The conversation process
- Conversation consists of five general stages: Opening, feed forward, business, feedback and closing.
Opening
The first step in conversation is the opening, which usually involves some kind of greeting. It can be either verbal or non verbal but are usually both.
Feedforward
In the second step of conversation, you usually give some kind of feedback in which you may seek to accomplish a variety of functions. One function is to open the channels of communication, usually with some phatic message.
Business
Business is a good term for this stage, because it emphasizes that most conversations are directed at achieving some goal.
Feedback
In feedback you reflect back on the conversation. Because each situation is unique, it's difficult to offer specific suggestions for making your feedback more effective.
Closing
Just as the opening signals access, the closing signals the intention to end access. The closing usually also signals some degree of supportiveness, for example you express your pleasure in interacting. It may also summarize the interaction to offer more of a conclusion to the conversation.
- Different cultures have different rules and customs in conversation as in all aspects of communication.
- What is appropriate at a given step in one culture may not be appropriate in another culture.
- Of course, not everyone speaks with the fluency and ease that many textbooks often assume. Speech and language disorders can seriously disrupt the conversation process if some elementary guidelines aren't followed.
Principle of Conversation:
Principles of Turn-Taking
In everyday conversations, there is an active exchange of roles of between speakers and listeners- the exchanges of cues is called conversational turns (a form of metacommunication/gesture or non verbal communication). Both speaker and listener will perform and indicate different and various cues during a conversation process.
Speaker Cues
Turn-maintaining: Help you to maintain the speaker's role.
Turn Yielding: You tell the listener that you're finished and wish to exchange the role of speaker for that of listener.
Listener cues:
As a listener, you can regulate the conversation by using a variety of cues such as:-
Turn-requesting: Let the speaker know that you'd like to take a turn as speaker.
Turn-denying: Listener can deny the cues to take over as a speaker.
Backchanneling cues: Used to communicate information back to the speaker without assuming role of the speaker.
Interruption cues: Attempts to talk over the role of the speaker.
Principle of Dialogue
- Dialogue is a context where two person share messages to one another.
- Dialogue is indicates an interaction rather than just a conversation - the sender and receiver both actively seek to pursue a healthy and meaningful conversation.
Principle of Immediacy and Flexibility
- Effective communication and conversation requires both (or all) parties to take into consideration the relationship and intimacy of one another, as well as adjusting to the environment and the context.
- Immediacy: is the creation of closeness, between speaker and listener.
Everyday Conversations
Small talk
- Small talk is pervasive, all of us engage in small talk. Sometimes, we use small talk as a preface too big talk. Sometimes, small talk is a politeness strategy and a bit more extensive way of saying hello as you pass someone in the hallway or meet a neighbour of yours in the neighbourhood.
- Sometimes your relationship with another person revolves totally around small talk. In these relationships, neither the person makes an effort to deepen the relationship or it remains on a small talk level.
- One obvious purpose is simply to pass the time more pleasantly than you might in silent. Small talk also demonstrate that the normal rules of politeness are operating.
Excuses and apologies
- If you engage in conversation for any length of time, it's not unlikely that at some point you'll say the wrong thing. Then, because you can't erase the message, you may try to offer an explanation to account for what happened. The most common methods for doing so are the excuse and the apology, two closely related types of what we might call "conversational correctives".
- Excuses are especially appropriate when you say or are accused of saying something that runs counter to what is expected, sanctioned, or considered 'right' by the people with whom you're in conversation. Ideally, you hope the excuse will lessen the negative impact of your message.
- The major motives for excuses making seem to be maintain your self esteem and to project a positive image of yourself to others. Excuses also may enable you to maintain effective interpersonal relationships after some negative behaviour.
- An apology is an expression of regret for something you did. In many cases the apology also includes a request for forgiveness and some assurance that the behaviour won't be repeated.
Complimenting
- A compliment is a message of praise, flattery, or congratulations. Its a way of relating to another person with positiveness and immediacy. Compliments can be unqualified or qualified. The unqualified compliment is a message that is purely positive. The qualified message is not entirely positive.
- A 'backhanded compliment' is really not a compliment at all, its usually an insult masquerading as a compliment.
- Compliments are sometimes difficult to give and even more difficult to respond without discomfort or embarrassment.
Advice
- Most people like to give advice. Advising someone else about what they should do might make you feel competent and authoritative. Advice is best viewed as a process of giving another person a suggestion for thinking or behaving, usually to effect a change. In many cases, it will take the form of suggestion to solve a problem.
- Sometimes, the advice serves to encourage the person to stick with what they are currently thinking or doing.One of the most important types of advice is what we might call meta-advice, advice about advice.
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