"Speech situation" is the basic concept of the science of linguo-pragmatics, which studies the use of language by a person in order to influence the person who is speaking (the addressee), as well as behavior in the process of communication using speech.
What influences this behavior and its features in this or that person? It turns out that there are many factors and reasons on which it depends. Their combination is usually called a speech situation.
The main components of the speech situation
The communicative and speech situation are synonyms. The main components of its components: participants in communication and their relationships, as well as internal and external conditions of communication.
The communication environment may be official or unofficial. By the nature of the situation, communication is divided into business (lecture, report, discussion) and everyday (conversations with relatives, relatives). The characteristics of the addressee include the number of students, role and communication relations between them. By the number of participants, a monologue (speech of one person), dialogue (conversation between two people) and polylogue (conversation between several participants) are distinguished.
The purpose of the speech situation is communication as such (entertainment), communication (information) or impact (persuasion, motivation, explanation, etc.).
Minor components of the speech situation
In addition to the above main factors that influence the nature of speech, its features, as well as the speech behavior of communication participants, one can also distinguish such as the degree of remoteness of the interacting parties from each other, the degree of their acquaintance (here we can distinguish direct and indirect communication, for example , telephone conversation and speech in the media), the presence of observers, etc. But these factors are secondary, in contrast to the main, or components, factors of the speech situation.
Let us consider in more detail the main components that the speech situation has, the types and characteristics of each of them.
Situation
The situation is official and unofficial. The official situation means the special legal significance that this speech situation represents. This is due to the fact that certain people - individuals - express the interests of various legal entities (enterprises, firms), as well as the fact that they act on behalf of these persons in the process of business meetings and negotiations.
Formal communication takes place in a special office building - reception, office, conference room, etc. It can also be internal corporate, which takes place at meetings, meetings, councils of leaders (protocol business communication).
Formal Speech Etiquette Requirements
The official environment involves the implementation of the requirements of the relevant standards of etiquette in speech behavior. These include:
- obligatory two-way appeal to “You” to the interlocutor, regardless of what age and social category he belongs to;
- strict adherence to the norms of the etiquette framework for communication (standard words of greeting and goodbye);
- the use of generally accepted forms of politeness provided by etiquette ("please", "let me ...", "be nice", etc.).
The official situation requires compliance with the vocabulary of participants in communication - slang, swearing, vernacular words, and also dialectisms should not be included in it.
There are special requirements for the pronunciation of words. It is necessary to adhere to the literary type of pronunciation, speak clearly, clearly. It is unacceptable to speak a tongue twister, mumble, carelessly make out a speech. It is necessary to pronounce, for example, not [kada], but [kagda]; not [hello], but [hello].
The main tone during strict official conversations should remain restrained, calm, and with less stringent, friendly, calm, friendly should be appropriate.
The informal atmosphere is typical for presentations, business meetings outside the office, anniversaries, and everyday communication in a team. The participants in the conversation feel much freer when choosing different speech means than in an official setting. That is, they apply the same norms and rules of speech behavior that are used in everyday life.
Informal speech etiquette requirements
In this case, there are more free norms:
- the appeal to “you” or “you” is used depending on the age, degree of acquaintance and the position of the interlocutor;
- words of goodbye and greetings are used;
- The use of labeling requirements is minimized.
However, despite less stringent requirements for the selection of words, it remains undesirable to use lexical strata, which are not recommended for use when there is an official speech situation.
The same applies to pronunciation standards.
The degree of acquaintance of participants is the main determining factor in verbal behavior in an informal setting. When communicating with unfamiliar or unfamiliar people, in fact, the same etiquette requirements apply as with official communication. Even if there is an “outsider” (client, visitor), people who are in the same room with him should use the rules of official communication.
This rule does not apply only to municipal employees of any rank (employees of departments and ministries). For them, formal communication should be the only type of business communication (the speech situation, types and nuances of interaction may vary). It is unacceptable for government officials to use an informal one as a working environment. Strict hierarchical relationships do not allow the use of the “you” reference during work.
Destination
The addressee factor is no less important in business communication than its conditions. This is the person to whom the speech of the speaker (addressee) is addressed (addressed). The choice of means of etiquette and communicative tactics depends on what kind of communicative and role relations the addressee enters with him.
For example, the areas in which management is implemented include the fulfillment by managers of social roles, which include:
- administrative activities of the company (organization);
- its external production relations;
- various commercial relationships.
Entering into the interaction "leader" - "subordinate", "producer" - "consumer", "partner" - "partner", the leader or manager formulates for himself certain principles on the basis of which interactions are built, develops their strategy.
Target Settings
They are formed on the basis of what principle of communication is chosen by the leader in this field. The modern speech situation considers the principles of responsiveness in market relations, consensus - in partnerships and equality - in corporate ones as the highest priority.
The principle of courtesy is universal. However, there is a wide selection of speech means, the use of which may be different depending on the situation. For example, when applying, the most important criterion for choosing a form is the social status of the person you are addressing.
Dear Vasily Vladimirovich!
Dear Mr. Kirillov!
Dear Igor Olegovich!
Indication of the social status of the addressee can be verbal (using the choice of words) and non-verbal (using the choice of intonation).
Social role and social status
Social status determines the social, service, material status, various merits. In the Russian tradition of business communication, gender differences are not emphasized, that is, a woman and a man with the same social status enjoy the same advantages.
Over the many years of Soviet rule, the tradition of the so-called reverent appeal to the leaders was formed. On the part of subordinates and other people with a lower status, there was often obsession, sometimes even servility. When determining the social position, the modern speech situation especially takes into account the official position, but the attitude to the authorities is still different. When communicating, personal achievements and achievements of the addressee are also taken into account.
Social role and social status do not always coincide. Often in the modern era of market relations, a situation arises when partners are representatives of organizations that are in relation to the hierarchy (such as, for example, a subsidiary and a parent company).
The social role is the most important criterion for determining the communicative expectation that develops with the interlocutor. So, the expectation of subordinates from the boss is politeness, correctness, caring, respect, sometimes patronage. Violation of the standards of verbal behavior is aggression, the desire to attribute their mistakes to the account of a subordinate. Unfortunately, it is worth noting that such mistakes on the part of managers still have a place to be in our society.
Situations of speech etiquette can be different, however, communication with a subordinate on an equal footing is a prerequisite in order to create a friendly and close-knit team that can effectively exist in market competition.
Unlike social roles, communicative ones are changeable. Take the usual dialogue: the speech situation can change - the same person can be the addressee, addressee or observer.
Addresser
Labeled speech situations necessarily include the addressee. The addressee is the initiator of the dialogue. The speech situation of communication can be very different (for example, it can be a speaker or a writer). Of course, tactically this is an advantageous role, because the addressee sets the pace, tone, topic of communication. As a rule, he starts communication and he finishes it. However, this does not mean at all that the addressee is in a passive position. Communication involves the active participation of all parties. The addressee can and should use reactive replicas: “of course”, “yes”, “if I understand you correctly ...”, “in other words, you think ...”, etc. With the help of such replicas, he can intercept speech from the addressee initiative, swap roles.
Strange as it may seem, the observer is also an active position of the participant in communication, because, even without participating in the conversation, he nevertheless influences his course.
The presence of a visitor in the premises requires that internal corporate work issues be resolved as quickly as possible.
Thus, as mentioned above, passive participants in business communication simply do not exist, the speech situation defines each of the parties as an active subject. According to psycholinguists, listening is an even more intellectually intense process than speaking. That is why there are breaks in the school and university curriculum, and an experienced teacher knows that when you teach a lesson, the situation of verbal communication requires periodically making short pauses to maintain contact with students.
It should also be pointed out how important the personality-subjective factor is in communicative relations. Indeed, when communicating, we do not just exchange information, but also convey our attitude to it. This largely determines the reaction of the interlocutor to our behavior. For example, a lesson (the speech situation that we just described) should be conducted in such a way as to arouse the interest of the audience, interest them, and not just convey information. This is a necessary condition for students to properly learn the material. Such educational and speech situations clearly illustrate how important the personality factor is in the communication process.
goal
Goals can be urgent and promising. For example, in business communication, promising goals are realized in cooperation plans. Building constructive business relationships is possible only on the basis of mutual positive emotions - sympathy, trust, respect, goodwill, etc. That is why various invitations to celebrations, congratulations, letters of thanks, condolences, etc. are sent.
You can inform the addressee about the state of affairs (another type of goals) using calls, letters, faxes, price lists, catalogs, etc.
Rules, instructions, orders, orders, complaints, requirements, requests, verbally and in writing, exist with the purpose of influencing the addressee, inducing him to do something.
It often happens that the above goals are combined in one text (as an example, you can cite a request letter starting with a status report and ending with a request).
There are a lot of different speech situations, but their typical features can be noted, which help to navigate in the choice of speech communication tools to achieve the goal. Such features are fixed in the field of business communication in oral speech (workshop, business negotiations, telephone communication, etc.) and written speech (business letter, contract, rules, license, etc.