"Values"

At any point in life you take a second to listen to a speech or just someone talk about something professionally or non-professionally, you come with prior beliefs, attitudes, and values. As a speaker, you have to prepare yourself for an audience like this, if you fail to do so, your audience may miss-understand the point you are trying to make. According to the book, values are the strongest and most personal of the three cognitive structures. They are convictions about what ought to occur or about what is or is not desirable and right. To lead a successful life, I believe that values play a huge role in that. When you mix up your priorities in life, you tend to loose what is really important. Also if you follow the wrong values, it may lead to some kind of destruction conflict. When a speaker shows that he/she has values with anything, it allows the audience to relate. This doesn’t mean that when you are speaking you have to say, "My values are as followed..." What I mean is with the tone of your voice. Values are deeply held and are closely tied to audience members' identities. It is just up to the speaker to relate to them in a surprising way.

"Well-known Speaker"

A well-known speaker that I could listen to all day is Ellen DeGeneres. She is a hilarious woman who deserves the world with the kindness she gives. Her humor is an asset to who she is on a daily basis. When you listen to her, there is not a moment when you don’t have a smile on your face. Ellen's strongest features include humor, class, and respect. Her humor is what attracts her audience members in heartbeat. Ellen is a very classy woman in a very different way. She doesn’t carry the same class that the Queen carries, but she carries a class of her own; Respect. When a woman like Ellen opens her mouth and it’s the truth that comes out, all you want to give her is your respect in return. She doesn’t just speak the truth about the world, she speaks the truth about herself and I really admire that. She gains so much credibility because she is not afraid to put herself out there. Because she voices her opinion with no hesitation and does not give a darn what people think of her, her power (in a good way) continues to grow. I don’t see a way that Ellen can grow and build more ethos in her personality; her personal character does justice every time.

"Influential Speaker"

I would have to say one of the best speakers I have really listened to was my professor from last semester. Mrs. Jennifer Morrison has a way to connect everything she says to everything in life in a matter of minutes. I am not very self-motivated when it comes to school work. But I found myself really becoming intrigued about the class, and wanting to know more. What made her communication skills so memorable was the passion she had. I could tell Mrs. Morrison loved talking about each and every chapter of the book. She had a way of pulling in the entire class, even when the subject was 'boring.' Another quality she had was keeping her tone the same throughout. She never let her audience down and kept her spunky personality up throughout. Now the worst speaker I ever heard would have to be the priest at my Grandma's church. I know it is religion and it always becomes a touchy subject, but come on; I want to praise the lord, not fall asleep. He had no personality what so ever. Even after the ceremony was over and small talk was an option. This guy just didn’t have 'IT.' I wanted to assign him to ethos, logos, or pathos, but when you have no tone to follow, no climax to become anxious for, no rhythm to get your mind on, boredom takes over and he becomes forgotten with the blink of an eye.

"Defining Communication"

(Alot of quotes are from our text book)
Communication is a complex process that can be viewed in many ways. There is not just a simple answer to explain what communication really is. We all want simple answers to the problems that occur in life, but that may not always be the case. Defining something can also be portrayed in many ways. According to our textbook, "A definition is a useful and logical place to start our exploration and it comes from a Latin word meaning to determine, bring to an end, or settle." Definitions focus on what is the most important aspect of what they are defining. The hard part about this is how broad or narrow a definition can be. We have the power to choose how and what to define the way we want to. The book shows a great example of this. It lists at least nine different ways to define communication. The broadest being, "Communication is a process of acting on information." And the narrowest being, "Nonverbal interaction is the unspoken, often unintentional behavior that accompanies verbal communication and helps us fully interpret its meaning." The key objective to think about is that just because a definition is broader or shorter than another doesn’t make it wrong. We all interpret communication differently and chose a definition that WORKS for us individually.

"Pragmatic Perspective"

According to Trenholm, the Pragmatic Perspective is communication that consists of a system of interlocking, interdependent behaviors that become patterned over time. Many scholars associate this with 'playing a game.' An example the book uses is... "When people decide to communicate, the become partners in a game that require them to make individual moves or acts. Overtime these acts become patterned." I do not agree with this perspective on communication. When we are communicating it is not a 'game' to play, it is a natural instinct. In other words, we don't think about how to communicate in a 'game' form before we open our mouths to communicate. For example it is natural to start a conversation with no thought and see where it leads whereas where you can 'win.' I know my examples are a little extreme, but it simply gets the message across. The part I do agree on is that communication can be patterned. One example is your daily routine to 'communicate' yourself to the world. Regardless if you mean to send a message to someone intentionally or not, throughout the week you repeat certain things.

"Social Constructionist Perspective"

In this chapter, Trenholm describes communication in many different aspects. She points out that we can make communication however broad or narrow we chose. In other words, your definition of communication can simply be to speak with others. Someone else might have an elaborate description on what communication is. The point is that communication can be viewed and analyzed in so many ways. One example is the Social Constructionist Perspective. This model is a process whereby people in groups, using the tools provided by their culture, create collective representations of reality. This perspective points out that most of what we know and believe about the world comes to us through communication rather than direct experience. We build worlds according to this perspective. As we grow in life, learning has a whole lot to do with different ways of communications. Although school is a necessity for learning academia, it is also a place you learn reality and personality as a kid. During recess time or play time, you explore on your own terms what it is you want. In order to do so you have to teach yourself to apply the unknown world to you. This is a really good way to learn culture as well. A classic example is staring. Some cultures find it extremely rude to stare into the eyes of the person you are communicating with and some find it very polite. Although you can learn this through direct communication, the best way to really learn is from reality itself.