The Blueprint of a Speaker | Part 2 of 6 | Conceptual Planning

When two people are communicating with each other, it is very safe to say that there is a joint action taking place. What this means is that the two or more parties are aware of some goal of the joint activity and of some form of common ground. Now what that common ground may be is anything from trying to sleep with each other to trying to move outside to a parking lot to fist fight. Never the less it is important to realize that communication is a two-sided transaction based on mutually shared information.

Now you may be saying “well, duh… tell me something I didn’t know”, which I can understand. But there are a large number of people out there who see communication as a one-sided interaction and it is not. The information that is being produced and explicated at any moment IS BASED on this joint action. It is dynamic and fluid and alive…

The MAJOR reason that communication is so interactive and the content is so dependant on the flow of information is due the unique function that we as humans possess known as Theory of Mind. Theory of Mind (ToM) is the ability to attribute or attach mental states to someone based on the information we are receiving at any given moment. Beliefs, values, fear, happiness, anger, etc… When you register that someone has any mental state at present, your ToM is in action. To reference my earlier post, this is the evolutionary response to our mind’s drive to develop predictive qualities to certain communication.

That being said, in a conversation the first occurrence mentally is an individual’s conceptual preparation in context. What this means is that before there can be any actual speech, there needs to be the development of speech-concepts, or options per se for the individual to choose from. This function of conceptual preparation has two stages, Macroplanning and Microplanning. So let’s begin with Macroplanning.

MACROPLANNING

Macroplanning really is the overall structural progression of the conversation. While talking about something, the speaker is focusing on a specific item, concept, etc… This is called discourse focus. Now, in moving to the next specific item/concept, the speakers ToM is at work as they are drawing the listener’s attention in this specific direction to achieve their goal. ToM guides this overall structure of flow of the conversation because based on the speakers beliefs/heuristics(rules of thumb) the speaker “believes” that this is the next logical “move” toward bringing the listener to their intended destination/understanding.

That is a mouthful… But to summarize, this is the concept of moving from point A (current focus) to point E, rather than point B or C or D BECAUSE the speaker believes that point E will get the listener to point Z more quickly and effectively than any of the rest. In essence, what to say and in what order…

The process of focus shifting is attention management at two separate levels:

1. The speaker is monitoring the listener for the appropriate signs of recognition that the listener understands the speaker ACCURATELY.

2. The speaker is monitoring whether the listener is FOLLOWING their speech act.

The structure that we follow consists of two parts, a focus tree and a stack. The focus tree is the actual flow, or road-system per se that we will follow during the discourse. For example, moving from A to G to D to M to Z. The stack is a conceptual holding block where we may place certain concepts that we will need to come back to for verification. For example, position G may be interactive with D, M and Z so G will be placed in the stack for future reference. There are a number of different principles that govern the development of focus trees and the usage of stacks. The specifics of which are far too acute to be helpful for our understanding here.

MICROPLANNING

Once the overall structure and content of the speaker’s communication has been determined, the next step is in producing a lexical representation of the concept they have in mind. What this means is that they need to draw on their vocabulary and the grammatical rules to develop a sentence that can convey their concept. There are 4 kinds of information placed into the communication:

1. The referents or objects/people/events will be specified and linked to the current focus.

2. A prediction about these referents is made such as cause/effect, if/then, actions, etc…

3. Specifications or modifications may be made such as descriptors, quantifiers, etc…

4. Grammatical encoding takes place which is the application of grammatical heuristics to the current discourse.

Grammatical encoding is a Pandora’s Box of information and we will deal with that in my next post. For now it is sufficient to understand the two overall planning procedures that occur when a speaker is first deciding what to say and how to say it. Till we meet again…

David J. Parnell | The Communication Expert