Suchergebnisse

The article is devoted to the description of the discursive and pragmatic parameters of interaction in the genre of business presentation. As a rhetorical genre of business discourse, the presentation is characterized by its own scenario of communicative behavior and aims at informing the audience about innovations (ideas, projects, brands, goods, services) and providing their commercial promotion by influencing people (potential customers) and encouraging them to take actions beneficial to the company. According to the study the model of business presentation genre includes its obligatory participants (addressees and addressers); the specific interaction between them is determined by informativity and persuasiveness of the communication. The implementation of the interaction between the addresser and addressee is carried out through specific tactics of communicative dialogization, actualized by a number of discursive and pragmatic means (general/special questions, cohesion and coherence techniques, imperatives), as well as etiquette speech acts that organize and maintain contact throughout the communication. The linguistic-and-pragmatic analysis revealed that in the business presentations under study etiquette speech acts of greeting, appeal, gratitude, farewell create polyfunctional speech units (sometimes a sequence of them) producing the illusion of interaction (pseudo-dialogue): the addresser, as an agent of communication, attracts and captures the attention of the addressees and their interest to the topic of the presentation, monitors the process of communication and provides its positive tonality. The choice of linguistic and pragmatic means is determined by the purpose of the presentation and is modelled by the intentions of the addresser.

While workplace communication is a well-established field in communication studies, empirical research based on samples of communication processes taking place in actual organisations is still scarce. Although a distinct line of research on meetings has recently emerged and established itself as "meeting science", another ubiquitous communication setting, regarding business presentations have received far less attention. In this paper, we argue that a general-purpose theory and a corresponding measuring instrument for the evaluation of the impression made by a presentation on the audience would greatly enhance our understanding of the factors that determine the efficiency of presentations. We present the theoretical framework and the indicators in such an inventory, which we have developed based on the educational literature on public speaking. The construction of this instrument also generated a set of hypotheses about how a speaker's personality traits may be related to various aspects of the impression made by the speaker.

The increasing internationalisation of business, industry, science and academia has led to greater importance being given to the ability to present ideas and concepts to an international audience, using English as the language medium. This applies to large conference gatherings but also to business presentations .
Through my somewhat unusual background as a manager from industry who later became a teacher of English as a foreign language, I have always been intrigued by the status awarded to people who can perform well in business presentations. I hold multi-disciplinary qualifications in Electrical Engineering (Diploma), Business (B.Ed. and MBA) and Applied Linguistics (MA and Post Grad. Diplomas in TEFL and TOESOL), and these have provided a unique window with which to view the business presentation and the skills needed to be successful.
The basis of the paperIt is suggested that the skills required for a successful business presentation by non-native speakers, are rooted in both linguistic and sociolinguistic aspects. These then combine with elements of cultural awareness and non-verbal signposting. Through an analysis of the speech act, speech community and speech norms, it is argued that business presentations in many large international companies contain set phrases and non-verbal signals which are similar, irrespective of the subject presented. Many of these phrases and signals are used naturally by native speakers. However, they need to be taught to non-native speakers through awareness raising and process methods.

Provides lessons to help users design and deliver creative presentations using Microsoft PowerPoint