STRATEGIES IN VARIOUS

SPEECH SITUATIONS
TYPES OF COMMUNICATIVE
STRATEGY
•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 that people use
when communicating.
 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 the
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 good end.
•This could efficiently
signal the beginning of
a new topic in the
conversation.
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.
•On the other hand,
conversing with your
friends during ordinary
days can be far more casual
than these examples.
•Remember to always be on
point and avoid sideswiping
from the topic during the
conversation and avoid
communication breakdown.
 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 visuals 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?”
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
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!
 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.
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
it’s 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.
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 have learned from the
conversation.
•Aside from this, soliciting
agreement from the other
participants usually
completes the discussion of
the topic meaningfully.
Drawn Understanding
•Have two students sit back-to-back. One
student has an object and the other has colored
pencils and paper. The student with the object
must describe it in as much detail as possible,
without directly saying what it is.
•The second student must draw the object as best
they can, based on the communication of the
student with the object.