Task 3. Six Ways to Get Along Better

Ex. 1. Identifying aspects of communication. Read the following article and get ready to dwell on the main characteristics of the communicative phenomenon under consideration.

Six Ways to Get Along Better

By K. Anderson

You can make some simple changes in how you dress, move or speak and discover that you have fewer conflicts and greater opportunity to build enduring relationships from smoother daily interactions. From the research on our gut instinctual reactions, here’s some easy-to-adopt suggestions.

1. Sidle. People are more likely to like each other, remember more of what they discuss, and agree when they “sidle”, standing or sitting side by side, rather than facing each other.

Two women or a man and a woman are more likely to face each other. They literally “face off”. Two men instinctively sidle. Siddling brings people “in sync”. Walking and talking gets you further connected. The best time to resolve issues is while walking together to the meeting, not when you are in the meeting, sitting across from each other.

2. Look for the underlying issue. When you are arguing for more than ten minutes, you are probably not discussing the real conflict and are thus unlikely to get it resolved in the discussion. Look for the underlying issue.

3. Detect lying earlier. When lying, most people can put an innocent expression on their face when you ask them a question about the topic, yet few (except pathological liars) get the right timing or duration of that expression. Ignore the expression itself when they respond but note whether they appear to put it on too soon or too late and if the duration of the expression seems off. Here your instincts will often guide you to knowing their truthfulness.

4. Come back to your scents. Since smell is the most directly emotional sense, bypassing much of the brain’s thinking process, consider how to introduce positively natural and uplifting scents into your environment as your own “sane self-indulgence”. A naturally scented environment refreshes people, so they feel uplifted. That’s why outlets as diverse as the Rainforest Cafe, Sahara Vegas Casino, Disney/Epcot Home of the Future and San Francisco Aquarium have created natural “signature scents” to avoid allergic reactions while refreshing those they serve.

People who are responsible for your work setting may consider environmental scenting someday. Consider lightly scenting your uniform with the smells that are most comfortingly familiar to you. Two hospitals in Tokyo scent bed sheets with vanilla. Since a Paris hotel began scenting their towels with rose and citrus, guests have been giving more positive reports on the hotel staff’s thoughtfulness and appearance. Vanilla, apple, and chocolate are Americans’ most -liked scents.

5. Be vividly specific. A specific detail or example proves a general conclusion, not the reverse. A vivid, specific detail is memorable, while a general statement is less credible and easily forgotten. Ironically, most adult conversation and advertising is general. Children are more likely to be vividly specific and thus more memorable. When you want to be heard and remembered, characterize your information or request with a vivid, specific detail, example, story or contrasting options. Involve words that relate to the senses. For example “beautiful color” is not as vivid as “blue” which is not as vivid as “cobalt blue”.

6. Be “plainly clear”. Avoid wearing patterned clothing or other detail on your clothing, especially on the upper half of the body, because it will shorten the attention span of the person with whom you are speaking.

http://www.pertinent.com

1. Classify the given tips according to the type of communicative means they describe (verbal, nonverbal or both).

2. Arrange the tips in the order of their importance (as you see it).

3. Are the tips provided in the text relevant for different spheres of communication? If so, give examples to prove this.

Ex. 2. Discussion. Express your opinion about the following. What nonverbal means (gestures, objects, sounds, clothes etc.) can you use as a “secret weapon” to bypass the brain’s thinking process?

Ex. 3. Follow-up. How do the nonverbal means described contribute to the effectiveness of communication?

Task 4. Dressin’ Texan

Ex. 1. Identifying aspects of communication.Read the following story and get ready to dwell on the main elements of the communicative episode described in the text.

Dressin’ Texan

Houston and Dallas decoded.

By P. Marx

The first time I visited Texas, I wore a beige polyester-blend lab coat with reinforced slits for pocket access and mechanical-pencil storage. I was attending a local bookseller’s convention, having just co-written a pseudo-scientific book about how to regain your virginity, and my publicist suggested that the doctor getup would attract attention. It did. Everyone thought I was the janitor. Lesson #1: When in Texas, do not dress down.

A few weeks ago, I returned to Texas, my luggage this time crammed with the best that my closet had to offer. Wrong again. In my somber New York clothes, I was the sole black-and-white TV in a showroom of high-def plasma screens. Lesson #2: the Lone Star palette is sparkly sea green, sunshine yellow, lavender flecked with gold, and turquoise – lots and lots of turquoise.

And the prevailing dress code is Cinderella after the fairy godmother has turned her rags into glittery silk chiffon, brocade, and taffeta. (Dallas’s brand-new Barneys, misjudging the tastes of its clientele, chronically understocks its formalwear.) If there is a bodice, it is beaded or ruched or encrusted with crystal drops. If you can walk in your shoes, the heel is not high enough. Not that you will ever travel by foot here in the land of mega-S.U.V.s. “We’d like a table for five, sir,” I overheard a woman say to the maitre d’ at the Bistro Moderne (2525 West Loop South). “And we don’t want to walk.”

Chances are, assuming you are a Someone, you will attend a charity luncheon today and three black-tie benefits tonight – one of which is being held in your honor to thank you for chairing the other two. If you are a Very Important Someone, you will be celebrated next month as one of the Best Dressed Women in Houston at the gala co-sponsored by Neiman Marcus to benefit the March of Dimes (which will be a long march, considering the approximately six million dimes that are expected to be raised). In Texas, fashion fuels fund-raising, fund-raising fuels fashion, and fossil fuel fuels them both.

The theme of one of the evening’s events is sure to be Candy Land / Tango / Mardi Gras / Saturday Night Live / Las Vegas / Southern Nights, and don’t forget that you are encouraged to be costumed accordingly. Your photograph will duly appear in the next issue of Paper City, the groovy document of fashion and society published monthly in Dallas and Houston (separate editions). Lesson # 3: Don’t even think about putting on the same Oscar de la Renta for tomorrow night’s ball.

At a café on my last night in Dallas, a waiter came over and gestured toward a man at the door. “Are you comfortable with that gentleman?” he whispered to the friend I was with. The man was her husband, who was joining us late. He was wearing two-hundred-dollar jeans and a sweater from Barneys; the waiter had worried that he was riffraff. Lesson # 4: In Texas, jeans, however expensive, are still jeans.

The New Yorker. 2007, March 19

1. What are the factors that influence the choice of clothes (cultural, gender, professional)?

2. What other kinds of nonverbal means (other than clothes) are mentioned in the text?

3. What gender stereotypes are reflected in the text?

Ex. 2. Discussion. Express your opinion about the following. What does it mean, to be “costumed accordingly”?

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