Table of Contents
Ba LLB 3rd semester communication skills-verbal communication notes
Q. 1. What are the elements (types) of verbal communication? Also, discuss the elements of good talking.
Ans. Types of Verbal Communication
(1) Voice: Your own experience shows that voice communication in ways that have nothing to do with the words a speaker utters. You may recall, for instance, over-hearing two people arguing in an adjoining room or apartment: even though you couldn’t make out their words, their emotions and the fact that they are arguing were apparent from the sound of their voices. Similarly, you have probably overhead people talking in a language you didn’t understand; yet the speakers’ feelings-excitement, delight, exhaustion, boredom, grief- were conveyed by their voice.
Social scientists use the term paralanguage to describe a wide range of vocal characteristics, each of which helps express an attitude.
Pitch (high-low) resonance (resonant-thin)
Range (spread-narrow) tempo (rapid-slow)
Articulation (precise-imprecise) dysfluencies (urn, er, etc.)
Rhythm (smooth-jerky) pauses (frequency and duration)
Volume (loud-soft)
The paralinguistic content of a message can reflect a speaker’s feelings.
(2) Appearance: Although we have been warned since childhood not to judge a book by its cover; appearance plays a tremendous role in determining how a communicator’s messages will be received in business and elsewhere; As a rule, people who look attractive are considered to be likable and persuasive, and they generally have successful careers, For example, research suggests that beginning salaries increase about $2,000 for every 1- point increase on a 5 point attractiveness scale and that more attractive men (but not more attractive women) are given higher starting salaries that their less handsome counterparts
(3) The Face and Eyes: On an obvious level a person’s face communicates emotion clearly: a subordinate’s confused expression indicates the need to continue with an explanation; a customer’s smile and nodding signal the time to close a sale; and a colleague’s frown indicates that your request for help has come at a bad time. Facial expressions, like other nonverbal signals, are ambiguous (a co-worker’s form could come from a headache rather than the timing for your request). Nonetheless, researchers have found that accurate judgments of facial expressions can be made. The eyes themselves communicate a great deal. A skilled nonverbal communicator, for example, can control an interaction by knowing when and where to look to produce the desired results. Since visual contact is an invitation to speak, a speaker who does not want to be interrupted can avoid looking directly at people until it is time to field questions or get reactions.
(4) Posture and Movement: A person’s body communicates messages in several ways. The first is through posture. The way you sit at your desk when you’re working can express something about your attitude towards your job or how hard you’re working to anyone who cares to look. A less obvious set of bodily clues come to form the small gestures and mannerisms that every communicator exhibits at one time or another. While most people pay reasonably close attention to their facial expressions, they are less aware of hand, leg, and foot motions. Thus, fidgeting hands might betray nervousness; a tapping foot, impatience; and clenched fists or white knuckles, restrained anger.
(5) Personal Space and Distance: The distance we put between ourselves and others also reflects feelings and attitudes, and thus it affects communication. Anthropologist Edward Hall has identified four distance zones used by the middle class. Americans: intimate (ranging from physical contact to about 18 inches), casual- personal (18 inches to 4 feet), social-consultative (4 to 12 feet), and public (12 feet and beyond).
Besides reflecting attitudes, distance also creates feelings. In one study, subjects rated people who communicated at a greater distance as less friendly and understanding than those who positional themselves close (closeness has its limits, of course. Intimate distance is rarely appropriate for business dealings). Thus, an effective communicator will usually choose to operate at a casual-personal distance when a friendly atmosphere is a goal.
(6) Talking: The spoken words: More than likely, the foregoing analogy describes the way you learned to talk. As a dependent child, you expressed yourself with screams, cries, and non-verbal symbols. But as you matured, you learned words, and the words greatly reduced the frustrations of the past. They enabled you to communicate with others more exactly. They enabled you to relate better to the world about you and to some extent to control it.
The foregoing review of how you learned to talk gives us the basıs for defining talking. From it we can derive this definition: talking is the oral expression of knowledge, viewpoint, and emotions through words, also, from this review we can see that talking replaces many of the body movements we made before we were able to talk. And as we will seem it is supplemented by various body movements we have acquired as we vill learned to talk gestures, facial expressions, body positions, and such.
Elements of Good Talking
(i) Voice Quality: It should be obvious that a good voice is central to good talking. But this obvious point needs understanding as we Concentrate on developing time talking. Good voice quality means vocal expressions that vary in pitch, change in delivery speed, and alternate in volume.
To illustrate their importance, imagine meeting someone who has an unpleasant voice. Probably, this person talks in a monotone, a quality of voice that needs pitch variety. Moreover, the person delivers words at the same rate of speed. And the volume of speaking remains constant throughout. After several minutes of hearing such a voice, you probably will conclude that the person is unenthusiastic or disinterested.
To correct such unpleasant qualities, we must first be aware of them. We must remember that all of us need to improve our voice quality from time to time. After we become aware of the need to change, we can then practice, which is the second step to correcting, unpleasant voice quality. The story is told about a visitor to New York City who wanted to attend a concert at Carnegie Hali. Not knowing the local subway system, she asked a street-corner musician, “How do I get to Carnegie Hall ?” the musician’s response: “Practice, lady, practice !”
That advice is also sound for those wanting to improve voice quality. Concentrate on words and their pronunciation. Note the range of your voice in speaking. And vary the volume from loud to soft. If you will practice these and other variations, you will find that you can indeed improve your voice quality. Like good actors, good speakers can select from a number of alternatives in their attempts to express orally their thoughts and feeling to others.
(ii) Talking Style: Talking style refers to how the three parts of voiCe quality-pitch, speed, and volume- blend together. But it also means more. lt means how well talkers project their personalities through their oral expression. As such, style refers to a set of behaviors of an individual that give uniqueness to that person.
When we refer to a talker as one who has a sharp, smooth, or polished style, we usually mean one whose pitch, volume, and speed are consistent with certain attitudes we infer attitudes such as sincerity, Kindness, understanding, and courtesy. When these attitudes produce certain behaviors and blend with voice quality, we can say that a talker is a style. While it is beyond our purpose to analyze style in detail, we must note that it does exist; and it is a vital part of talking. But remember that as we noted about writing style, what you speak is more important than how you speak it. The best that a listener can say after hearing you speak is “these are interesting ideas” rather than “you have a beautiful voice.”
(iii) Word Choice and Vocabulary: Still another quality of effective talking is word choice. By selecting the right words that create clear pictures in a listener’s mind, good talkers are able to communicate better and more quickly. They do so because they have more choices available to them. Thus, vocabulary is a critical factor for good talking. The larger the vocabulary, the more selections that are available for creating pictures in the listener’s mind. There are a number of suggestions to use in choosing words that do a good job of communicating. These suggestions are just as important to talk about as they are to writing. Because we have already covered them. We will not repeat them here. Nonetheless, they are important. In fact, using them in speaking requires quicker judgment because of the shorter time involved in selecting words. This shorter time cycle should underscore again the need to practice in selecting different words for different effects.
(iv) Central Role of Adaptation: Adaptation, the fourth quality of good talking, in effect sums up the previous three qualities of voice quality, style, and word choice. Adaptation means fitting a message to a specific receiver. In our speaking efforts, all that we do is for adaptation. That is we select the right words and use the right voice pitch, speed, volume, and style for the one intended listener. By positioning the listener as the central focus of our talking effort we practice good business etiquette.
To illustrate, assume that you must report to your boss about a specific project you are working on. Your boss has a master’s degree and 15 years of experience with your organization. In speaking to her, you choose certain words to fit her education and experience; and you deliver them with a style and quality to accomplish the purpose you seek. But contrast that situation with another; that of instructing your subordinates. These subordinates have a high school education and less than one year on the job. The words, style, and voice quality of your oral direction probably would contain all the aspects of professional respect and etiquette.
Q. 2. Write a short note on non-verbal communication.
Ans. Communication does not mean merely written or oral messages. It includes everything that may be used to convey meanings. t may be non-verbal methods like facial expression, movement of hands, eyes, lips, etc. Expression through body parts is called non-verbal communication. Smile, nodding of the head or mere silence does convey something. Such communication is used to supplement oral or written communication.
In an office non-verbal communication is used in the following forms to locate or call a person:
(i) Bell: It is used to call the peon, messengers, or a subordinate. Here, the bell is sounded just to call the person. The actual message is given when the messenger presents himself. This method is noisy.
(ii) Lighted signals: To overcome the difficulty of noise, lighted signals are installed to attract the attention of a particular person. Code number or a particular color is allotted to a person. Whenever a particular individual is required, his code number or color is lighted along with the buzzer. The actual message is given after the person presents himself before the executive.
