Conversational Skills

Dr. Mallika Nawal

Conversation

An activity of sharing one’s

ideas, interests, and
information with someone or
a group orally via a two-way
system, by giving and
taking, acting and reacting.

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A Successful Conversationalist knows how-to

• initiate a conversation (break the ice)

• maintain a conversation (keep it interesting)
• limit a conversation (keep it short and/or long)
• focus a conversation (relevant topic)
• probe a conversation (relevant questions)
• finish a conversation (closing conversations)

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Conversational Analysis – The Study of Talk

Stages in conversation:
• Topic Shift
• Back-Channeling
• Reformulation
• Repair
• Turn-taking
• Negotiating meaning
• Exploiting ambiguity
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Topic Shift

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Back-Channeling

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Reformulation

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Repair

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Turn-taking

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Negotiating Meaning

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Exploiting Ambiguity

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Conversational Categories

• Conversation about subjective ideas

• Conversation about objective facts
• Conversation about other people
• Conversation about oneself

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Conversational Styles

• Aggressive
• Passive
• Passive-Aggressive
• Assertive

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Let us “Talk” about

• The weather
• Current Affairs
• Work-Related
• Common Interests
• Common Friends

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Taboo Topics

• Sex
• Religion
• Politics
• Money

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Get ‘em to Like You

• Remember names
• Become genuinely interested in people
• Smile
• Be a good listener
• Encourage others to talk about themselves
• Step into the other person’ shoes and keep
their interest at heart
• Make the other person feel important
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The Do’s of Effective Conversation

• Learn to talk without the ‘but.’

• Maintain eye-contact
• Increase your knowledge-base
• Smile
• Use the person’s name while talking to them
• Show interest in conversation

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The Don’ts of Effective Conversation

• Do NOT choose conversational topics

• Do NOT jest/banter with acquaintances
• Do NOT take up air-time
• Do NOT talk only about yourself
• Do NOT get distracted (by phones, people)
• Do NOT whisper to one person, ignoring the
others

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Wishing you good conversations ahead…

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