Discourse Management
Discourse management is an incredibly multifaceted topic within the realm of Language Arts that involves a plethora of different components related to language usage and communication. It encompasses the ways in which speakers organize their ideas, express their thoughts, and interact with their audience to attain specific communicative objectives. It is important to presentations, lectures, making business proposals, public speaking, interviews, creating songs and poetry, writing novels, and the whole range of human interpersonal discourse.
In discourse management, key areas include:
- Cohesive elements such as transitional words/phrases and repetition of important concepts and terminology
- Selecting relevant information, utilizing logical organization, and employing clear and concise writing to create a sense of unity and purpose (coherence)
- Register, which refers to the level of formality or informality used in a particular context, including word choice, tone, style, and detail level employed
- Pragmatics, which is the study of how language is used to achieve social and communicative goals, encompassing strategies like indirect speech acts, politeness techniques, and conversational implicature
- Discourse markers, which signal the direction and flow of a conversation, such as “well,” “so,” “you know,” and “I mean”
Effective discourse management requires a deep comprehension of language use subtleties and the ability to tailor communication styles to a variety of contexts and audiences.
