Making Our Speech Understandable

Presented to Asst. Prof. Umpairat Sudhinont

Presented by Miss Chanita Suwanna No. 5411121041

Teaching English as an International Language, Faculty of Liberal Arts, Prince of Songkla University, Songkhla, Thailand

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OUTLINE
Introduction Theres a quote written by Robert Frost which may relevant to this writing "Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can't and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it." We can talk but not much people can talk effectively. Speak out effectively is an important issue in communication. What makes our speech understandable? There are four component of speech affecting listeners understanding as shown below;
1.

Linguistic Competence; three terms of linguistic matter are described in this paper

as follows;

1) Phonological; using and organizing the sound in languages or the process of

sound production.

2) Lexical; words or vocabularies. 3) Morphological; the study of the structure of word forms as free and bond
morpheme. 2. Sociocultural Competence
1) Social contextual factors; the understanding of social context in the target

language.
2) Speakers own style; the individual characteristic which affect speaking.

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3) Cultural factors; the understanding of cross culture of listeners.

3. 4.

Discourse Competence; putting words or phrase to form the sentences Strategic competence; how to manage with the communication breakdown

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What makes our speech understandable?

Speaking is a productive skill, the way to express speakers feeling or idea which needs several of language competences in order to make their listeners understand them. Since the audiences will make decisions about speaker from the first appearance, words (level of language, using different words class may show speakers attitude, education etc.), and sound of voice (tone of speaking). Moreover, it is the fact that what speaker spoke cannot repeat twice as it is done in the radios or any other medias. The world nowadays becomes closer and closer because of the comfortable of transportations and technologies. There are a plenty of channels through the internet so it is easy to communicate with people over sea as if it is faceto-face communication. Then its important to aware of speaking understandably. Factors affecting your speech understandable There are four terms of communicative competence according to Canale and Swains study (1980) as follows;
1. Linguistic competence; this competence consists of four types of knowledge:

1)

Phonological: The phonological abilities such as attending to speech,

identifying between sounds, remembering sounds in memory. It includes both segmental (vowels, consonants, syllable) and supra-segmental (stress, intonation, and rhythm).

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Why phonological essential for speaking? Phonology is the basis of spoken and written language. Without a standard sound pattern to letters symbolizing sound, we would be speaking in only pronunciation, e.g. puppies can talk to each other by making some sound or bark to express their feeling or even wagging their tails to show feeling but for human the sound system has its own rule. We base on this rule to understand each other. Without phonology, listeners may difficult to understand the speakers. In addition, the stress and intonation is also needed to be aware of e.g. some word has the same letters but different in meaning and stress as the word Pre'sent and present', one word is noun which refers to gift while another is verb refers to report or express. Ford G. (2011) claimed that to make the sound of native-like will make people understand easier. Stress and rhythm the wrong word and syllable can be confusing to the listeners. In addition, when the sentence is pronounced with no sound, it will confuse the listener and the meaning will be changed e.g. these belonging arent mine. If theres no stress in this sentence, it would be changed to these belonging are mine. Then, the right rhythm and stress is essential to improve for communication understanding.
2)

Lexical: knowledge of all words e.g. nouns, verbs, adjectives, pronouns,

determiners, prepositions, verbal auxiliaries, etc. Costa A., Colom A., Caramazza A. (2000) claimed that it is essential for speakers to retrieve the various and appropriate words from what they have perceived when speaking. To express their actual message they need to express, the appropriate words and word form are needed to use in order to make their listeners understand their message. E.g. In Thai class, therere a lot of error in using word because Thai students use their mother tongue to transfer the target language meaning then when theyre talking with native speaker or people who speak English, they may misunderstood. And we may sometimes use the right word but in the wrong way. These all cause the error in communication.

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3)

Morphological: the structure of words as free and bond morpheme. Free

morpheme is the word which can stand alone while bond is word which has meaning itself but need to be added after (suffix) or before word (prefix). Paradis, J. (2005) claimed that the large number of children lack of tense morpheme, it is the verb which changing in accordance with tense as add es, ies after verbs when the subject is 3rd person singular. Or ed after verb with all subject to show its past. In addition, the learners may less of pronunciation of ed ending sound, the using it wrongly or mispronounce may affect its meaning and confusing listeners.
2. Sociolinguistic competence: it is the knowledge of the relation of language use to

speaking-English people. It relevant to how to express messages appropriately within the various social and cultural context of communication. In this competence, there are three components as follows; 1) Social contextual factors; know how to use and respond to language

appropriately and the relationships among the people communicating. Sociolinguistic competences are skill of evaluating or presuming others expression, using words and phrases fit with each situation and person, and expressing a specific attitude such as respect and friendliness to listeners appropriately. Relevant to the term of teaching and learning

concerning to this social context, Handford, M. (2002) questioned that teachers have to convey a part of knowledge, but learners have to discover that knowledge for themselves in order to understand and use it appropriately. In my point of view, teacher has to decide whose norm should be taught in class then analyze it before giving them some instruction. 2) Stylistic appropriateness: individual personality such as natural, sincere,

fluent, understandable (clear and able to be heard without straining). For example, speaker with clear voice, and use gesture and facial expression (non verbal language) may be predicted as an effective speaker. From my experience, I always failed in each oral

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presentation this term because my shyness personality that made me nervous while presenting. Because of this problem and also from the microphone in the classroom, its not easy to adjust its tone so it can be heard noisy which I sometimes called terrible tone. I think may it can make audiences or listeners not much relax. If theres soft tone of speaker, may listeners felt more relax. 3) Cultural factors: background knowledge of the target language group,

dialects/regional differences, and cross cultural awareness. An effective communication way begins with the understanding that the sender of the message and the receiver of the message are from different cultures and backgrounds. The difference of culture makes communications more complex. In addition, theres dialect in each target language as in Krashens circle. Therere inner circle, outer circle and expanding circle, not only native speaker that we need to focus on their grammatical or pronunciation, theres a variety of English (Englishes).The way to develop the cultures difference is to learn the basics about culture and at least something about the language of communication in different countries. This is necessary even for the basic level such as apologizing, greetings, leave taking or even learning slang etc.
3. Discourse Competence; the way to know how to interpret the larger context So

discourse competences are consists of putting words, phrases and sentences together to create conversations, speeches, email messages, etc.
4. Strategic competence; the way to know how to recognize and repair

communication breakdowns, how to work around gaps in ones knowledge of the language, and how to learn more about the language and its context. Strategic competences are how to check the appropriate or inappropriate, what speaker misunderstood or when someone has misunderstood speaker and how to solve that error, how can the speaker express his/her ideas if they dont know the name of

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something or the right verb form to use? These all the skill of solving real problem in conversation.

To understand what people mean by what they say is not the same as understanding the linguistic term they use in saying it. But need all competences mentioned above. In the early stages of language learning, teachers and learners may want to keep in mind that they need to use language to reach the goal of communicative efficiency. That learners should be able to make themselves understood, they should try to avoid confusion in the message (due to faulty pronunciation, grammar, or vocabulary); and try to avoid annoying listeners (due to socially inappropriate style)

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REFERENCE

A., Colom A., Caramazza A. (2000). Lexical Access in Speech Production: The Bilingual Case. 21, 403-437.

Canale, M. and M. Swain. 1980: Theoretical bases of communicative approaches to second

language teaching and testing. Applied Linguistics 1

Costa A., Colom A., Caramazza A. (2000). Lexical Access in Speech Production: The Bilingual Case. 21, 403-437.

Ford, G. (2011, 3 April 2011). How to Give a Good Speech Retrieved 26th September, 2011, from http://EzineArticles.com/6142547

Handford, M. (2002). Developing Sociocultural Competence in the ESL Classroom. Nottingham Linguistic Circular.

Paradis, J. (2005). Grammatical Morphology in Children Learning English as a Second Language: Implications of Similarities With Specific Language Impairment. American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, 36, 172-187.