UNIT 7: COMMUNICATION FOR VARIOUS PURPOSES

Learning Objectives:
At the end of the lesson, you must be able to:
1. Identify various communication fundamentals that comprise successful
communication;
2. Grasp important purposes of communication;
3. Exhibit understanding on the components of rhetorical situations; and
4. Elucidate and respond effective communication in different purposes.

Introduction:
Communication is a critical part of our daily lives, and it is something that we
often overlook and fail to practice. There are times that we also disregard the
importance of speaking, listening, and other forms of communication.
Although communication is an innate skill that is subconsciously learned and this
skill needs to be enhanced in order to attain a strong foundation of your communication
ability.

What are basic communication principles?

In the aspect of communication, there are basic skills that help form the
foundations of our more advanced communication skills. If these basic skills are
missing, it is unlikely that more advanced communication can develop.
As a student, you can thrive whether in writing or speaking, if you understand
several foundations of successful communication. The following are considered as
communication fundamentals: know your purpose, know your audience, organize your
ideas, and follow basic communication principles.

1. Know your Purpose

Why are you speaking? You need to have a specific purpose in mind. A purpose
is an exact statement of at you want your audience to understand, to do, or to believe.
You may want to entertain, inform, or persuade your audience.

2. Know your Audience

To whom will you speak? As a communicator it is important that you need to
analyze, cater, and respect the needs of your audience.

3. Organize your Ideas

How will you put your ideas together? Create an outline to diagram how your
communication will be organized. Your outline should help you ensure that you do not
omit any vital information.

4. Follow Basic Communication Principles

How will you be an effective communicator? Master the principles of clarity in
presenting your ideas, use familiar words in communicating your thoughts, and be an
active participant in the entire communication process.
Purposes of Communication
Various information and meaning are conveyed when people communicate each
Other. People may use language, which is a system of symbols in communicating.
These symbols can either be written or spoken.
Communication is considered as one of the basic activities of human beings,
which may be used for varied purposes. Communication can be informative, affective,
imaginative, persuasive, and ritualistic.
Informative communication pertains to the presentation of messages that are
objective, truthful, and unbiased. Affective communication takes place when people
express their positive and negative feelings about people, circumstances, or events.
People who engage in imaginative communication are those who express their
appreciation on fictional messages from books, films, and conversation. Persuasive
communication on the other hand takes place when people attempt to influence the
beliefs or actions of others, while ritualistic communication is done when people are
able to meet social expectations.

The purpose of the communication can be summed up into the following:

1. Flow of Information: The relevant information must flow continuously from

top to bottom and vice versa. The staff at levels must be kept informed
about the organizational objectives and other developments taking place
in the organization. A care should be taken that no one should be
misinformed. The information should reach the incumbent in the language
be she can understand better. The use of difficult words should be
avoided. The right information should reach the right person right time
through the right person.

2. Coordination: It is through communication the efforts of all the staff

working in the organization can be coordinated for accomplishment of the
organizational goals. The coordination of all personnel's and their efforts is
the essence of management which can be attained through effective
communication.

3. Learning Management Skills: The communication facilitates flow of

information, ideas, beliefs, perception, advice, opinion, orders and
instructions etc. both ways which enable the managers and other
supervisory staff to learn managerial skills through experience of others.
The experience of the sender of the message gets reflected in it which the
person at the receiving end can learn by analyzing and understanding it.

4. Preparing People to Accept Change: The proper and effective

communication is an important tool in the hands of management of any
organization to bring about overall change in the organizational policies,
procedures and work style and make the staff to accept and respond
positively.
 5. Developing Good Human Relations: Managers and workers and other
staff exchange their ideas, thoughts and perceptions with each other
through communication. This helps them to understand each other better.
They realize the difficulties faced by their colleagues at the workplace.
This leads to promotion of good human relations in the organization.

6. Ideas of Subordinates Encouraged: The communication facilitates inviting

and encouraging the ideas from subordinates on certain occasions on any
task. This will develop creative thinking. Honoring subordinates' ideas will
further motivate them for hard work and a sense of belonging to the
organization will be developed. It will provide them with the
encouragement to share information with their superiors without
hesitation. The managers must know the ideas, thoughts, comments,
reactions and attitudes of their subordinates and subordinates should
know the same from the lowest level staff of their respective departments.

Why Do People Communicate?

Communication is a part of everyone's life; people from every walks of life
communicate. They do so to express their feelings, opinion, aspirations, dreams,
apprehensions or regrets in life. Humans are creative beings, and they know how to
communicate in various and creative ways through verbal, non- verbal, linguistic, or
non-linguistic cues.
Specifically, people communicate in order to inform, evoke, entertain, argue, and
persuade. These purposes are discussed briefly below:

1. To inform
To inform is to impart knowledge, to clarify information, and to secure
understanding.

2. To Evoke
To evoke means to rely on passion and controversy to make a point. Evocative
communication centers on controversial topics that typically use emotion to make a
point. Evocative communicators must show a lot of enthusiasm and concern for the
topic and must use personal experience to draw the audience. Using government
research, statistics and data can all help make their topics more believable and more
engaging.

3. To Entertain
To entertain is to transmit a feeling of pleasure and goodwill to the audience. The
communicator is considered gracious, genial, good-natured, relaxed, and demonstrates
to his or her listeners the pleasant job of speaking to them.

4. To Argue
To argue is to persuade, to assent to the plausibility of the communicator's side
of a debatable question. The speaker's purpose appeal to the intellect of his or her
listeners so that they will be convinced.
 5. To persuade
To persuade is to move the listeners to action. The communicator should
demolish the listener's objection, and prove the acceptability of his or her argument or
position.

Kinds of Speech According to Purpose

1. Informative Speech
Informative speech gives rather than asks or takes. The demands on the
audience are low, as the listeners are asked to attend, to comprehend, to understand, to
assimilate, but not to change their beliefs and behaviors.

2. Persuasive Speech
Persuasive speaking is the process of producing oral messages that increase
personal commitment, modify beliefs, attitudes, or value

3. Argumentative Speech
This is a speech that aims to persuade the audience to assent to plausibility of
the speaker’s side of a debatable question.

Kinds of Speech according to Delivery

1. Read Speech
Reading from a manuscript is a manner of speaking where a written speech is
read and delivered word for word.

2. Memorized Speech
This is a written speech which is mastered and delivered entirely from memory.
This kind of speech requires the speaker a considerable memory skill in order not to
forget his or her presentation.

3. Impromptu Speech
This is a speech where the speaker develops his or her ideas, thoughts, and
language at the moment of delivery

4. Extemporaneous Speech
This is a speech where the topics or ideas are prepared beforehand: however,
the speaker will compose his or her views and language only at the moment of delivery

What are the Five Rhetorical Situations?

As social beings, we communicate on a daily basis. In a broader sense,
communication is not only about using explicit language like speaking and writing words
but also about using implicit messages like tone or eye contact. For an individual to
become a successful communicator, he or she needs to learn how to explicitly and
implicitly communicate in various situations. Additional components to consider in
communication called the rhetorical situations are: author, audience, purpose, topic, and
occasion.
1. Author
a. Consider your needs as an author:
 work habits
 style
 environment

b. Knowing your style and being able to edit and adjust to a particular situation is
essential to effective communication.

2. Audience
a. The level of formality and intimacy are determined by the recipients of
communication, your audience.

b. Different audiences:
 friend/classmates(personal, informal, jargon, slang)
 professionals(professional tone, formal language)

3. Purpose
a. Identify the purpose why you communicate, is it to:
 Inform
 Persuade
 Convince
 Entertain

4. Topic
a. This is a specific area of a particular subject that you communicate.
b. This should be clearly revealed to your audience.

5. Occasion
a. This is one of the circumstances prompting a communication.
b. There should be formality, purpose, and tone in an o

Assessment: Choose and answer one of the activities.

Activity A
1. Supposing you are the Municipal Health Officer of your town. You have seen
some people are not wearing face mask nor face shield and do not observe
physical distancing. With this, you will write a letter to the Mayor asking for strict
implementation of Inter-Agency Task Force rules and policies.
 2. You are the president of the student government in your school. You have heard
that some students are complaining about the unavailability and uncleanliness
comfort rooms. Write a letter to the college president to address this concern.

Activity B
 Imagine you are going to present two informative speeches about same-sex
marriage: one to group of senior high school students and the other to a group of
college students.

How would you explain the topic for each audience and why?

 You have been assigned the task of organizing a meeting for your class to
discuss on an important project in one of your major subjects.

How do context, audience, and purpose influence your decisions?

Activity C
Write 3 situations for each purpose of communication.

To inform
1.
2.
3.

To Evoke
1.
2.
3.

To Entertain
1.
2.
3.

To Argue
1.
2.
3.

To persuade
1.
2.
3.