ORAL COMMUNICATION
Information as a Function of Communication
Whether talking to friends or acquaintances, to convince or to motivate them, what is usually necessary is to provide Information. To illustrate, a Filipino scientist provides information to a low-income community on how to light up their homes by using a bottle filled with water and a teaspoon of bleach. The school dentist tells a kindergarten class how to brush one’s teeth properly. A weather forecaster on TV tracks the path of a low-pressure area (LPA), which might turn into a typhoon.
- Verbal cues in this case really have to be carefully chosen. The scientist most likely will use Filipino to be understood by many and will use po and opo. The dentist will use simple words for the benefit of the children in the kindergarten class. The weather forecaster will not use too much technical jargon to be understood by people listening to the radio and watching TV. Again, the Speaker and the Listener, when using verbal cues, should be respectful of each other’s culture as well as of their age, gender, social status, and religion.
- Nonverbal cues include hand gestures, bodily action (including posture), vocal tone (paralanguage), and eye contact. The Speaker and the Listener, when using nonverbal cues, should be respectful of each other’s culture as well as of their age, gender, social status, and religion. To convince the community to try the experiment, the scientist will do an actual demonstration. The dentist can show pictures or a video that the children can understand showing what happens when they do not brush their teeth. The forecaster calmly gestures on the map, pointing out the path of the LPA, using a soothing tone of voice to avoid alarming the audience.
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