Conversation

From Encyclopedia Jr, free information reference for Kids

For the movie from Francis Ford Coppola, see The Conversation.

Lenin and Stalin in conversation

A conversation is communication by two or more people, often on a particular topic. William F. Buckley's Firing Line, the Dick Cavett Show, and many other television programs described as "talk shows" are exercises in conversation. Conversations are the ideal form of communication in some respects, since they allow people with different views of a topic to learn from each other. A speech, on the other hand, is an oral presentation by one person directed at a group.

Conversers naturally relate the other speaker's statements to themselves, and insert themselves (or some degree of relation to themselves, ranging from the replier's opinions or points to actual stories about themselves) into their replies. For a successful conversation, the partners must achieve a workable balance of contributions. A successful conversation includes mutually interesting connections between the speakers or things that the speakers know. For this to happen, conversers must find a topic on which they both can relate to in some sense.

Conversation analysis is a branch of sociology which studies the structure and organization of human interaction, with a more specific focus on conversational interaction.

[edit] Types of conversation

Conversations conducted in formal but unstructured settings can be particularly valuable in enlivening those in the growing population of retired, and sometimes otherwise isolated, people in advanced countries. Institutions such as the University of the Third Age provide such settings. Here the great diversity of life experience and points of view provide a very rich resource for advanced learning.

"Banter" is the art of jovial and frivolous conversation and behaviour, which can be taken to several different levels, and can be liable to involve crude, offensive sexual joking which may offend some. It is also liable to be very personal, being directed at particular people and may develop into direct offense and 'mickey' taking of a person. This type of more offensive banter you would often find it amongst the public school population, and amongst groups of men at sporting events or in bars/pubs.

Has derived its own saying, 'If you can't take the banter, canter', which means if you take offence to another's comments/ actions when they were intended only to amuse, then you should leave. Banter is particularly difficult for those with autistic spectrum or semantic pragmatic conditions.

Internet Relay Chat, or Chat, is a method of conversing with other internet users, in real time, using a chat software program, or a Java plug-in which operates in your current web browser. There are many different chat channels, or rooms, covering every subject imaginable, and a list of the most popular channels starts at CHAT ROOMS.

[edit] Literature on conversation

Authors who have written extensively on conversation and attempted to analyze its nature include:

• Charles Blattberg has written two books defending an approach to politics that emphasizes conversation, in contrast to negotiation, as the preferred means of resolving conflict. His From Pluralist to Patriotic Politics: Putting Practice First, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-19-829688-6, is a work of political philosophy; and his Shall We Dance? A Patriotic Politics for Canada, Montreal and Kingston: McGill Queen's University Press, 2003, ISBN 0-7735-2596-3, applies that philosophy to the Canadian case.

• Neil Postman - Amusing Ourselves to Death (Conversation is not the book's specific focus, but discourse in general gets good treatment here)

• Deborah Tannen - The Argument Culture: Stopping America's War of Words, Conversational Style: Analyzing Talk Among Friends, Gender and Discourse, I Only Say This Because I Love You, Talking from 9 to 5: Women and Men at Work, That's Not What I Meant!, You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation,

[edit] See also

• Chat
• Dialogue
• Speech
• Bohm Dialogue

[edit] External links

• Advice on initiating conversations and links to conversational organizations.
• Article on developing basic communication skills
• Conversation Cafè, devoted to creating a "culture of conversation."
• Empathic listening skills How to listen so others will feel heard, or listening first aid (University of California). Download a one hour seminar on empathic listening and attending skills.
• Lifehack howto on Small Talk