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Alina M.Melnikova,
The Art of Making Conversation
According to the Linguistic Oxford Society opinion, the word
“conversation” is merely identified as an informal talk involving a small group
of people [1;335]. However, it can not be restricted only by its few defining
lines represented since “conversation” embraces much more cognitive meanings.
The particular task of this report to reveal its core sense and significance
via an intensive language search and lingual investigation.
Originally, the ancient Romans and Greeks who were the very forefathers of
such unexplored sciences as philosophy and psychology put their minds to the
art of conversation as far as its importance was rapidly recognized by the most
prominent scholars of that time.
It would be reasonably to mention that lately a great number of books
and encyclopedias on the art of conversation that might be perfected began to
appear with rapid succession. In order to satisfy the demands of insatiable
American society to be educated more broadly in “the fine art of getting along”,
Dale Carnegie who was widely called a teacher of public speaking and devoted
most of his time to the language investigation published his book How to Win Friends and Influence People [2;107]. He deeply believed that the
availability of proper communicative skills can become the best letter of
recommendation for every intelligent personality who has a lust for life and
career prospect. A proper advice can be derived from his point that is “the
real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing in the right place,
but to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment” which in its turn
was compiled as the by-Carnegie-formula of a successful conversation making. After
my close research of Carnegie’s reports and essays on the subject considered it
would be better to make some generalization and systematization processes. Due
to my analysis the following guidelines for the high-rate conversationalist can
be singled out from his works: 1 remember people’s names; 2 be a good listener;
3 become genuinely interested in other people; 4 smile; 5 talk in terms of the
other person interests; 6 make the other person feel important.
American linguists, Penelope Brown and Steven Levinson, who are
playfully called the pioneers of “politeness theory”, made their own
contributions into conversation etiquette as well. In general terms, they
established a close intersection between conversation rules and politeness maxims
that according to their theory must be merged [2;234-235].
Taking into account all aforesaid assumptions consistently proving the
significance of conversation skills, it is rather possible to make some
conclusions. Firstly, there is no doubt that the conversation is the basis of
civilized society. It can simply be traced that the art of making conversation
has been perfected within the development of the society. Regarding the overall
society’s headway that kept growing, an ordinary conversation between people
could properly reflect the realities of each period in human history. Enhancing
the notion, vocabulary was essentially increased by the chain of new words (politesse- sincere good manners, esprit-
spirit, galanterie - gallantry, complaisance - obligingness, flatterie –
flatter). Secondly, the more modern the manual of conversation, the more
concrete its advice is likely to be. To be more distinct,
In early times of the European Community, when it just began to increase
in size, several guidebooks on international etiquette appeared. Those manuals
prove that the understanding of the language does not mean a corresponding
understanding of traditions and culture of foreign people. A World Guide to Good Manners by Norman Ramshaw includes some typical
advice how to express oneself as a professional conversationalist abroad [3;120-148].
In England, for instance, the abstract conversations are prohibited as far as
everyone must listen exactly to that one who is speaking and the speaker in his
turn has the implementation to be heard out by each member of the company; it
is an old tradition in Germany to title the person to whom you are talking to,
but in the case it’s unknown you should just address: “Herr Doctor!..”
Concluding it all, the combinability of 2 language norms pertains to
conversation in full measure: communicative (primary) and cognitive
(secondary). The former is expressed in conversation rules as such and the latter
one belongs to the precise comprehension of foreign culture.
Literature:
1 Hornby A S. Oxford Advanced Lerner’s Dictionary of Current English.
Seventh edition. –
2 Shepherd Margaret. The Art of Civilized Conversation. –