Speech communication

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Speech communication

(Assignment no. 2)
By: Sine Karin Klingsholm


Fundamentals of communication 1, 1
st
Quarter
Ba (im)
Class XA
Teacher: Mari-Klara Stein
Number of characters: 11614
Hand in date: 22.10.13



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1.0 Introduction
What is communication? Communication scholars have for years debated over the correct
definition of this process but no single definition has been universally accepted. Em Griffins
interpretation of communication is the relational process of creating and interpreting
messages that elicit a response (Griffin, 2012, p. 6). According to Agee, Ault, and Emery
(1988), the need to communicate with other human beings is as fundamental as the physical
necessities of food and shelter. Furthermore, they claim that communication is the act of
transmitting information, ideas, and attitudes from one person to another.
Pearce believed that the way people communicate is often more important than the content
of what they say (Griffin, 2012, p.71). The Coordinated Management of Meaning Theory,
and rhetorical theory are two ways of approaching speech communication. With offset in
these two theories, this paper will explore the topic of how we communicate, fitting the
chosen theories. Firstly, the Coordinated Management of Meaning Theory and rhetorical
theory will be outlined, followed by the different classifications of speech situations. Bridging
this with other scholars within the field of communication and practical examples, the paper
will analyze how the communication situation is affected by the way we transmit information
and the power behind choice and use of words. How is what we transmit of information, ideas
and attitudes not necessarily the most important thing when we communicate? What are we
actually using our language of words to when we communicate?

2.0 Theory

2.1 Rhetoric theory
The Greek philosopher Aristotles viewed the speakers use of knowledge as the art of
building persuasive arguments. He saw the function of rhetoric as "the available means of
persuasion" (Griffin, 2012, p.290). Therefore, persuasion is the fundament of rhetoric theory.
It is about how to make something sound more achievable than it actually is. Rhetorical
proofs and the five canons of rhetoric are also central ideas of the theory. Aristotle claimed,
truth is more sufficient than falsehood because it has excellence morality compared to
falsehood (Griffin, 2012, p. 289). He wished that even if speakers could use their skills to
accomplish fraud, that they rather used it to accomplish noble ends.


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2.2 Coordinated Management of Meaning

W. Barnett Pearce and Vernon Cronen are the founders behind the communication theory
Coordinated Management of Meaning (Hereafter CMM). The main concept of CMM is that
we manage meaning together. CMM claims that every conversation has an afterlife, which
essentially addresses that how two people interact today, is the outcome of how they
interacted yesterday. Pearce argues that as the afterlives from many conversations extend and
intertwine they comprise the social worlds in which the people involved in those
conversations live. CMM claims that communication is what makes humans human, creates
the social world, and shapes the way people communicate with each other. A conversation is
not only affected by the topic of what the persons involved are having but more so, it forms
peoples identity and their relationship to each other. A branch within CMM, social
constructionists, views the world as a pluralistic world, where they are participants in the
research process of the theory. They estimate that people make multiple truths, rather than
find a singular truth (Griffin, 2012, p. 72). CMM has been viewed from three different angles;
an interpretive theory, a critical theory and a practical theory. However, Pearce and Cronen
have always viewed the theory as an interpretive. I will follow the original intersection of the
theory.

3.0 Analysis

3.1 Interpersonal and public communication

"The available means of persuasion" is as cited, the main function of rhetoric theory (Griffin,
2012, p. 290). Three different classifications of speech situations are introduced in the rhetoric
view of how to make persuasion credible: forensic speaking, epideictic speaking, and
deliberative speaking. Aristotle described three speech situations where a person or a
character tries to pursue an audience in different ways and with different intentions. He also
considered the speakers use of knowledge as an art. This could awake a sense that his focus
is more on the speaker and the senders contributions in the communication between a
speaker and an audience. Rhetoric appeals to one-to-many communication, called public
communication. The previous cited statement of communication made by Agee, Ault, and
Emery could be argued as being limited, because it is just the sender who is mentioned. In
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their communication statement, the receiver appears again, as passive. We can draw a line
between the CMMs interpersonal communication and the question-and-answer style of the
Socratic dialogue. This way of communication is one-to-one discussion, which is addressed as
dialectic. (Griffin, 2012, p. 290). The theory cooperates with interpersonal communication,
one-to-one communication. The receiver is not omitted, but is as active as the sender in the
communication process.

3.2 How to communicate

What are considered crucial aspects of the way people communicate? How are good
communicators transmitting information, ideas and attitudes? There are numerous ways of
communicating, depending on the context and the hand of nonverbal and verbal methods.
Artistic proofs and inartistic proofs are the two aspects of Aristotles available means of
persuasion. There are three sorts of artistic proofs; how a speaker uses arguments (logos) to
achieve approval from the audience, how the speaker achieves credibility (ethos), and how the
speaker uses ethics (pathos) to evoke emotions with the audience. These appeals are all in the
speakers charge, where he or she can adjust them as it fits. Louis Wilson (1553) claimed that
there are "stylistic techniques a rhetor must employ in order to gain an audience's respect".
When presenting the CMM theory, Bond of Union is introduced, which was made by the
artist M.C. Esher in 1955. This drawing clarifies the persons-in-conversation view, which is
by CMM theorists considered as the primarily social process of human life. The bond of
union illuminates the view of communication as performative, because the communication
influences the persons that are involved, and not just the topic they are talking about.

Martin Luther King jr. is an example of a person who was successfully able to transmit
information, ideas and attitudes about a particular topic by using all three artistic proofs when
he spoke. The speeches he made did not just affect the topic of question, but also formed a
relationship between him and the audience as they viewed him as credible (ethos). Pearce
believes that the way people communicate, the mood and manner adapted in the persons-in-
conversation has a great role in the social construction process. Therefore, despite the fact that
there is one-to-one or one-to-many communication, one can see that the act of how a person
communicates is crucial for the communication process in both theories. It is not just about
what one transmits, but how this is transmitted, that will form the persons involved. The next
section will in the light of the two theories, further debate how our language and words are
applied in communication.
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3.3 The power of language

Pearce viewed language as "the single most powerful tool that humans have ever invented for
the creation of social worlds" (Griffin, 2012, p. 71). Austin (1962) further argued that we are
not only communicating to refer to things or to transmit information, but we are also using
our language and words to persuade, promise, lie, threat, guide, inspire, comfort, deny,
assault, and so forth. Agee, Ault, and Emery cited that communication is the act of
transmitting information, ideas and attitudes (Agee, Ault, Emery, 1988, p. 34). One can
argue that there is a line between this statement of Agee, Ault and Emery and to Austins
view of what we are communicating. For example, when a person transmits an idea that
person is by doing this able to inspire the receiver or the receivers.

MRI scans show that interpersonal distress affects the brain the same way as a punch in the
stomach (Griffin, 2012. p. 71). Although this MRI scan, is related to distress in a one-to-one
conversation, the principle is that use of language when we transmit information, ideas or
attitudes can influence emotions. As mentioned, Aristotles explained the three proofs a
speaker can construct in a conversation. The emotion proof (pathos) is where the audiences
emotions are affected by what the speaker is talking about. If the use of pathos is applied
right in a conversation between two people or in a speech, the receiver or receivers could
experience a punch in the stomach feeling, because that is the effect words can have.

In addition to Martin Luther King jr. there are other historic examples of speakers that have
successfully been able to radically move and influence an audience. George. W. Bush made
one of his most memorable speeches on the night of the attack on the Twin Towers in New
York, September 11
th
2001. He stated, Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our
biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America (Bush, 2001). Bush is
expressing himself in a nationalistic way and thereby he moves the American people
emotionally. Another gifted speaker was Adolf Hitler, whose brutal appeals moved millions
of Germans. His use of emotions, body language and persuasive arguments made people
adapt to his believes, not questioning the actual topic of the conversation. Hitler and Bush are
examples of how the act of communication from one person can directly influence and control
an audience.

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Pearce and Cronen claim that our actions have impact that will shoot back on us. For
example, people get affected in a relationship such as a friendship, because there are emotions
involved. For illustration purposes, if a friend (person A) transmits a piece of information,
bad news, to a friend (person B), person A will be affected as person B gets affected,
because person A most likely cares about person B. The action of transmitting those news,
affected the person transmitting them. If in addition, person A cries when transmitting the
information, this will affect how the message is transmitted. Another example could be that if
a person does something criminal this person will be affected by going to jail.

4.0 Conclusion

How is what we transmit of information, ideas and attitudes not necessarily the most
important thing when we communicate? What are we actually using our language of words to
when we communicate? Within speech communication, there are different communication
situations. By others, one could communicate with another person by having a one-to-one
conversation (interpersonal communication), or one could communicate with many people, by
having a person-to-many communication situation (group or public communication). Either
way, the fundaments of communication are the same. The actual words in an verbal
interaction is essential, but even more so, the way the person say these words are crucial for
the outcome of the communication situation. The combination of what a person say, and how
the person present this information is what makes a good communicator. The awareness of
how the choice and use of words can affect the communication is also a principal aspect of
both one-to-one communication and one-to-many communication.











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References

Main resource:
E. Griffin (2012) A First Look at Communication Theory, International Edition, 8
th
Edition,
Mc Graw Hill

Cited works:
Agee, W. K., Ault, P. H. & Emery, E. (1988). Introduction to Mass Communications, 9th
edition. New York: Harper & Row

W. Barnett Pearce (2007). Making Social Worlds: A Communication Perspective. Oxford:
Blackwell Publishing

L. Agnew (1998) Rhetorical style and the formation of character: Ciceronian ethos in
Thomas Wilson's Arte of Rhetorique (1553), Rhetoric Review, Published online May 2009
Downloaded by Copenhagen Business School 16. October 2013

J. L. Austin (1962) How to do things with words. Oxford Scholarship Online: October 2011
Interpersonal communication lecture 3

G. W. Bush. (2001, September 11). CNN.com.
Retrieved from
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/gwbush911addresstothenation.htm