main type of speech context

1 Introduction to the Public Speaking Context

Learning objectives.

• Identify the three components of getting your message across to others.
• Describe elements in the transactional model of communication.

Communication is a Process

Communication is a process, not a singular event. A basic definition of communication is “sharing meaning between two or more people.” By definition of a process, we must take a series of actions or steps in order to reach a defined end goal. When we follow this process, we carefully consider how to best present information to reach our goals in a given context. When we do not follow the process, we leave our speaking success up to chance.

How do you get your message heard?

We live in a world with a lot of noise. Getting your message heard above others depends on three fundamental components: message, skill, and passion .

Message: When what you are saying is clear and coherent, people are more likely to pay attention to it. On the other hand, when a message is ambiguous, people will often stop paying attention. Working through the speechmaking process in the next chapter will help us to create clear and coherent messages.

Effective communication skills:  You may have the best ideas in the world, but if you do not possess the skills to communicate those ideas effectively, you’re going to have a problem getting anyone to listen. In this book, we will address the skills you must possess to effectively communicate your ideas to others.

Passion: One mistake that novice public speakers make is picking topics in which they have no emotional investment. If you are not interested in your message, you cannot expect others to be. Passion is the extra spark that draws people’s attention and makes them want to listen to your message. Your audience can tell if you don’t really care about your topic, and they will just tune you out. We will explore how to choose topics in the next chapter.

Public Speaking Elements

Most who study the speech communication process agree that there are several critical components present in nearly every speech. Understanding these elements can provide us with information that will help us to navigate any speaking context successfully.

All communication is a process composed of certain necessary elements:

• Senders (encoders)
• Receivers (decoders)
• feedback; and

With all these elements working together, the act of communication can be very complex. Let’s examine each element.

Sender: The sender creates a message through the process of encoding. Encoding entails putting thoughts and feelings into words or other symbols to share with the audience.

Receiver: The receiver decodes by listening and understanding those words and symbols and making meaning of them personally.

Context : There are four major types of context happening simultaneously in any communication act.

• Historical: What has gone on between the sender(s) and receiver(s) before the speech. The historical elements can be positive or negative, recent or further back in time. These contexts can influence the speaker’s credibility with the audience, as well as their understanding.
• Cultural: This may be ethnic, racial, religious, and/or regional cultures or co-cultures. Culture is defined (Floyd, 2017) as “the system of learned and shared symbols, language, values, and norms that distinguish one group of people from another.”
• Social: The kind of relationship the sender(s) and receiver(s) are involved in, such as teacher-student, co-workers, employer-employee, or members of the same civic organization, faith, profession, or community.
• Physical: Where the communication is taking place and the attributes of that location. The physical context can have cultural meaning (a famous shrine or monument) that influences the form and purpose of the communication or attributes that influence audience attention (temperature, seating arrangements, or external noise).

Message: Messages are the content of what you are communicating. They may be informal and spontaneous, such as small talk, or formal, intentional, and planned, such as a commencement address. In public speaking, we focus on the creation of formal and deliberate messages.

Channel: The channel is the means through which the message travels. In face-to-face communication the channel involves all of our senses, so the channel is what we see, hear, touch, smell and perhaps what we taste. When we’re communicating with someone online, the channel is the computer; when texting the channel is the cell phone; and when watching a movie on cable, the channel is the TV.

Noise: Noise refers to anything that interferes with message transmission or reception (i.e., getting the image from your head into others’ heads). There are four types of noise.

• Physiological noise : Physiological processes and states that interfere with a message. For instance, if a speaker has a headache or the flu, or if audience members are hot or they’re hungry, these conditions may interfere with message accuracy.
• Psychological noise: This refers to the mental states or emotional states that impede message transmission or reception. For example, audience members may be thinking about what they want to eat for lunch, or about a date they had last night. Or a speaker may be anxious about the speech.
• Physical noise : This is the actual sound level in a room. There may be noise from the air conditioner or the projector. Or maybe the person next to you clicking their pen.
• Cultural: Message interference that results from differences in people’s worldviews is cultural noise. The greater the difference in worldview, the more difficult it is to understand one another and communicate effectively.

Feedback: This is the message sent from the receiver back to the sender. Feedback in public speaking is usually nonverbal, such as head movement, facial expressions, laughter, eye contact, posture, and other behaviors that we use to judge audience involvement, understanding, and approval. These types of feedback can be positive (nodding, sitting up, leaning forward, smiling) or less than positive (tapping fingers, fidgeting, lack of eye contact, checking devices). There are times when verbal feedback from the audience is appropriate. You may stop and entertain questions about your content, or the audience may fill out a comment card at the end of the speech.

Outcome: The outcome is the result of the public speaking situation. For example, if you ask an audience to consider becoming bone marrow donors, there are certain outcomes. They will either have more information about the subject and feel more informed; they will disagree with you; they will take in the information but do nothing about the topic; and/or they will decide it’s a good idea to become a donor and go through the steps to do so. If they become potential donors, they will add to the pool of existing donors and perhaps save a life. Thus, either they have changed or the social context has changed, or both.

Now that we have looked at the process of communication, let’s apply it to public speaking. The speaker originates and creates a structured message and sends it through the visual/oral channel using symbols and nonverbal means to the audience members as a group, who provide (mostly nonverbal) feedback. The speaker and audience may or may not be aware of the types of interference or noise that exist, and the speaker may try to deal with them. As a result of public speaking, the audience’s minds, emotions, and/or actions are affected.

The Transactional Model of Public Speaking

The transactional model of communication illustrates the elements in public speaking visually so we can understand how meaning is co-crated. Transactional communication means that there is a continuous and simultaneous exchange of information between people. The process of encoding and decoding is an important consideration because it takes into account misunderstandings. How often have you had a message that you thought you shared effectively only for the receiving party to completely misinterpret your meaning? Although interpreting a speaker’s message may sound easy in theory, in practice many problems can arise. A speaker’s verbal message, nonverbal communication, and mediated presentation aids can make a message either clearer or harder to understand. For example, unfamiliar vocabulary, speaking too fast or too softly, or small print on presentation aids may make it difficult for you to figure out what the speaker means. Conversely, by providing definitions of complex terms, using well-timed gestures, or displaying graphs of quantitative information, the speaker can help you interpret his or her meaning. Once you have interpreted what the speaker is communicating, you then evaluate the message. Was it good? Do you agree or disagree with the speaker? Is a speaker’s argument logical? These are all questions that you may ask yourself when listening to a speech.

The idea that meanings are cocreated between people is based on a concept called the “field of experience.” According to West and Turner, a field of experience involves “how a person’s culture, experiences, and heredity influence his or her ability to communicate with another” (West & Turner, 2010). Our education, race, gender, ethnicity, religion, personality, beliefs, actions, attitudes, languages, social status, past experiences, and customs are all aspects of our field of experience, which we bring to every interaction. For meaning to occur, we must have some shared experiences with our audience; this makes it challenging to speak effectively to audiences with very different experiences from our own. Our goal as public speakers is to build upon shared fields of experience so that we can help audience members interpret our message.

Key Takeaways

• Getting your message across to others effectively requires attention to message content, skill in communicating content, and your passion for the information presented.
• The interactional models of communication provide a useful foundation for understanding communication and outline basic concepts such as sender, receiver, context noise, message, channel, feedback, and outcomes.
• Examining each public speaking situation using the elements of public speaking will help us to create more effective messages for our audience.

Arnett, R. C., & Arneson, P. (1999).  Dialogic civility in a cynical age: Community, hope, and interpersonal relationships . Albany, NY: SUNY Press.

Bakhtin, M. (2001a). The problem of speech genres. (V. W. McGee, Trans., 1986). In P. Bizzell & B. Herzberg (Eds.),  The rhetorical tradition  (pp. 1227–1245). Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s. (Original work published in 1953.).

Bakhtin, M. (2001b). Marxism and the philosophy of language. (L. Matejka & I. R. Titunik, Trans., 1973). In P. Bizzell & B. Herzberg (Eds.),  The rhetorical tradition  (pp. 1210–1226). Boston, MA: Medford/St. Martin’s. (Original work published in 1953).

Barnlund, D. C. (2008). A transactional model of communication. In C. D. Mortensen (Ed.),  Communication theory  (2nd ed., pp. 47–57). New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.

DeVito, J. A. (2009).  The interpersonal communication book  (12th ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

Geissner, H., & Slembek, E. (1986).  Miteinander sprechen und handeln  [Speak and act: Living and working together]. Frankfurt, Germany: Scriptor.

Mortenson, C. D. (1972).  Communication: The study of human communication . New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Schramm, W. (1954). How communication works. In W. Schramm (Ed.),  The process and effects of communication  (pp. 3–26). Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.

Shannon, C. E., & Weaver, W. (1949).  The mathematical theory of communication . Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.

Understanding the Process of Public Speaking. (2021, February 20). https://socialsci.libretexts.org/@go/page/17728

West, R., & Turner, L. H. (2010).  Introducing communication theory: Analysis and application  (4th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, p. 13.

Wrench, J. S., McCroskey, J. C., & Richmond, V. P. (2008).  Human communication in everyday life: Explanations and applications . Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon, p. 17.

Yakubinsky, L. P. (1997). On dialogic speech. (M. Eskin, Trans.).  PMLA ,  112 (2), 249–256. (Original work published in 1923).

Public Speaking Copyright © by Dr. Layne Goodman; Amber Green, M.A.; and Various is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Speech Context Meaning, Different Types, and Examples

What is speech context meaning and its different types..

SPEECH CONTEXT MEANING – Defining speech context and determining the different types of speech context with examples.

Communication does not only happens between two people. It can be between a person and a group or two groups of people exchanging ideas and thoughts. And speech context is about where the communication happens and how is the message relayed in the whole communication process.

Here are the types of speech context:

• Intrapersonal The communication that happens within oneself. This appears that the source and the receiver of the message is the speaker himself. Often times, this is done when a person does self-reflection and analyzing his own feelings and thoughts. This is also one way in assessing yourself. Example: When choosing what course in college you would want to take. Before coming up with a decision, you’d have to assess your interests, talents, strengths, and weaknesses.
• Interpersonal The communication happens between two or more persons. Depending on the relationship of these people, the communication can be formal, casual, informal, or intimate. 2 types of interpersonal communication: – dyad communication that happens between two people. Example: You and your doctor during consultation. – small group where three or more people are involved but not over 12. Example: You and your groupmates in research sharing ideas.
• Public Communication This happens when a person delivers a message or talks in front of bigger number of people or listeners. Example: A politician presenting his platforms in a grand rally.
• Mass Communication This happens when television, social media, newspaper, magazines, and the likes were used as channels to relay the message. Example: A weatherman discussing the path of the strong typhoon in television.
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Context in Communication: 10 Important Types with Examples

Context in communication refers to the environment or setting in which communication takes place, which includes elements like the participants, the physical setting, the psychological environment, and the cultural backdrop.

The context of a communication process shapes the meaning, interpretation, and effectiveness of the encoded messages transmitted between the sender and the receiver.

For example, we can use context to infer whether a phrase is literal or sarcastic, whether we should be communicating formally (e.g. in a job interview) or informally (e.g. among old friends) , and so on.

Contexts we can consider when interpreting messages can include: physical, temporal, situational, historical, socio-cultural, and social-psychological contexts. Each is explored, with examples, below.

Context in Communication

Note that many of these contexts overlap and aren’t completely different to one another.

1. Temporal Context

The concept of temporal context encompasses the timing of the message delivery and the sequence of events.

For instance, a message delivered at the wrong time might not receive the intended reaction, and can lead to misunderstanding or confusion. Just ask a comedian – timing is everything!

Likewise, understanding the chronology or sequence of communicated messages helps in deriving their contextual meaning, preserving the flow and coherence of the communication.

• Daily Briefings: Holding a morning briefing at the start of a workday sets employees up with essential information and tasks needed for that day’s operations, thus harnessing the temporal context.
• Seasonal Product Launch: A company launching a winter clothing line in autumn uses the temporal context to appeal to customers preparing for the colder season.
• Socio-political Announcements: A politician announcing campaign strategies right before election season capitalizes on the temporal context, as the timing of the announcement can garner more attention and potential voting support.

2. Social-Psychological Context

Social-psychological context refers to the climate and environment of a communication interaction shaped by interpersonal communication, relationships, status distinctions, norms, and roles.

The social status , power dynamics, and general sentiments between communicators influence their message delivery, reception, and interpretation.

Respect towards authority, friendliness between friends, adherence to societal norms and values, consideration of gender roles—all of these shape this context.

• Business Communication: The power hierarchy and professional norms affect how messages are interpreted and delivered. A CEO’s message holds different weight and interpretation than a message from an intern.
• Family Conversations: The interplay of roles (parents, children, siblings etc.) and emotions affect the communication within a family. Conversations have different dynamics based on the affection, understanding, or conflicts among family members.
• Online Platforms: In the cyber world, anonymity influences users’ behavior and responses. This new form of social-psychological context leads to distinct communication patterns like trolling, flamewars, etc.

3. Cultural Context

Cultural context refers to the shared beliefs, values, norms, and behaviors of the people within the communicating group. The dominant cultural context in the situation will impact the communication styles expected in the situation.

This context carries substantial weight because people from different cultures often carry different communication etiquettes, norms, and interpretations. Therefore, if there are multiple different cultures at play, there can often be miscommunication due to cultural differences .

Each culture have their own gestures, pauses, conversational distance, eye contact, and many more unspoken rules, which greatly vary from one culture to another.

One key distinction is between high-context and low-context cultures:

• High Context Culture : High-context culture relies heavily on implicit communication and non-verbal cues, with meaning often embedded in the social context.
• Low Context Culture : Low-context culture emphasizes explicit communication, where meaning is primarily derived from the spoken or written word.
• International Diplomacy: In international diplomacy, understanding cultural context is vital. The way one country’s diplomats greet another, symbolize respect, or argue their viewpoints all stem from their own cultural backgrounds , affecting communication outcomes.
• Multicultural Workplaces: In diverse workplaces, cultural context influences how employees interact, negotiate, and collaborate with peers from different cultural backgrounds. Misunderstandings may occur when cultural communication styles clash.
• Global Marketing: Businesses creating global marketing strategies must account for cultural differences. Advertisements must respect cultural norms and use idioms, humor, and references that resonate with the targeted audience’s culture.

4. Physical Context

Physical context refers to the actual location and environment where communication takes place, and includes the presence or absence of physical stimuli.

This type of context has a significant influence on the communication process as certain environments and surroundings can directly impact how messages are sent, received, and interpreted.

The architecture, furniture arrangement, noise levels, level of privacy, temperature, lighting: each of these aspects shape the communication environment and its dynamics.

• Business Meetings: The settings of business meetings, like a formal boardroom versus a casual coffee shop, significantly influence the group communication flow. Boardrooms might encourage more formal and structured conversations, while informal settings might foster free-flowing, creative discussions.
• Social Gatherings: The ambiance, noise level, and size of a gathering can affect interaction. A quiet intimate dinner party might facilitate deep, personal conversations, whereas a loud, crowded party might limit communication to short, superficial exchanges.
• Online Spaces: The physical context also applies to virtual environments. The design and features of an online platform (like a professional webinar room or a relaxed group chat) shape the communication dynamics considering the physical environment of the participants, the efficiency of their electronic devices, and the robustness of their internet connections.

5. Social Context

hge social context refers to the societal structures and systems within which the communication occurs. This isn’t about cultural values but social rules, but the concepts are interlinked .

Society’s structures and systems could include family units, peer groups, organizations, societies, and even broader social-economic systems. The social context provides insight into the social roles and norms that shape the implicit rules of communication.

• Classroom Setting: In an educational institution, students and teachers engage in conversations adhering to the social context of the classroom. Teachers lead, instruct, and discipline, while students follow, learn, and interact within defined norms.
• Corporate Environments: The organizational structure dictates communication within a company. The way a manager communicates with an employee is distinct from the way two colleagues or two executives communicate.
• Digital Platforms: On social media platforms , distinct social contexts emerge. The way users interact on LinkedIn (a professional networking site) vastly differs from interactions on Instagram (a casual, visual-sharing platform). So, understanding the nature of the platform, its audience, and behavior standards is important.

6. Historical Context

Historical context in communication refers to the background, circumstances, or events in the past that influence the understanding and interpretation of the present communication.

Messages are often interpreted through the lens of prior events and experiences, which impact the views and reception of the receiver. Historical context helps in understanding the origins and development of current communication and literature.

Without considering the historical context, communication risks misinterpretation, as messages can be tied to past time frames with distinct norms, societal behaviors, and expected reactions.

• News Stories: When covering ongoing events, news outlets often reference previous happenings to provide their audience with a broader understanding of the issue. Such aliasing to historical context helps make sense of current events.
• Academic Studies: Scholars often delve into the historical context when studying literature, philosophy, or sociology to precisely decipher the intended meanings, allusions, and metaphors rooted in the time when a work was created.
• Political Speeches: Politicians regularly draw on historical events in their speeches to set their agenda, invoke shared sentiments, or justify their policies. Understanding this historical context helps constituents to appreciate and critically analyze their messages.

Read More: 21 Historical Context Examples

7. Relational Context

Relational context in communication refers to the established relationship and shared history between the communicators.

The history of interactions and the nature of the relationship between the communicators significantly affect the meaning extracted from their communication. In fact, the established rapport, goodwill, and trustworthiness based on prior interactions often dictate the manner of current and future interactions.

Relational context also affects how messages are presented. Friends will communicate differently than strangers, and long-term colleagues will communicate differently than newly-introduced workmates.

• Friends’ Gatherings: At a friends’ gathering, individuals speak openly, use inside jokes, and demonstrate behaviors governed by their established relational context.
• Teacher-Student Interaction: In an academic setting, the teacher-student relationship—shaped by perceived roles, past encounters, and established rapport—affects how they communicate, impacting the learning experience .
• Negotiations: During business negotiations, the history of business dealings sets a relational context influencing the trust levels, negotiation techniques, and potential outcomes of the negotiation. Understanding this relational context is crucial for successful negotiations.

8. Functional Context

Functional context refers to the intended goal or function of communication.

The function can vary from giving or receiving information, problem-solving, decision-making, persuading, entertaining, expressing feelings, and so forth. This context will affect the method of communication used and the kind of content that’s conducive to achieving the intended goal.

Understanding the function of communication can lead to selecting the right communication practices to facilitate the desired outcomes.

• Educational Courses: In a classroom setting, the functional context is to transfer knowledge and skills from the teacher to the students, shaping the communication forms like lectures, discussions, and evaluations.
• Business Meetings: Business meetings serve multiple functions such as information exchange, decision-making, problem-solving, which govern the meeting’s agenda, protocols, and the participants’ communication.
• Social Media Platforms: The functional context varies across different social media platforms. Platforms like Twitter are more news-centric and involve information sharing, while Instagram focuses more on visual experiences and personal sharing. Each one’s functional context shapes user behavior, communication, and engagement.

9. Situational Context

Situational context refers to the specific circumstances or events that surround a communication act.

These circumstances can include factors like the event that led to this communication, the reason for communicating, and the immediate reactions required by the situation. It shapes the communication and its urgency, formality, and style.

Situational context is important in understanding the nuances of messages that can be lost without understanding the specific circumstances of the situation.

• Emergency Services: In emergencies like natural disasters, the situational context necessitates immediate, clear, and precise communication to coordinate rescue efforts.
• Job Interviews: The situational context of a job interview involves formal communication focusing on the candidate’s qualifications, experience, and fit for a job.
• Wedding Toasts: At a wedding, speeches and toasts are guided by the situational context. They focus on celebrating the couple, sharing anecdotes , expressing well wishes, and maintaining a festive atmosphere.

10. Environmental Context

Environmental context in communication encompasses the broader physical, social, and cultural environment impacting the communication process.

This can include the geographical location, cultural norms, societal structures, climatic conditions, and the available communication infrastructure of this environment.

Often, environmental context creates potential barriers or facilitators to effective communication, and understanding it can enhance the adaptation and effectiveness of communication strategies.

• Rural vs. Urban Settings: In a rural setting, limited technological infrastructure can affect the mode and speed of communication compared with an urban context equipped with advanced technology.
• Cross-Cultural Communication: Understanding the cultural and social norms of the environment is crucial in cross-cultural communication to ensure respect and effective communication.
• Climate Communication: In areas prone to natural disasters, communication often involves preparedness measures, safety procedures, and updates about climate conditions, reflecting the environmental context’s influence on communication.

Before you Go

• To learn how to understand context in communication, visit my guide on context clues .
• To learn more about context, visit my guide to the different types of context .
• To learn more about communication, visit my guide to the different communication styles .

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Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]

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1.3 Communication in Context

Learning objective.

• Identify and describe five types of communication contexts.

Now that we have examined the eight components of communication, let’s examine this in context. Is a quiet dinner conversation with someone you care about the same experience as a discussion in class or giving a speech? Is sending a text message to a friend the same experience as writing a professional project proposal or a purchase order? Each context has an influence on the communication process. Contexts can overlap, creating an even more dynamic process. You have been communicating in many of these contexts across your lifetime, and you’ll be able to apply what you’ve learned through experience in each context to business communication.

Intrapersonal Communication

Have you ever listened to a speech or lecture and gotten caught up in your thoughts so that, while the speaker continued, you were no longer listening? During a phone conversation, have you ever been thinking about what you are going to say, or what question you might ask, instead of listening to the other person? Finally, have you ever told yourself how you did after you wrote a document or gave a presentation? As you “talk with yourself” you are engaged in intrapersonal communication.

Intrapersonal communication involves one person; it is often called “self-talk.” (Wood, 1997) Donna Vocate’s book on intrapersonal communication explains how, as we use language to reflect on our own experiences, we talk ourselves through situations. For example, the voice within you that tells you, “Keep on Going! I can DO IT!” when you are putting your all into completing a five-mile race; or that says, “This report I’ve written is pretty good.” Your intrapersonal communication can be positive or negative, and directly influences how you perceive and react to situations and communication with others.

What you perceive in communication with others is also influenced by your culture, native language, and your world view. As the German philosopher Jürgen Habermas said, “Every process of reaching understanding takes place against the background of a culturally ingrained preunderstanding.” (Habermas, 1984)

For example, you may have certain expectations of time and punctuality. You weren’t born with them, so where did you learn them? From those around you as you grew up. What was normal for them became normal for you, but not everyone’s idea of normal is the same.

When your supervisor invites you to a meeting and says it will start at 7 p.m., does that mean 7:00 sharp, 7-ish, or even 7:30? In the business context, when a meeting is supposed to start at 9 a.m., is it promptly a 9 a.m.? Variations in time expectations depend on regional and national culture as well as individual corporate cultures. In some companies, everyone may be expected to arrive ten to fifteen minutes before the announced start time to take their seats and be ready to commence business at 9:00 sharp. In other companies, “meeting and greeting” from about 9 to 9:05 or even 9:10 is the norm. When you are unfamiliar with the expectations for a business event, it is always wise to err on the side of being punctual, regardless of what your internal assumptions about time and punctuality may be.

Interpersonal Communication

The second major context within the field of communication is interpersonal communication. Interpersonal communication normally involves two people, and can range from intimate and very personal to formal and impersonal. You may carry on a conversation with a loved one, sharing a serious concern. Later, at work, you may have a brief conversation about plans for the weekend with the security guard on your way home. What’s the difference? Both scenarios involve interpersonal communication, but are different in levels of intimacy. The first example implies a trusting relationship established over time between two caring individuals. The second example level implies some previous familiarity, and is really more about acknowledging each other than any actual exchange of information, much like saying hello or goodbye.

Group Communication

Have you ever noticed how a small group of people in class sit near each other? Perhaps they are members of the same sports program, or just friends, but no doubt they often engage in group communication.

“ Group communication is a dynamic process where a small number of people engage in a conversation.” (McLean, 2005) Group communication is generally defined as involving three to eight people. The larger the group, the more likely it is to break down into smaller groups.

To take a page from marketing, does your audience have segments or any points of convergence/divergence? We could consider factors like age, education, sex, and location to learn more about groups and their general preferences as well as dislikes. You may find several groups within the larger audience, such as specific areas of education, and use this knowledge to increase your effectiveness as a business communicator.

Public Communication

In public communication , one person speaks to a group of people; the same is true of public written communication, where one person writes a message to be read by a small or large group. The speaker or writer may ask questions, and engage the audience in a discussion (in writing, examples are an e-mail discussion or a point-counter-point series of letters to the editor), but the dynamics of the conversation are distinct from group communication, where different rules apply. In a public speaking situation, the group normally defers to the speaker. For example, the boss speaks to everyone, and the sales team quietly listens without interruption.

This generalization is changing as norms and expectations change, and many cultures have a tradition of “call outs” or interjections that are not to be interpreted as interruptions or competition for the floor, but instead as affirmations. The boss may say, as part of a charged-up motivational speech, “Do you hear me?” and the sales team is expected to call back “Yes Sir!” The boss, as a public speaker, recognizes that intrapersonal communication (thoughts of the individual members) or interpersonal communication (communication between team members) may interfere with this classic public speaking dynamic of all to one, or the audience devoting all its attention to the speaker, and incorporate attention getting and engagement strategies to keep the sales team focused on the message.

Mass Communication

How do you tell everyone on campus where and when all the classes are held? Would a speech from the front steps work? Perhaps it might meet the need if your school is a very small one. A written schedule that lists all classes would be a better alternative. How do you let everyone know there is a sale on in your store, or that your new product will meet their needs, or that your position on a political issue is the same as your constituents? You send a message to as many people as you can through mass communication. Does everyone receive mass communication the same way the might receive a personal phone call? Not likely. Some people who receive mass mailings assume that they are “junk mail” (i.e., that they do not meet the recipients’ needs) and throw them away unopened. People may tune out a television advertisement with a click of the mute button, delete tweets or ignore friend requests on Facebook by the hundreds, or send all unsolicited e-mail straight to the spam folder unread.

Mass media is a powerful force in modern society and our daily lives, and is adapting rapidly to new technologies. Mass communication involves sending a single message to a group. It allows us to communicate our message to a large number of people, but we are limited in our ability to tailor our message to specific audiences, groups, or individuals. As a business communicator, you can use multimedia as a visual aid or reference common programs, films, or other images that your audience finds familiar yet engaging. You can tweet a picture that is worth far more than 140 characters, and you are just as likely to elicit a significant response. By choosing messages or references that many audience members will recognize or can identify with, you can develop common ground and increase the appeal of your message.

Key Takeaway

Communication contexts include intrapersonal, interpersonal, group, public, and mass communication. Each context has its advantages and disadvantages, and its appropriate and inappropriate uses.

• Please recall a time when you gave a speech in front of a group. How did you feel? What was your experience? What did you learn from your experience?
• If you were asked to get the attention of your peers, what image or word would you choose and why?
• If you were asked to get the attention of someone like yourself, what image or word would you choose and why?
• Make a list of mass communication messages you observe for a one hour period of time. Share your list with classmates.

Habermas, J. (1984). The theory of communicative action (Vol. 1, p. 100). Boston, MA: Beacon Press.

McLean, S. (2005). The basics of interpersonal communication (p. 14). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

Vocate, D. (Ed.). (1994). Intrapersonal communication: Different voices, different minds . Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Wood, J. (1997). Communication in our lives (p. 22). Boston, MA: Wadsworth.

Business Communication for Success Copyright © 2015 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Chapter 8: Pragmatics

8.11 What is a context?

In the previous section, we gave an informal description of what force operators like ASSERT and INTERR contribute to an utterance. To get a more concrete picture of what illocutionary force operators do with a proposition, it will help to think about why we have conversations in the first place. The “big” question that we are always trying to answer in a conversation is ‘what is the state of affairs in our world?’ . In a conversation, you are in a collaborative game with the other discourse participants, trying to figure out which propositions are true, and which ones are false.

We can think of this game as each “player” (discourse participants) updating the context each time they make an utterance. What is a context? You may already have a loose understanding of what a context is, and in fact, we’ve already mentioned the notion when we introduced implicatures earlier in this chapter. Informally, the context of an utterance is the state of affairs in the discourse when the utterance is made: what the topic is, who is a part of the conversation, what things have been said already, etc. More formally, we can characterise the context as a collection of sets that keep track of information in the discourse. This idea is illustrated in Figure 8.5 below.

One of these sets in the context is called the Common Ground (CG). The Common Ground is the set of propositions that all discourse participants in that conversation agree to be true. We can think of the goal of the game of discourse as increasing the common ground: to add as many propositions as possible to this set so that we have as many facts about our world as possible.

Because discourse is a collaborative game, normally, one does not simply get to add propositions to the Common Ground singlehandedly. In other words, you can’t just add a proposition to the Common Ground just because you think it’s true; you have to get the agreement of other discourse participants first. This means that there is another place (set) in the context, separate from the common ground, where this negotiation takes place. This set is called the Question Under Discussion (QUD) set . As the name suggests, the QUD set contains the questions (or topics) that are being discussed in the discourse. The QUD set is a special kind of set that is a stack. Usually, a set is just a collection of things: there is no order to the members in the set. A stack is a special kind of set that has more internal structure than a regular set. Let’s explain this metaphorically first. Think of the QUD stack as a stack of papers, where each paper has a question written on it. Every time you ask a question in a conversation, a “paper” (an issue ) gets added to this stack.

The top-most issue in the stack is the issue currently being discussed in the discourse. Sometimes the top-most issue is called the QUD , although it should be noted that the QUD stack itself is also often called “ the QUD”. F or clarity, we will call the stack the QUD stack in this textbook. Once that top-most issue has been resolved (i.e., someone answered that question), then that issue gets removed from the stack. We of course don’t mean that you literally have a stack of papers during conversations! This is just a metaphor to help you understand this theory of discourse, and to better visualise what we mean when we say that illocutionary meaning “does” something with a proposition.

Sometimes, we can’t come to an agreement in a conversation and the Common Ground doesn’t get increased. Perhaps the QUD is “Is coffee better than tea?” and the discourse participants can’t come to an agreement about it. This means that neither “Coffee is better than tea” nor “Tea is better than coffee” gets added to the CG. But of course, each participant is entitled to their own belief. This suggests that there is another kind of set that is specific to each discourse participant’s beliefs. We can call this kind of set the Discourse Commitment (DC) set of each discourse participant (sometimes also called their Public Belief set). Let’s say that there are two people having a conversation: Aya and Bo. The Discourse Commitment set of Aya is the set of propositions that Aya has publicly committed to as being true. The Discourse Commitment set of Bo is the set of propositions that Bo has publicly committed to as being true. There are as many Discourse Commitment sets as are there are discourse participants. If each Discourse Commitment set is the set of things that each discourse participant believes to be true, then the Common Ground can actually be thought of as the intersection of all of the Discourse Commitment sets in the context ( set theory strikes again!). For example, in Aya and Bo’s conversation, there are things that Aya believes to be true, and things that Bo believes to be true: call these sets DC A  and DC B  , respectively. Take the intersection of DC A  and DC B : that’s the stuff the both of them believe to be true, or the Common Ground.

In summary, the context is the collection of all of these sets that we just mentioned: the Common Ground, the QUD stack, and each discourse participant’s Discourse Commitment set.

Now we have a set of tools to talk about what illocutionary meaning is, and what we mean by you “do” something when you make an utterance. What illocutionary meaning does is take a proposition, and place it somewhere in one or more of these sets in the context: the Common Ground, the Question Under Discussion stack, or a Discourse Commitment set. The relevant question then, is where the ASSERT morpheme places a proposition in the context vs. where the INTERR morpheme places it in the context. This will be addressed in the next two sections.

Check your understanding

Farkas, D. F., & Bruce, K. B. (2010). On reacting to assertions and polar questions.  Journal of semantics ,  27 (1), 81-118.

Ginzburg, J. (1996). Dynamics and the semantics of dialogue.  Seligman, Jerry, & Westerst ahl, Dag (eds), Logic, language and computation ,  1 .

Groenendijk, J., & Stokhof, M. (1991). Dynamic predicate logic.  Linguistics and philosophy , 39-100.

Gunlogson, C. (2004).  True to form: Rising and falling declaratives as questions in English . Routledge.

Hamblin, C. L. (1971). Mathematical models of dialogue. Theoria ,  37 (2), 130-155.

Hamblin, C. L. (1973). Questions in Montague English. Foundations of Language , 10(1). 41–53.

Heim, I. (1982). The semantics of definite and indefinite noun phrases. University of Massachusetts, Amherst dissertation.

Heim, I. (2002). File change semantics and the familiarity theory of definiteness.  Formal Semantics: The Essential Readings , 223-248.

Kamp, H. (1981). A theory of truth and semantic representation. Truth, Interpretation and Information , 1–41.

Kamp, H., Genabith, J. V., & Reyle, U. (2011). Discourse Representation Theory. In Handbook of Philosophical Logic  (pp. 125-394). Springer, Dordrecht.

Roberts, C. (2012). Information structure: Towards an integrated formal theory of pragmatics.  Semantics and Pragmatics ,  5 , 6-1.

Stalnaker, R. C. (1978). Assertion. In  Pragmatics  (pp. 315-332). Brill.

Taniguchi, A. (2017).  The formal pragmatics of non-at-issue intensification in English and Japanese . Michigan State University dissertation.

Essentials of Linguistics, 2nd edition Copyright © 2022 by Catherine Anderson; Bronwyn Bjorkman; Derek Denis; Julianne Doner; Margaret Grant; Nathan Sanders; and Ai Taniguchi is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Linguistics/Pragmatics

Pragmatics is the study of how context affects meaning. There are two types of context: physical context (such as where a sign is located) and linguistic context (such as preceding sentences in a passage).

• 2 Reference
• 3 Presupposition
• 4 Implicature
• 5.1 Searle's classification
• 5.2 Felicity conditions

Deixis [ edit | edit source ]

Deixis means 'pointing'. Sometimes, in discourse, you may 'point' to a person, time or place. Context is always necessary to understand deixis. Consider this example:

There are three types of deictic expressions in this sentence:

• Person deixis : He refers to a person, understood by the listener in context.
• Spatial deixis : Here refers to a place, understood by the listener in context.
• Temporal deixis : Last night refers to the night before the utterance of the sentence, which also depends on context.

Reference [ edit | edit source ]

Reference means, as we have seen in the last chapter, to refer to something in the real world. The problem is that, constant reference aside, context is usually needed to determine the reference, and this is where pragmatics comes in. There are several topics involved in reference:

• Inference : Sometimes, inference is needed to identify what a speaker is referring to. For example, when we hear I played some Chopin on the piano , we can infer that 'some Chopin' refers to piano works by Frederic Chopin.
• Anaphora : It occurs when we refer back to something previously mentioned. Take the following example: I saw a strange guy last night. He was wearing a T-shirt with the Wikibooks logo. I tried waving, but the guy didn't respond. The anaphoric expressions he and the guy (with a definite article) both refer back to a strange guy , which is the antecedent .

Presupposition [ edit | edit source ]

Sometimes, there are hidden assumptions when we talk. A famous example is a referendum in New Zealand which asked its citizens, ' Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand? ' In this question, no matter whether the answer is Yes or No, there is a common assumption: A smack is a part of good parental correction. Constancy under negation - that the 'No' answer still admits that smacking is 'good parental correction' - helps us identify this presupposition.

Here are some more examples of presupposition:

• Where is your book about pragmatics? - The listener has a book about pragmatics.
• Why do you like pragmatics? - The listener likes pragmatics.

Implicature [ edit | edit source ]

There are two main types of implicatureː

• Conventional implicature ː When a phrase implies something in any context. For example, 'He is sometimes nasty' implies that he isn't always nasty.
• Conversational implicature ː When the implicature depends on the context. we will look at conversational implicature in the next chapter.

Implicature should not be confused with entailment (which is not covered in this book) and presupposition. Implicatures are not logical necessities which you can deduce from the sentence, while entailment and most presuppositions are.

Speech acts [ edit | edit source ]

According to speech act theory, the purpose of an utterance is not just to convey the intended information. There are three levels of speech acts:

• Locution : The act of saying an utterance.
• Illocution : The purpose of saying an utterance.
• Perlocution : The effect of saying an utterance.

Speech acts can be classified into two categories:

• Direct : The syntactic structure determines the illocutioanry force. For example, Please turn on the fans. is a direct speech act asking the listener to turn on the fans, since it's an imperative sentence used as a command.
• Indirect : The speech act is not associated directly with the syntactic structure. For example, Could you please turn on the fans? is an indirect speech act. It is an interrogative acting as a command.

Searle's classification [ edit | edit source ]

Searle classified speech acts into five types:

• Directive : Refers to commands. Examples include Please turn on the fans. , You should probably turn on the fans. and Could you please turn on the fans? .
• Expressive : Expresses a feeling. Examples include Nice to meet you! , Why, oh why, did you go? and I'm really excited about the camp .
• Declaration : The speech actually does something. An example is I hereby declare Wikibooks to be the Website of the Year . In older systems, this is known as a performative . A common test for declarations is to insert hereby before the verb and see if it works.
• Commissive : When you promise to do something in the future. Examples include I'll be there by noon and I'll see what I can do about your request .
• Representative : This is the simplest. The speech act describes a state of affairs, e.g. I'm a little teapot .

Felicity conditions [ edit | edit source ]

The felicity conditions are conditions for the speech act to take effect. There are many different conditions in the literature, but these are the most common:

• Preparatory conditions : The speaker has the authority or ability to perform the act, and it is the right situation for the speech act to take place. For example, if someone with no knowledge of computers says I will fix the computer tomorrow , a preparatory condition is not met.
• Sincerity conditions : The speaker must mean what he or she says. For example, if a son says Yes to his mother when asked to tidy up his room, he may not really intend to clean it.
• Essential conditions : The listener should understand the purpose of the speech act. For example, if you say, Let's break the ice and the listener actually finds some ice and breaks it, the essential condition is not met.

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Chapter 1: The Speech Communication Process

The Speech Communication Process

• Listener(s)

Interference

As you might imagine, the speaker is the crucial first element within the speech communication process. Without a speaker, there is no process.  The  speaker  is simply the person who is delivering, or presenting, the speech.  A speaker might be someone who is training employees in your workplace. Your professor is another example of a public speaker as s/he gives a lecture. Even a stand-up comedian can be considered a public speaker. After all, each of these people is presenting an oral message to an audience in a public setting. Most speakers, however, would agree that the listener is one of the primary reasons that they speak.

The listener is just as important as the speaker; neither one is effective without the other.  The  listener  is the person or persons who have assembled to hear the oral message.  Some texts might even call several listeners an “audience. ” The listener generally forms an opinion as to the effectiveness of the speaker and the validity of the speaker’s message based on what they see and hear during the presentation. The listener’s job sometimes includes critiquing, or evaluating, the speaker’s style and message. You might be asked to critique your classmates as they speak or to complete an evaluation of a public speaker in another setting. That makes the job of the listener extremely important. Providing constructive feedback to speakers often helps the speaker improve her/his speech tremendously.

Another crucial element in the speech process is the message.  The  message  is what the speaker is discussing or the ideas that s/he is presenting to you as s/he covers a particular topic.  The important chapter concepts presented by your professor become the message during a lecture. The commands and steps you need to use, the new software at work, are the message of the trainer as s/he presents the information to your department. The message might be lengthy, such as the President’s State of the Union address, or fairly brief, as in a five-minute presentation given in class.

The  channel  is the means by which the message is sent or transmitted.  Different channels are used to deliver the message, depending on the communication type or context. For instance, in mass communication, the channel utilized might be a television or radio broadcast. The use of a cell phone is an example of a channel that you might use to send a friend a message in interpersonal communication. However, the channel typically used within public speaking is the speaker’s voice, or more specifically, the sound waves used to carry the voice to those listening. You could watch a prerecorded speech or one accessible on YouTube, and you might now say the channel is the television or your computer. This is partially true. However, the speech would still have no value if the speaker’s voice was not present, so in reality, the channel is now a combination of the two -the speaker’s voice broadcast through an electronic source.

The context is a bit more complicated than the other elements we have discussed so far. The context is more than one specific component. For example, when you give a speech in your classroom, the classroom, or  the physical location of your speech, is part of the context  . That’s probably the easiest part of context to grasp.

But you should also consider that the  people in your audience expect you to behave in a certain manner, depending on the physical location or the occasion of the presentation  . If you gave a toast at a wedding, the audience wouldn’t be surprised if you told a funny story about the couple or used informal gestures such as a high-five or a slap on the groom’s back. That would be acceptable within the expectations of your audience, given the occasion. However, what if the reason for your speech was the presentation of a eulogy at a loved one’s funeral? Would the audience still find a high-five or humor as acceptable in that setting? Probably not. So the expectations of your audience must be factored into context as well.

The cultural rules -often unwritten and sometimes never formally communicated to us -are also a part of the context. Depending on your culture, you would probably agree that there are some “rules ” typically adhered to by those attending a funeral. In some cultures, mourners wear dark colors and are somber and quiet. In other cultures, grieving out loud or beating one’s chest to show extreme grief is traditional. Therefore,  the rules from our culture  -no matter what they are -play a part in the context as well.

Every speaker hopes that her/his speech is clearly understood by the audience. However, there are times when some obstacle gets in the way of the message and interferes with the listener’s ability to hear what’s being said.  This is  interference  , or you might have heard it referred to as “noise. ”  Every speaker must prepare and present with the assumption that interference is likely to be present in the speaking environment.

Interference can be mental, physical, or physiological.  Mental interference  occurs when the listener is not fully focused on what s/he is hearing due to her/his own thoughts.  If you’ve ever caught yourself daydreaming in class during a lecture, you’re experiencing mental interference. Your own thoughts are getting in the way of the message.

A second form of interference is  physical interference  . This is noise in the literal sense -someone coughing behind you during a speech or the sound of a mower outside the classroom window. You may be unable to hear the speaker because of the surrounding environmental noises.

The last form of interference is  physiological  . This type of interference occurs when your body is responsible for the blocked signals. A deaf person, for example, has the truest form of physiological interference; s/he may have varying degrees of difficulty hearing the message. If you’ve ever been in a room that was too cold or too hot and found yourself not paying attention, you’re experiencing physiological interference. Your bodily discomfort distracts from what is happening around you.

The final component within the speech process is feedback. While some might assume that the speaker is the only one who sends a message during a speech, the reality is that the  listeners in the audience are sending a message of their own, called  feedback  .  Often this is how the speaker knows if s/he is sending an effective message. Occasionally the feedback from listeners comes in verbal form – questions from the audience or an angry response from a listener about a key point presented. However, in general, feedback during a presentation is typically non-verbal -a student nodding her/his head in agreement or a confused look from an audience member. An observant speaker will scan the audience for these forms of feedback, but keep in mind that non-verbal feedback is often more difficult to spot and to decipher. For example, is a yawn a sign of boredom, or is it simply a tired audience member?

Generally, all of the above elements are present during a speech. However, you might wonder what the process would look like if we used a diagram to illustrate it. Initially, some students think of public speaking as a linear process -the speaker sending a message to the listener -a simple, straight line. But if you’ll think about the components we’ve just covered, you begin to see that a straight line cannot adequately represent the process, when we add listener feedback into the process. The listener is sending her/his own message back to the speaker, so perhaps the process might better be represented as circular. Add in some interference and place the example in context, and you have a more complete idea of the speech process.

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7.2: Four Types of Speeches

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Speeches can be categorized into four broad areas depending on the amount of preparation that is undertaken and depending upon the nature of the occasion.  The four types of speeches are manuscript, memorized, extemporaneous, and impromptu.  Our aim is to acquaint you with these four different modes of delivery, to provide suggestions for when you are asked to make impromptu remarks, and then to focus most your time on the preparation, practice, and presentation of extemporaneous speeches.

Manuscript Speech

When you listen to the President deliver a State of the Union message, you listen to a well-crafted speech being read from a teleprompter. The speech has been polished by a staff of speechwriters and has been practiced many times. The President will know how to anticipate the reaction of the audience and will know when to pause for applause and when to expect laughter. This form of speaking is used when the exact words matter and when much time and energy is expended on getting everything just right. There are times when people who are not leaders of countries deliver manuscript speeches as well. They are used when people testify before Congress, when people read important statements in a public setting, or when people deliver reports at professional meetings. All call for exact words in the correct order.

While the President has access to a staff of speech writers and a teleprompter, most of us do not. If you were given this type of assignment, you would have to read your manuscript speech from printed notes. In that case, you would want to ensure that you had prepared your manuscript carefully, using large fonts so you could read it easily without burying your nose in the pages. Reading the speech does not allow you to skimp on the preparation. Practice the speech many times. This allows you to make changes, if needed, and to select the best words to communicate your exact meaning. Remember to speak clearly and naturally -strive for a conversational tone. It shouldn’t sound read -even if you are reading. Also, remember to speak slowly; there is a natural tendency to speed up when we speak in public. Delivering a speech is not a race; you do not receive bonus points for finishing early.

Unless you are specifically told by your instructor to prepare and deliver a manuscript speech, you should never write out the entire speech. Spend your time developing your outline, organizing your ideas, and determining where you can best insert your supports. Then practice using the outline while speaking.

Memorized Speech

When you were in elementary school, did you ever have to memorize a poem or a part of a speech? If you are like most students, the answer is “Yes. ” There is nothing wrong with memorization. But if you try to memorize a speech, you risk forgetting what you planned to say and coming across as completely unprepared. Memorizing your speech is even worse than reading it. All the objections that apply to the read speech also apply to the memorized speech. Spontaneity is gone. The speech can sound stilted. Often, delivery is too rapid. Concentration is on the words, not the ideas. Sometimes the speech sounds too formal, like a written essay. There is minimal feedback or other contact with the audience. And what happens if your mind goes completely blank or if an audience member interrupts? The entire presentation will likely fall apart. Memorizing a speech puts entirely too much pressure on the speaker.

That said, there are a couple of parts of the speech that you may want to have memorized -or practiced so well that you can deliver them almost as if memorized. These include:

Your introduction:  It sets the stage for the entire speech. The words should be well chosen and rehearsed. You may find that as you repeat this portion of the speech during your rehearsals you do come to memorize it word for word. If so, this is fine. After all, once you have determined the best way of saying something, why not use it? Just make sure the presentation does not sound memorized.

Your conclusion:  The summary and call to action are the final words that your audience will hear. As with the introduction, if you practice this repeatedly you will develop the best way to say what you want and you will probably have perfected this portion of the speech.

Impromptu Speech

There will come a time for all of us when we are asked to “say a few words ” without much preparation.  You haven’t prepared any notes, you haven’t practiced what you’ll say, and you’re being asked to “wing it. ” While this may seem incredibly scary, impromptu presentations are the most common type of public speaking. You’re in class and suddenly the professor wants to hear how group projects are going. You, as the leader of your group, are asked to stand and briefly discuss what the group is doing and how much you’ve completed so far. That’s an impromptu speech. You didn’t know when you headed to class that day that you’d be speaking in public, but you did it. No sweat! Or maybe you’re in a meeting at work and the boss announces that he wants you to brief everyone in the meeting on the new equipment being installed that afternoon. Again, no prior planning, no notes, you just do it. That’s impromptu speaking.

Extemporaneous Speech

The focus of most college courses in public speaking is the extemporaneous speech.  This is because this is the type of speech used most in business, education, preaching, and political affairs. Few of us will ever have a professional staff of speechwriters or ever deliver a speech with the aid of a teleprompter. But when you do have a speech or presentation to deliver, you’ll want to sound prepared, authoritative, and clear.

Simply stated, an extemporaneous speech is one where you will have time for preparation and practice but will not be expected to read from a manuscript or to have the speech memorized.  The question most students ask is, “How much time should be spent in preparation and practice? ” Perhaps Mark Twain said it best. When speaking about preparing for an impromptu speech, he noted, “It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech ” (King). While celebrated as a humorist, there is much truth in his words. To appear to be speaking off the cuff, and to do it well, you must prepare thoroughly and practice to perfection. When you speak extemporaneously, it means you’ve had ample time to prepare and research and that you have rehearsed your speech (many times) using an outline or notes to remind you of the progression of ideas you wish to present. You will follow all the normal steps outlined in the earlier chapters. Choose a topic, narrow appropriately, analyze your audience, choose your supports, and create an outline. You will know your speech so well and will amaze your audience!

• Provided by : Florida State College at Jacksonville. License : CC BY: Attribution

Module 1: Introduction to Public Speaking

Elements in a speech, learning objectives.

• Describe the fundamental elements in a speech.
• Identify the main differences between writing a paper and delivering a speech.

Most college students are familiar with writing research papers or perhaps engaging in class discussions. Preparing and delivering a speech, however, differs from these activities in fundamental ways. All these elements will be covered in more detail elsewhere in the course.

• You can’t really adapt an essay to the context in which it is received. Is the reader (your professor) at home or in their office? Are they reading at night or in the morning?
• Because a speech is delivered at a particular moment in time, you need to adapt its content to the speaking context. Great speeches fit the moment. Reflect on the purpose of your speech, the amount of time you’ll have, and the speaking environment. These elements will influence what you can realistically hope to accomplish with your audience. Consider the differences you might make to a presentation if you are delivering it first thing in the morning, just after lunch, or late Friday afternoon. The context of your speech can also help you determine which delivery type to use: impromptu, speaking notes, memorized, or a manuscript. If you are speaking for an hour, it may not be realistic to memorize a speech, but speaking notes or a manuscript can be very helpful. If your context will be highly emotional or require careful wording, then using a manuscript may be the best delivery type.
• In writing , your audience has the benefit of reading at their own pace, visually grasping your organization through paragraphs or headings, looking up definitions for unfamiliar terms, and looping over detailed information.
• In a speech, your audience doesn’t have any visual guideposts about the organization of the material. To adjust, you must provide clear, audible, organizational indicators or signposts. It helps to use language that is relatable, simple, and familiar, and to include vivid imagery and anecdotes.
• In a research paper , your credibility is established through research, which is cited in the text as well and with a bibliography or footnote.
• In a speech, citations are a bit more tricky. If your speech uses researched support, you must properly attribute your sources.  Although they may be included in your written outline, stating a full-source citation when delivering your speech can quickly lose your audience. Therefore, you will instead use abbreviated source citations, often with just the publication and date, or the author and title when citing a book.
• Especially when they rely on complex data or visual information, essays can include graphs, charts, and illustrations.
• In a speech, visual aids are often used to illustrate an idea, evoke emotion, summarize data, or draw attention to an important concept. A visual aid adds interest, can refocus your audience, and can help them remember an important aspect of your speech. If you use a visual aid, consider when to use it in your speech and what type of visual aid would best illustrate what you’ve chosen to highlight. The most common visual aid is PowerPoint, but visual aids can also be objects or any sort of pictorial representation. For example, a speech about a guitar could use a PowerPoint with pictures of various parts of a guitar—or an actual guitar.
• In the case of an essay, we only perceive the writer through the style of their writing. Unless we have seen them in person, or look them up on the internet, we probably know very little about how they look, what they sound like, or how they carry themselves.
• Unlike the invisible author of an essay, the speaker is physically or virtually present to deliver the speech. Their appearance, dress, posture, confidence, delivery style, and energy level will have profound effects on the audience’s experience of the event.

Ready to present? Maybe not so much…

• When turning in a paper, it doesn’t matter if you finished well in advance or the night before. Whether you wore yourself out finishing it or cruised to completion, the paper will be judged on its quality rather than your emotional and physical state at its completion.
• In a speech, the quality of delivery will impact how well it is received, regardless of how carefully it was written and prepared. Verbal and nonverbal cues set the tone and engage your audience. Even when using speaking notes or a manuscript, you must be familiar enough with your speech that you avoid simply reading it. Therefore, you must build in plenty of time to practice.

To Watch: John McWhorter

In this TED talk, linguist John McWhorter discusses some of the differences between speaking and writing. For our purposes, the first five minutes will be the most informative, but the latter half is very interesting as well, particularly if you’re curious about the linguistic changes brought about by texting.

You can view the transcript for “John McWhorter: Txtng is killing language. JK!!!” here (opens in new window) .

What to watch for:

Notice how McWhorter starts his speech: “We always hear that texting is a scourge.” This statement sets up his thesis, which is that texting isn’t the downfall of language, but rather a “miraculous thing.” This style of opening, sometimes called “stabilization-destabilization,” can be a great way to get a speech off the ground. First you state the  stable  condition, the thing that everyone thinks is true. Then you  destabilize this idea by showing how it’s  not  true, or at least more complicated than the listener might think. The destabilizing move says “yet . . .” or “however. . . .” (McWhorter says “The fact of the matter is that it just isn’t true.”)

Note as well how McWhorter uses visual aids in this presentation. Even though he puts a lot of words on the screen, he is not expecting the audience to read and engage with the meaning of these passages. Instead, the words are there to say something about language style. When you really want your audience to engage with the meaning of words on a slide, you should keep the text as minimal and concise as possible. We’ll cover this concept in more detail when we learn about visual aids.

• Tired. Authored by : Shanghai killer whale. Located at : https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chronic_fatigue_syndrome.JPG . License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
• Teacher in office. Authored by : jsoto. Located at : https://pixabay.com/photos/woman-office-teacher-613309/ . License : Other . License Terms : Pixabay License
• John McWhorter: Txtng is killing language. JK!!!. Provided by : TED. Located at : https://youtu.be/UmvOgW6iV2s . License : Other . License Terms : Standard YouTube License
• Elements in a Speech. Authored by : Anne Fleischer with Lumen Learning. License : CC BY: Attribution

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Types of Speech Context | Oral Communication in Context

Every day we deal with various kinds of conversations. Many of us wake up checking our phones if there are new messages in chat groups and email apps. Some have the confidence to take photos of themselves and posting them on their Facebook or Instagram accounts with the caption “Woke up like this” which surely gain reacts and comments from their friends. I bet many of us look in the mirror when we leave our bed and check our faces. If you are living with your family, mornings are filled with greetings and talks about food and activities for the day. When eating breakfast, some prefer to watch the morning news program while chewing the sumptuous meal.

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During the pre- pandemic time, you engage with your classmates in group works and reporting. You answer your teacher’s questions and you inquire for the things unclear to you. During break time, you exchange stories with your friends while enjoying your snacks. In eight hours you stay in the school, you communicate multiple times with various people. When you home, you talk with your family and narrate what happened the whole day. Before sleeping, some of you have activities like writing a diary, meditation or prayer, writing to-do list and the like.

Now that we are in the pandemic, physical interaction became limited. We miss going out with our friends and relatives and share moments with them. Good thing that there are social media platforms we use to reach out and enjoy things even we are confined to our houses. With the advancement of technology, we can connect to thousands of people wherever we are and in real time. Thus, communication is diverse in terms of the situations or environment we are in. This is speech context comes in.

Speech context is about the environment where the communication happens and how the message is relayed during the process. By knowing the speech context of a conversation, we can easily understand the message and we can make feedback clearly and appropriately.

There are four types of speech context: intrapersonal, interpersonal, public, and mass communication.

Intrapersonal - this communication happens within oneself. This means that the speaker acts as the source and the receiver of the message. When you do self- reflection, you analyze your thoughts and feelings. By knowing what you feel, you can assess yourself on how to react on it.

When you are asked what degree program you want to pursue in the college, you think of your interests and talents, and your strengths and weaknesses before answering.

You make yourself calm after realizing that you lost the food container while you are on your way back home.

Interpersonal - this communication involves two or more people. The conversation can be formal or informal, intimate or casual depending on the relationship people involved have.

There are two types of interpersonal communication: dyad and small group.

Dyad communication - two people are involved in this communication.

You talked to your mother that you need an illustration board for your activity tomorrow.

Your doctor asks about what you want to consult it.

Small group - three but not more than twelve people are part of the conversation. This type of communication is present during brainstorming or collaborating with other people.

Your group is pitching ideas for the research title to be presented.

Your father told the whole family that the trip to Hundred Islands will not push through because of the tropical depression.

Public - in this type of communication, you can deliver a message to bigger number people in a venue. When someone is giving a message to the public, he/ she usually inform or persuade people.

You express your message of thanks during the commencement exercises in the school.

A candidate tells his/ her platform in a grand rally.

Mass communication - this communication has television, social media, newspaper, magazines, and the like as channels. This type of communication reaches millions of people.

A weather forecaster informs the audiences about the location of the typhoon.

A blog entry about the Tondol White Sand Beach became trending on social media.

Now that you learned about the different types of speech context, it is time to take this short test to know how much you learned from this lesson.

Direction: Identify the type of speech context in the following situations.

• The town doctor does a live broadcast on Facebook about the latest COVID-19 update.
• Your parents are talking about the monthly bills.
• A pastor gives his sermon to the attendees.
• You exclaimed “I can do this” before your turn to sing on the stage.
• DepEd TV airs TV lesson.

Sources: 

Domingo, M. & Liboon, K. (2020). Oral communication in context quarter 1- module 5: types of speech context . Department of Education- Region IV-A CALABARZON: Rizal

Sipacio, P. J. & Balgos, A. R. (2016). Oral communication in context for senior high school . C & E Publishing, Inc.: Quezon City

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Types of Speech Context

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The following are statements are correct about speech context except

Communication may be classified into different types based on the number of participants.

Speech context depends on the relationship of the communicators and the situation.

Speech takes place in a vacuum and is always contextualized.

There is always a reason to speak which includes the purpose, audience and the situation or event.

Being a good communicator is putting the best version of yourself forward in relation to the following context except

Which of the following is NOT a speech context?

dyad communication

intrapersonal communication

long story communication

mass communication

An intrapersonal communication involves...

a small group

a speaker and an audience

one speaker

two speaker

Which among the following is NOT an intrapersonal communication?

internalizing a role in a skit

practicing for a skit

reading a diary

reading a newspaper

The following are under public communication context except

delivering a speech

delivering a letter to speak

delivering an oratorical piece

delivering campaign speech

Which among the following is NOT an interpersonal communication?

talking to a counselor

talking to a mirror

talking to a stranger

talking to a superior

Which among the following statement doesn't belong to the group?

reading a magazine

watching news

writing a journal

writing an email to a friend

Which among the phrases is not belong to the group?

communication between two persons

communication in a small group

communication to the public

communication with self

The following statements are correct except

Interpersonal centers in one person where the speaker acts both as the sender and the receiver of the message.

Interpersonal refers to communication between and among people and establishes personal relationship between and among them.

In public communication, unlike in interpersonal dyad

and small group, the channels are more

exaggerated.

Public communication type refers to communication

that requires you to deliver or send the

message before or in front of a group.

The following are levels of intrapersonal communication except

external discourse

internal discourse

solo written

Which among the following intrapersonal communication is an internal discourse level?

daydreaming

reading aloud

rehearsing for a play

The following are types of group discussions except

panel discussion

Public speaking is also known as

dyadic communication

public communication

small group communication

Which among the following is an example of dyadic communication?

You are a student journalist articulating

your stand on current issues through

the school’s newspaper.

You are having a discussion with

your group mates on how to finish

the assigned tasks.

You deliver a graduation speech to your

You provided comfort to a friend who was feeling down.

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