Abstract on the topic “Verbal communication”
Abstract the
topic “Verbal communication”
Contents
IntroductionChapter 1. Verbal forms of communication 1.1. Communication: concept, types 1.2. The concept and essence of verbal communicationChapter 2. Verbal means of communication 2.1. Oral communication means 2.2. Written and speech communication 2.3. Listening as a means of verbal communicationConclusion List of sources used
Introduction
A person receives information through all the channels available to him. But some of them are of a special nature for communication. This is, first of all, visual and verbal communication. Nietzsche wrote in his aphorisms: “People lie freely with their mouths, but the faces they make at the same time still tell the truth.” These words quite accurately convey both the autonomous nature of the transmission of information through the visual channel, and the fact that we do not know how to equally control the visual channel, as is done with the verbal channel. Verbal communication is dominant in any area of human activity. Professional speaking skills are becoming an important component of success in many professions. Alexander Lebed's voice became his important characteristic. L. Brezhnev's babbling speech destroyed any efforts of the propagandists.
Lines from Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion come to mind:
“A woman who makes such ugly and pathetic sounds has no right to be anywhere... no right to live at all! Remember that you are a human being, endowed with a soul and the divine gift of articulate speech, that your native language is the language of Shakespeare, Milton and the Bible! And stop clucking like a hoarse chicken.”
We are talking about verbal communication, and not about textual one, since text today is considered a unit of both the verbal and non-verbal spheres. W. Eco, for example, speaks of a text in the case of any set of interconnected situations. The investigator, while investigating a crime, also deals with the text, although there may not be a single word in it. But it is the text in front of him, since it has its own internal structure, different from others. Verbal communication affects people on many levels, not just through content. “The success of many politicians, actors, and business people is associated with the timbre of their voice,” writes Mary Spillane. Verbal communication uses human speech, natural sound language, as a sign system, i.e. a system of phonetic signs that includes two principles: lexical and syntactic. Speech is the most universal means of communication, since when transmitting information through speech, the meaning of the message is least lost. True, this should be accompanied by a high degree of common understanding of the situation by all participants in the communication process. With the help of speech, information is encoded and decoded: the communicator encodes while speaking, and the recipient decodes this information while listening. The terms “speaking” and “listening” were introduced by I.A. Winter as a designation of the psychological components of verbal communication.
The main goal of this work is to study the basic means of verbal communications.
To achieve this goal, the work involves consideration of the following tasks:
a) reveal the concept and essence of verbal communication;
b) study oral communication means;
c) study written and verbal communication.
Chapter
1. Verbal communication
1.1.
Communication : concept , types
Communication is, first of all, communication, that is, a specific exchange of information of emotional and intellectual content that is significant for the participants in communication1.
The subjects of communication are living beings, people. In principle, communication is characteristic of any living beings, but only at the human level does the process of communication become conscious, connected by verbal and non-verbal acts. The person transmitting information is called a communicator, and the person receiving it is called a recipient.
A number of aspects can be distinguished in communication: content, purpose and means. Let's consider them in more detail: The content of communication is information that is transmitted from one living being to another in inter-individual contacts. This may be information about the internal (emotional, etc.) state of the subject, about the situation in the external environment. The content of information is most diverse when the subjects of communication are people.
The purpose of communication answers the question “For what purpose does a creature enter into an act of communication?” The same principle applies here as was already mentioned in the paragraph on the content of communication. In animals, the goals of communication usually do not go beyond the biological needs that are relevant to them. For a person, these goals can be very, very diverse and represent a means of satisfying social, cultural, creative, cognitive, aesthetic and many other needs.
Means of communication are methods of encoding, transmitting, processing and decoding information that is transmitted in the process of communication from one being to another. Encoding information is a way of transmitting it. Information between people can be transmitted using the senses, speech and other sign systems, writing, technical means of recording and storing information2.
Types and types of communication. In psychological and pedagogical literature, the concepts of “types” and “types” of communication are used as certain varieties of this phenomenon. At the same time, scientists, unfortunately, do not have a unified approach to what is considered a type and what is a type of communication.
B.T. By types of communication, Parygin understands differences in communication according to its nature, i.e. according to the specifics of the mental state and mood of the participants in the communicative act. According to the scientist, typological types of communication are paired and at the same time alternative in nature: business and gaming communication; impersonal-role and interpersonal communication; spiritual and utilitarian communication; traditional and innovative communication.
For example, the subject of political communication is the sphere of politics, the interaction of political parties and their leaders with representatives of various parties and public associations when resolving certain political issues.
With this approach, it is obvious that pedagogical communication is one of the types of communication. The subject of such communication is the field of education, in which teachers and educators interact with their colleagues, students and their parents around issues related to the training and education of students.
A. A. Leontiev adheres to a slightly different view on the description of types of communication. The author argues that in the study of communication it is unlawful to take “pure” interpersonal communication in a dyad as the simplest “cell” of analysis, since each person represents a set (ensemble) of social relations. Therefore, the author proceeds from the fact that communication is processes that take place within a certain social community - a group, a collective, society as a whole, processes that are not inter-individual in nature, but social. They arise due to social need, social necessity and implement social relations. Based on this, the author identifies three types of communication: socially-oriented communication, group subject-oriented communication and person-oriented communication.
An example of socially oriented communication can be a lecture, salary, or television performance, where the lecturer or speaker acts as a representative of society and solves specific social problems with his audience. For example, it considers the environmental problems of a particular city or region.
Group subject-oriented communication is also aimed at solving social problems - organizing collective interaction in the process of joint activities. This is communication between members of a particular team with each other or with representatives of another team. At the center of such communication are the problems facing the team and the joint activities of its representatives.
Person-oriented communication, which represents the interaction of one person with another, is far from homogeneous. This could be communication between partners serving a specific joint activity (for example, preparing for an exam, competition or concert). But this can also be communication, the center of which is not any activity, but the personal problems of those communicating, for example, sorting out relationships between friends or a declaration of love between a boy and a girl.
Speaking about types of communication, many researchers distinguish between business and personal communication. These terms are found quite often both in pedagogical literature and in everyday life.
Business communication (also called role-based or functional-role communication) is aimed at organizing any joint activity, this or that matter. At the center of such communication are the interests of the business, the functional responsibilities of the partners, the contribution of each of them to achieving the result, and the personal characteristics of the partners: their likes or dislikes, feelings, mood, mental or physical state seem to be relegated to the background.
On the contrary, the center of personal (or interpersonal) communication is the psychological, physiological, moral and other personal problems of partners: their interests, inclinations, mood, relationships with others, well-being, etc. Business problems in such communication are not so significant for partners; the matter can wait, it can be completed after personal issues are resolved.
In the pedagogical process, business and personal communication are quite closely intertwined and inseparable from each other. The teacher not only pays attention to whether or not the student completes the teacher’s assignments, and in what ways he received the correct answer. The physical or mental state of the student, his joyful or depressed mood, the presence of internal anxiety, or preoccupation with something will not hide from the gaze of an experienced teacher.
1.2.
The concept and essence of verbal communication
Verbal communication is the verbal interaction of the parties and is carried out with the help of sign systems, the main one of which is language. Language as a sign system is the optimal means of expressing human thinking and a means of communication. The language system finds its implementation in speech, i.e. language is constantly present in us in a state of possibility. The term "speech" is used in two meanings. Firstly, speech is one of the types of human communicative activity: the use of language to communicate with other people. In this sense, speech is a specific human activity, expressed either orally or in writing. Secondly, speech is the result of an activity depending on the conditions and goals of communication (business speech, official speech, etc.)3.
The differences between speech and language are as follows. Firstly, speech is specific, unique, relevant, unfolds in time, and is realized in space. Secondly, speech is active, unlike language, it is less conservative, more dynamic, and mobile. Thirdly, speech reflects the experience of the speaker, is determined by the context and situation, is variable, can be spontaneous and disordered. Each utterance in the communication process performs one or another function (establishing contact, attracting attention, transmitting information, etc.). Particular functions of specific utterances can be combined into more general ones, which are called functions of speech. The following functions of speech are usually distinguished:
1) Communicative, or representative (representation - representation, image), which is dominant;
2) Appellative (appeal - call, appeal, i.e. influence), which is grammatically expressed mainly in the imperative mood and vocative form;
3) Expressive – expression of expressiveness of speech;
4) Phatic, i.e. contact-setting. Affects the area of speech etiquette and is carried out through the exchange of ritual formulas;
5) Metalinguistic, i.e. interpretation function, when the speaker or listener needs to check whether they use the same code when communicating;
6) Voluntary, i.e. function of expression of will4.
So, the functions that speech performs in each specific communication situation determine the appearance of the utterance, primarily the selection of words and syntactic structures. We noted that the dominant function of speech is the communicative function, i.e. maintenance of the communication process. The communication process can be considered as an exchange of information between people, and its goal is awareness and understanding of the information transmitted and received. The information contained in speech is defined as the verbalized transmission of already acquired, meaningful and organized facts of objective reality.
Let us consider the features of the basic model of information transfer from the point of view of verbal communication. The source of information in verbal communication is the speaker or writer. The information channel can be the voice apparatus of the message creator, as well as technical means of information dissemination. The code in the case of verbal communication is the speech itself. At the same time, encoding is defined as the translation of information into linguistic units, and decoding is defined as the inverse process of perceiving and understanding a statement. The choice of code when transmitting verbal communication, as a rule, occurs automatically. Typically the code is the speaker's native language. However, the code can also be considered as a means of encrypting a message. Interference and distortion are the next important element of the model of verbal communication under consideration. In this case, distortions may be due to linguistic, extralinguistic and acoustic-pronunciation reasons or the graphic appearance of the message in written speech. Linguistic distortions are associated with insufficient refinement of the phrase, excessive complexity of the message, incorrect syntactic format, etc. Extralinguistic interference is caused by the knowledge base of the message recipient. Psychologists also notice that the defense mechanisms of the human psyche select information that corresponds to the individual’s predispositions and do not perceive what contradicts the views and beliefs of the person. To make a message noise-resistant, any information must have some degree of redundancy. Redundancy of information is a complete or partial repetition of a message that accompanies the receipt of new data and serves to check and correct our ideas. It is estimated that redundancy should range from 50 to 95% of the stock of knowledge in the field under consideration5.
A very important characteristic of verbal information is value. Value is understood as new information obtained from the implementation of information content contained in a linguistic sign. The value of meaningful information is determined by its novelty and surprise.
Thus, we have briefly described the main features of the transmission of verbal information. However, in real communication, the purpose of the act of verbal communication is, as a rule, not the actual transfer of information, but some influence on the interlocutor.
For this reason, there are three main types of communication results:
a) changes in the recipient’s knowledge;
b) changing the recipient’s settings, i.e. change in relatively stable ideas of the individual;
c) changing the conduct of the message recipient. Forms of speech communication. Depending on the direction of the speech flow during communication, dialogic and monologue speech are distinguished. Dialogue is a form of speech consisting of an exchange of statements - replicas, characterized by situationality (dependence on the speech situation), contextuality (dependence on previous statements), and a low degree of organization.
The main linguistic features of dialogue include: the presence of repetitions in responding remarks, syntactic incompleteness of remarks, expressiveness, and an abundance of interrogative and incentive sentences. The following types of dialogue are distinguished: informative dialogue; prescriptive dialogue (contains a request, order, promise or refusal to perform a proposed action); dialogue - exchange of opinions (this is usually an argument or discussion); dialogue for the purpose of establishing or regulating interpersonal relationships; idle dialogue (this can be emotional communication or intellectual conversation).
The purpose of verbalization is to maintain the unity of functional formations that arise in the process of business communication, to win over people, and to encourage them to greater spiritual generosity. As a result, the development of the ability to speak eloquently and use standardized speech is important for the image of a manager.
A special place in verbal communication is occupied by the identification and encouragement by a person of the potential capabilities of the interlocutor. The ability to speak kindly and beautifully has an attractive force and creates conditions for the emergence of relationships with people based on mutual sympathy, which is necessary for a favorable psychological atmosphere in the team.
Speech is the main, uniquely human way of communication6.
Speech is primarily divided into internal, i.e., a person’s conversation mentally with himself, through which the motives of his behavior are realized, activities are planned and controlled, etc., and external, aimed at the communication partner. External speech exists on the basis of internal speech. The translation of the content of internal speech into the external plane is associated with the emergence of difficulties in speaking out loud.
External speech is presented in two forms: oral and written.
Chapter
2. Verbal means of communication
2.1.
Oral speech means of communication
Oral speech remains the most common method of communication.
Oral speech: this is spoken speech, it uses a system of phonetic means of expression; it is created in the process of speaking; it is characterized by verbal improvisation and some linguistic features (freedom in the choice of vocabulary, the use of simple sentences, the use of incentive, interrogative, exclamatory sentences, repetitions, incompleteness of expression of thoughts)
To be understood, it is not enough to have good diction. You must be clear about what you are going to say. In addition, you must choose words so that your idea is correctly understood. If a person has to speak in front of a large audience, he formulates theses for himself or otherwise prepares for the report. But in everyday life, oral communication requires spontaneity, and this can cause anxiety, uncertainty and even fear in a person. You can start working on oral speech by expanding your vocabulary. Remember Martin Eden D. London, who, having decided to become a writer, began to learn a certain number of new words every day. It helped him. Nowadays, if they usually learn new words, it is only when studying a foreign language. Although it is necessary to expand your vocabulary both for those who have a small one and for those whose profession requires it (writer, speaker, translator, politician, etc.). If you clearly understand what you want to say and your vocabulary is large enough, then you will most likely be able to accurately express your thoughts and prevent possible misunderstandings. On the contrary, people who are confused in their thoughts and words are constantly at risk of getting into trouble. Often people are embarrassed to use their rich vocabulary, not wanting to flaunt their education for fear of seeming arrogant.
A very important ability associated with oral speech is the ability to hold the attention of listeners. If, while giving a report, you look someone in the audience straight in the eye, then you will be guaranteed their reciprocal attention. Conversely, if you express your thoughts in a monotonous voice, with your nose to a piece of paper prepared in advance, you will very soon find that the audience is not listening to you. Visual contact with the audience is also useful because it allows the speaker to gauge the audience's reaction. The most effective, as a rule, is personal communication, that is, communication in which two people participate. Thus, it has long been a known fact in politics that personal communication with voters increases a candidate’s chances of success in the election campaign.
2.2.
Written - speech communication
Written speech: this is speech, graphically fixed; it can be thought out and corrected in advance; it is characterized by some linguistic features (the predominance of book vocabulary, the presence of complex sentences, strict adherence to language norms, the absence of extra-linguistic elements)
The difference between written and oral speech lies in the nature of the addressee. Written speech is usually addressed to those who are absent. The one who writes does not see his communication partner, but can only mentally imagine him. Written speech is not affected by the reactions of those who read it9.
People use written communication less often than oral communication. But with the advent of email, the importance of written communication has increased greatly.
When selecting candidates for vacant positions, employers are paying increasing attention to their ability to competently express their thoughts on paper. If, when applying for a job, you are asked to fill out a questionnaire, this may mean that the employer is thus intending to test your knowledge of grammar and spelling.
Any written message has one undoubted advantage over oral communication. By composing it, you have the opportunity to think, put your thoughts in order and, if necessary, even rewrite it completely. However, two disadvantages of written communication should be noted. Firstly, a written message cannot convey the intonation of your voice and gestures (often, but not always: emoticons are a great achievement of humanity), and secondly, you are deprived of instant feedback from the reader. To address the first shortcoming, it makes sense to add an emotional touch to your message. Here, as in oral communication, a rich vocabulary can serve you well. The second problem is easily solved if you know the educational level, interests and vocabulary of the people you are addressing. A short message written in simple language tends to be more understandable to people.
The differences between written and oral speech also lie in the fact that what is spoken is short-lived and is only partially retained in memory, while what is written can be retained for a long time.
2.3.
Listening as a means of verbal communication
Listening in our lives is no less important than speaking: through hearing a person receives approximately 25% of all information about the world around him.
People listen to things for different purposes. First of all, they want to receive new semantic information. This is listening to a lecture, report, information on radio and television, listening to a business partner, etc. They often listen to receive emotional and aesthetic information. This is what listening to poetry and artistic prose is like.
According to the method of implementation, two types of listening are distinguished: absent-minded, passive (non-reflective), when a person is distracted by something, and concentrated, active (reflective), when attention mechanisms are turned on to the maximum.
Being able to listen is one of the most complex communicative phenomena directly related to the culture of communication.
Unreflective listening is not always appropriate. After all, silence can be taken as a sign of consent. Therefore, it is more honest to immediately interrupt the interlocutor and openly express your point of view in order to avoid misunderstandings later.
Reflective listening involves actively intervening in the interlocutor’s speech, helping him express his thoughts and feelings, and creating favorable conditions for communication.
It is important to be able to choose the type of listening that is most appropriate in a given communication situation.
Get to know the basic “rules” of listening to your interlocutor. They are set out by Eastwood Atwater in the book “I’m Listening to You...” (M., 1989)
1. Don't mistake silence for attention.
If the interlocutor is silent, this does not mean that he is listening. He may be lost in his own thoughts.
2. Be physically alert.
Turn to face the speaker. Maintain eye contact with him and make sure your posture and gestures indicate that you are listening.
3. Don't pretend to listen.
It's no use: no matter how much you pretend, lack of interest and boredom will inevitably show in your facial expressions and gestures.
4. Give the other person time to speak.
Focus on what he is saying. Try to understand not only the meaning of the words, but also the conclusions of the interlocutor.
5. Don't interrupt unnecessarily.
Most of us interrupt each other in social interactions, sometimes doing it unconsciously. Managers interrupt subordinates more often, and seniors interrupt juniors, than vice versa. Men interrupt more often than women. If you need to interrupt someone in an honest conversation, then help restore the interlocutor's train of thought that you interrupted.
6. Don't jump to conclusions.
This is one of the main barriers to effective communication. Refrain from making judgments and try to fully understand the other person’s point of view or train of thought.
7. Don't be overly sensitive to emotional words11.
When listening to a very excited interlocutor, be careful not to be influenced by his feelings, otherwise you may miss the point of communication.
8. Make sure there are no ambiguities or misunderstandings.
If the interlocutor has already spoken, repeat the main points of his monologue in your own words and ask if that’s what he meant.
Do not focus on the conversational characteristics of your interlocutor.
Conclusion
Verbal communication uses human speech, natural sound language, as a sign system, that is, a system of phonetic signs that includes two principles: lexical and syntactic. Speech is the most universal means of communication, since when transmitting information through speech, the meaning of the message is least lost. True, this should be accompanied by a high degree of common understanding of the situation by all participants in the communication process.
With the help of speech, information is encoded and decoded: the communicator encodes while speaking, and the recipient decodes this information while listening.
The sequence of the speaker's actions has been studied in sufficient detail. From the point of view of transmitting and perceiving the meaning of a message, the “communicator – message – recipient” scheme is asymmetrical.
For a communicator, the meaning of information precedes the encoding process, since the “speaker” first has a certain idea and then embodies it in a system of signs. For the “listener,” the meaning of the received message is revealed simultaneously with decoding. In this case, the significance of the situation of joint activity is especially clearly manifested: its awareness is included in the decoding process itself; revealing the meaning of the message is unthinkable outside of this situation.
The accuracy of the listener’s understanding of the meaning of the statement can become obvious to the communicator only when a change in “communicative roles” occurs, i.e. when the recipient turns into a communicator and with his statement makes it known how he revealed the meaning of the received information. Dialogue as a specific type of “conversation” is a consistent change of communicative roles, during which the meaning of a speech message is revealed.
The degree of coherence between the actions of the communicator and the recipient in a situation where they alternately assume these roles largely depends on their inclusion in the general context of the activity. The success of verbal communication in the case of dialogue is determined by the extent to which the partners provide the thematic focus of the information, as well as its two-way nature.
Likewise, ways to increase the impact of message text have been extensively researched. It is in this area that the content analysis technique is used, establishing certain proportions in the relationship between different parts of the text. Audience studies are of particular importance.
In social psychology, there is a large number of experimental studies that elucidate the conditions and methods for increasing the effect of speech influence; both the forms of various communication barriers and ways to overcome them have been studied in sufficient detail.
List of sources used
1. Dmitrieva N.Yu. General psychology. Lecture notes. – M.: Eksmo, 2007. – 128 pp. 2. Itelson L.B. Lectures on general psychology. – St. Petersburg: Peter, 2004. – 320 p. 3. Leontyev A.N. Lectures on general psychology. – M.: Meaning; Ed. , 2007. – 511 p. 4. Lukatsky M.A., Ostrenkova M.E. Psychology. – M.: Eksmo, 2007. – 416 p. 5. Luria A.R. Lectures on general psychology. – St. Petersburg: Peter, 2004. – 320 p.
Structure of speech communication
The exact meaning of words arises from a single set of verbal and nonverbal means that are used to reinforce and confirm words and even to ridicule one's own words and give them the opposite meaning. At the same time, words taken by themselves are still the main component of communication.
Verbal communication is the most studied type of human communication. In addition, this is the most universal way of transmitting thoughts. It is possible to “translate” a message created by any other sign system into verbal human language. For example, a red traffic light translates as “closed”, “stop”; a raised finger covered by the palm of the other hand, as in “requesting an extra minute of break” at a sports competition, etc.
The speech side of communication has a complex multi-layered structure (from the differential feature of the phoneme to the text and intertext) and appears in various stylistic varieties (various styles and genres, spoken and literary language, dialects and sociolects, etc.). All speech characteristics and other components of a communicative act contribute to its (successful or unsuccessful) implementation. When communicating with other people, we choose from an extensive inventory (in modern linguistics they sometimes say: fields) of possible speech and non-speech means of communication, those that seem to us most suitable for expressing our thoughts in a given situation. This is a socially significant choice. This process is endless and infinitely varied.
Poet O.E. Mandelstam wrote: “I forgot the word I wanted to say: the blind swallow will return to the hall of shadows...”. How many of these swallows fail to reach their goal, how many cannot leave their nest in the “hall of shadows” - so many inaccurate statements and unspoken thoughts remain behind us in life and communication.
The system that ensures verbal communication—human language—is studied by linguistics. Without being able to present the theory of language in a communication textbook, we recommend turning to linguistics textbooks. It is believed that there are two “classical” textbooks: A.A. Reformatsky and Yu.S. Maslova. In addition to linguistics itself, speech communication is studied by related sciences: social linguistics and psycholinguistics, as well as psychology itself.
Let us dwell on the most general communicative characteristics of speech. From the point of view of communication theory, speech is included in a single communicative act and exhibits the following properties:
speech is part of communicative culture and culture in general,
speech contributes to the formation of the social role (social identity) of the communicant,
With the help of speech, mutual social recognition of communicants is carried out,
Social meanings are created in speech communication. In speech communication, we are once again convinced that words are not just signs for designating objects or classes of objects. Speaking, using words in communication, we create entire systems of ideas, beliefs, myths characteristic of a certain community, a certain culture (examples: maybe, party), which is especially clearly manifested when trying to translate statements with these words. Sometimes a foreigner has to read a whole lecture on intercultural correspondences before he can correctly understand and use even seemingly similar words and the concepts behind them. Even completely translatable lexemes have different cultural, and therefore communicative meanings (bread, money). Within the same culture we can also observe differences in the use of words (unambiguous).
