the structure of spoken interactions: * Casual conversations. * Discussions headed by a chairperson who selects who is to speak next, e.g. according to parliamentary rules. * Debates in which the 'pro' and the 'con' sides are allotted turns and times in advance. * Rituals in which each participant's turns and words are completely specified in advance. The following can be considered the most typical features of spoken English, which, at the same time, differentiate it from written English: * First person narration, involvement of the speaker in the speech. * Preference of the active voice over the passive. * Much coordination: parataxis. * Contractions. * Slurring ('kind' kind of; 'wanna' want to). * Discourse fillers (um..., er...; well...; you know...): hesitation devices. * Repetition of lexical words, reformulation, redundancy. * Expressive, interaction, tag questions, intonation emphasizers, body language. * Verb tense shifting. * Use of hedges (kind/sort of, just), and vague terms (thing). * False starts, reformulation, topic changes. * Deictic 'this/that' instead of 'the'. * Bigger number of function words than lexical words, leading to. * More grammatical complexity. ## **Elements and Norms Governing Oral Discourse.** The field which has studied elements of spoken language in conversations is called Conversation Analysis (CA). CA has identified a system of management of conversations, that is the way in which people exchange the opportunity to speak, and is called "turn-taking". It turns out to be more flexible and complex than our intuitions might suggest. **The term adjacency pair** is a formalisation of our intuitive understanding that conversations proceed by participants taking up what the last person has said in a regular way; the two utterances together form what is called an "adjacency pair". **First pair parts** (like questions, invitations and orders) are regularly followed by certain kinds of responses, or **second pair parts** (which in these cases would be answers, acceptances, and compliances respectively). One of the possible ways to describe norms which govern oral communication is in the form of Grice's theory of **Cooperative Principle**. It is a set of four maxims, which are supposed to be tacitly accepted by participants in a conversation. According to Grice, oral exchanges are an example of cooperation between the participants who try to contribute in a way which is in accordance with the perceivable goal or direction of the conversation. If any of the participants flouts this principle of cooperation, oral communication breaks down or becomes senseless. Grice's Cooperative Principle consists of four categories, which in turn are further analysable in terms of maxims: - **The category of quantity**: Give the right amount of information, i.e. * Make your contribution as informative as possible. * Do not make your contribution more informative than required. - **The category of quality**: try to make your contribution one that is true, i.e.: * Do not say what you believe to be false. * Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence. - **The category of relation**: be relevant. - **The category of manner**: be perspicuous, i.e.: * Avoid obscurity of expression. * Avoid ambiguity. * Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity). * Be orderly. ## **Routines and Formulae.** Speakers avail themselves of techniques which have been developed in order to allow participants in oral discourse to communicate more efficiently. **Routines** are more or less unvarying procedures used to construct discourse. They can be applied to a formal speech, a sermon , an informal conversation etc, for instance, by indicating the participants a debate, allocating times for them, using strategies to butt in, etc (see topic 34 for examples of debate routines). **A formula** is a fixed form of words used as a conventional or ceremonial expression. Formulae in oral discourse could also be considered forms used by speakers in order to compensate for the indefiniteness typical of spoken language. -they include tags, greetings or politeness formulae in everyday exchanges. ## **Concept Map** The image depicts a concept map that describes the different elements of oral communication. It outlines the different characteristics, elements and norms, routines and formulae, and strategies involved in oral communication. The most important elements in oral communication are: * **Characteristics:** * Differences between spoken and written language * Formal characteristics * Turn-taking * **Elements and norms** * Preference organisation * Adjacency pairs * The Cooperative Principle * **Routines and formulae** * Routines * Formulae * **Strategies** * Planning strategies * Politeness strategies The concept map also shows the relationship between these elements and how they contribute to the overall structure of oral communication. The map helps to illustrate the complexity of oral communication and how it is influenced by a variety of factors. For example, the map shows how politeness strategies are influenced by the concepts of **positive** and **negative face.** Positive face refers to the want to be liked and appreciated by others, while negative face refers to the want to be free from imposition.  It also shows how the **Cooperative Principle** is important for successful communication. This principle states that speakers should be informative, truthful, relevant and clear. The concept map also highlights the importance of **didactic transposition**. It emphasizes that teachers need to be aware of the different aspects of oral communication in order to effectively teach and prepare students for successful communication. This concept map serves as a visual representation of key elements in oral communication and can be used as a tool for both teachers and learners to deepen their understanding of this important aspect of language.