The Basics of Speech

Chapter 4: The Competent Communicator

Overview

Competent communicators have the knowledge and skills to communicate well. There are five communication acts: sharing information, discussing feelings, managing persuasion, following social rituals, and using imagination. Communicating to share information is the basis for all speaking and listening. To discuss feelings, you have to reveal information about yourself. You should analyze persuasive messages so that you can make careful judgments about how to respond to them. You need to understand social rituals in order to know how you are expected to act in certain situations.

Using your imagination allows you to entertain, to create new worlds, and to predict. To perform these communication acts well, you need to follow four specific competency steps: think of strategies, select a strategy, act on the strategy, and evaluate the strategy's effect. First you should think of a number of communication strategies, or verbal and nonverbal messages created to reach a specific goal, that could help you deal with a situation. Thinking about the who, what, when, and where of a situation will help you choose an effective strategy. Next you should visualize, or picture in your mind, every single move and then act on the strategy. Finally, you should decide how well the strategy worked.