ORAL COMMUNICATION

LESSON 4: EXAMINING SAMPLE ORAL COMMUNICATION ACTIVITIES

You express yourself in different ways. You adjust the tone of your voice depending on how you want to be
heard. You choose the words to convey your feelings and thoughts, but you have to be mindful that your words are
appropriate to a given place, time and situation. Study the following examples for the five functions of
communication.
Functions of Communication

1. Regulation/Control – This is used to regulate or control one’s behavior.

Examples:
• An administrator to an employee – “Complete the needed document now, then you can go home.”
• A parent to a child – “Listen to me, or else I will not buy what you want.”

2. Social Interaction – This allows individuals to interact with one another.

Examples:
• A psychologist to a client - Do you really want to change - or need to change
- someone's mind?
• An elder sister to her younger cousin - “Would you like to help me plan for our reunion?

3. Motivation – This functions to motivate, encourage and provide feedback on progress toward goals.
Examples:
• A teacher to his/her student – “You have an amazing creative potential.”
• A doctor to a patient – “You are one of the strongest people I know.”

4. Emotional Expression – This functions to express your feelings, or to show your satisfaction or frustration.
Examples:
• A team captain to a team player – “You make a bigger impact than you realize.”
• Parents to their child – “Our family is better because you are part of it.”

5. Information – This is used to grab or share information.

Examples:
• A culinary student to a chef – “If you were asked to reduce fat and sodium in a menu, what would
you do to maintain flavor in the quality of the dish?
• An entrepreneur talking to small commercial owners – “I will tell how to set-up your business to
grow successfully.”

You will be led to a YouTube link that shows a video about the functions of communication. The short video
is an animation that presents some helpful explanations about the functions of communication. It presents some
points to ponder to help you further about the lesson. understand the function. Search and watch the link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MN8jyeqJHsc

Types of Communicative Strategy

Since engaging in conversation is also bound by implicit rules, Cohen (1990) states that strategies
must be used to start and maintain a conversation. Knowing and applying grammar appropriately is one of
the most basic strategies to maintain a conversation. The following are some strategies that people use
when communicating.

1. Nomination
• A speaker carries out nomination to collaboratively and productively establish a topic.
• Basically, when you employ this strategy, you try to open a topic with the people you are talking to.
• When beginning a topic in a conversation, especially if it does not arise from a previous topic, you
may start off with news inquiries and news announcements as they promise extended talk.
• Most importantly keep the conversational environment open for opinions until the prior topic shuts
down easily and initiates a smooth end.
• This could efficiently signal the beginning of a new topic in the conversation.

2. Restriction
• Restriction in communication refers to any limitation you may have as a speaker.
• When communicating in the classroom, in a meeting, or while hanging out with your friends, you
are typically given specific instructions that you must follow.
• These instructions confine you as a speaker and limit what you can say.
• For example, in your class, you might be asked by your teacher to brainstorm on peer pressure or
deliver a speech on digital natives. In these cases, you cannot decide to talk about something else.
ORAL COMMUNICATION
LESSON 4: EXAMINING SAMPLE ORAL COMMUNICATION ACTIVITIES
• On the other hand, conversing with your friends during ordinary days can be far more casual than
these examples. Just the same, remember to always be on point and avoid sideswiping from the
topic during the conversation to avoid communication breakdown.

3. Turn-taking
• Sometimes people are given unequal opportunities to talk because others take much time during
the conversation.
• Turn-taking pertains to the process by which people decide who takes the conversational floor.
• There is a code of behavior behind establishing and sustaining a productive conversation, but the
primary idea is to give all communicators a chance to speak.
• Remember to keep your words relevant and reasonably short enough to express your views or
feelings.
• Try to be polite even if you are trying to take the floor from another speaker. Do not hog the
conversation and talk incessantly without letting the other party air out their own ideas.
• To acknowledge others, you may employ visual signals like a nod, a look, or a step back, and you
could accompany these signals with spoken cues such as “What do you think?” or “You wanted to
say something?”

4. Topic Control
• Topic control covers how procedural formality or informality affects the development of topic in
conversations.
• For example, in meetings, you may only have a turn to speak after the chairperson directs you to do
so. Contrast this with a casual conversation with friends over lunch or coffee where you may take
the conversational floor anytime.
• Remember that regardless of the formality of the context, topic control is achieved cooperatively.
• This only means that when a topic is initiated, it should be collectively developed by avoiding
unnecessary interruptions and topic shifts.
• You can make yourself actively involved in the conversation without overly dominating it by using
minimal responses like “Yes,” “Okay,” “Go on”; asking tag questions to clarify information briefly
like “You are excited, aren’t you?”, “It was unexpected, wasn’t it?”; and even by laughing!

5. Topic Shifting
• Topic shifting, as the name suggests, involves moving from one topic to another. In other words, it is
where one part of a conversation ends and where another begins.
• When shifting from one topic to another, you have to be very intuitive.
• Make sure that the previous topic was nurtured enough to generate adequate views.
• You may also use effective conversational transitions to indicate a shift like “By the way,” “In
addition to what you said,” “Which reminds me of,” and the like.

6. Repair
• Repair refers to how speakers address the problems in speaking, listening, and comprehending that
they may encounter in a conversation.
• For example, if everybody in the conversation seems to talk at the same time, give way and
appreciate other’s initiative to set the conversation back to its topic.
• Repair is the self-righting mechanism in any social interaction (Schegloff et al, 1977). If there is a
problem in understanding the conversation, speakers will always try to address and correct it.
• Although this is the case, always seek to initiate the repair.

7. Termination
• Termination refers to the conversation participants’ close-initiating expressions that end a topic in
a conversation. Most of the time, the topic initiator takes responsibility to signal the end of the
discussion as well.
• Although not all topics may have clear ends, try to signal the end of the topic through concluding
cues.
• You can do this by sharing what you learned from the conversation. Aside from this, soliciting
agreement from the other participants usually completes the discussion of the topic meaningfully.