17. Oral communication

• Definition and methods of implementation
• Speaking and listening as types of URK

The development of skills in oral speech is closely related to the development of certain psychological and speech mechanisms. Awareness of the subject of communication, the semantic content of communication is possible with a number of skills:

• be aware of the original intent of the produced or perceived utterance: if the speaker does not represent what he is going to talk about and how, then the listeners will not be able to isolate the main idea from poorly structured speech;
• to keep in memory and preempt the main idea of ​​each semantic part of the message and determine the structural and semantic unity of the whole text;
• combine semantic parts into a whole voice message;
• set the message deployment logic;
• plan and verbalize the predicative structure of presentation, i.e. to correlate the signs of the object, its condition, composition with the real situation of activity.

The listed skills are primarily aimed at understanding (awareness, objectification) of the subject of speaking - what is being said.

The level of development of these skills in a person depends on the following factors:

• socio-cultural - historical traditions, norms and rules adopted by the subject of communication;
• individual psychological - the individual characteristics of the speaker;
• role-based - features of role relationships (conditions and conventions of communication depending on who the thought is addressed to - yourself, another person or audience).

The effectiveness of the implementation of speaking skills in communicative situations is influenced by certain factors.

As a rule, the speaker initiates communication. He initially programs the course of the conversation and predicts the speech actions of the listener. His speech is the starting point of reactive actions of the interlocutor, therefore the more initiative, clearer, and more intelligently the initiative speech actions are constructed, the more clearly the reactive are predicted.

Hearing and speaking are usually considered in unity, called oral communication, and, accordingly, determine the nature of a person’s oral language. The competence of the listener is characterized by such distinctive features as skills aimed at the awareness of the content-semantic structure of speech material, and the given theme of the sounding text.

The activity of oral communication, efficiency, effectiveness of the interaction is largely determined by how the participants understood each other, how they responded to the words and behavior of the interlocutor, what actions confirmed the correctness of perception in the feedback. By feedback in a situation (act) of communication is meant the solution of communicative tasks, implemented in reactive (speech or non-speech) actions of interlocutors.

Speaking and listening as types of speech communication

In the process of exchanging information, the speaker, striving for the correctness and effectiveness of initiative speaking, should exclude errors from his speech. You can’t say:

• without thinking, without organizing your thoughts;
• not taking into account the degree of possession of the substantive content of the conversation with the interlocutor;
• using words and phrases that are absent in the interlocutors' lexicon, and without explaining their meaning;
• not following the reaction of the listeners, trying as long as possible to be in the position of the initiator of communication;
• not supporting his speech with visual materials, examples;
• without initiating the response of interlocutors with questions to the audience, etc.

To be heard and understood (by one listener, by a group, by a large audience), it is necessary to observe approximately the following algorithm of speech actions:

• determine the purpose for which you will speak2) think through a way of presenting information that corresponds to the purpose and subject content of the conversation;
• think over the way of presenting the information corresponding to the purpose and subject content of the conversation;
• preliminary clarify the degree of possession of the subject of the content of speech interlocutors;
• perform several training exercises for use in speech lexical and grammatical structures, corresponding to the presentation, description, description, reasoning, etc.
• think over questions to the listener or audience that allow you to return attention to the speaker.

Receptions of a proper and effective hearing:

• attention to the interlocutor,
• constant self-control.

Types of listening, stages and levels of perception are included in the notion of installation on interaction and mutual understanding.

Types of feedback correspond to the reaction of the listener to the message and are divided as follows:

• active listening is listening-empathy;
• Hearing-advice is a hearing with the aim of giving advice and hearing, which involves the inclusion of replica-advice in the reactive actions of the hearer;
• hearing-question is a hearing, the purpose of which is to control the speaker’s knowledge or to obtain additional information for himself by formulating questions to the speaker in his internal speech;
• Hearing-criticism - a biased hearing, suggesting a discrepancy between the interlocutors' points of view on the problem and the listener's attempts to correct the content of the message. Only those who are absolutely confident in their position, their knowledge, can afford such a reaction in disputes, negotiations, discussions.

Feedback in oral communication

It is possible to predict or initiate a certain effect, result, feedback during speech interaction provided that each of the participants in the communication uses the necessary means and mechanisms, skills and abilities of speaking and listening.

The speaker needs:

• it is interesting and intelligible to speak (taking into account the interests of the listeners);
• provide listeners with only useful information for them;
• correctly design speech works, having them in large compositional blocks (speeches, monologues, reasoning) on ​​the principle: introduction, main part, conclusions (conclusion);
• use speech means in accordance with the quantitative composition of the audience (interpersonal, intergroup, public communication);
• apply speech means appropriate to the functional style, situation, sphere of communication;
• transmit content using non-verbal signals;
• analyze the feedback of the listeners in the process of speaking;
• to regulate the rate of speaking, taking into account the fact that oral speech is perceived and understood more difficultly than written;

The listener (recipient) needs to:

• to find something useful in a heard statement;
• strive to “reveal the truth” with the help of reactive speech actions;
• focus on the essentials;
• to fix the main provisions of the message in writing (notes, abstracts, supporting words, quotes, etc.);
• refrain from advice and “sentences” until a serious understanding of what has been said;
• ask clarifying questions;
• draw conclusions in internal speech;
• analyze the speaker's non-verbal signals;
• analyze and evaluate the content of the message, not the speaker's behavior.

Effective speech communications often determine the success or failure of commercial negotiations. The following skills are called essential for effective communication in any field:

• production skills - perception of speech material at the elementary level,
• the ability to establish semantic links between individual phrases, information units;
• the ability to use the necessary mechanisms of speech and speech means for transmitting - receiving information and implementing speech actions;
• the ability to adequately represent the objects of speech activity (thoughts, facts, concepts, functions, properties, phenomena) in educational or natural speech actions.

Since the subject of speech activity in all its forms is the semantic content of speech, the closest attention should be paid to the development of such speech perception skills as memorization, understanding, understanding, anticipating prediction of statements (messages), clarification of the connections and relations between information elements and real phenomena, motives of the speaker, etc.

• What does the concept of “oral communication” mean?
• How is the feedback in speaking and listening?