Building up Conversation (part 3)

Disposition for dialogue

The rules of dialogue do not always follow a set pattern. a dialogue is a conversation in words or gestures or any type of signs and signals. The birds, the bees and beasts, the wild animals, the natives of the jungle, the rustics and the urban people, all engage in the expression of their feelings and opinions to others of their kind. However, communicate though they must, it is not always that all kinds of people favor speech, and there are poets and writers and scientist as well as recluses and hermits for whom talking is a great strain. A person therefore must have the willingness and disposition to talk. Unless talking is voluntary and without undue influence, the dialogue that ensues cannot properly be termed as much.

Aptitude

The willingness to talk goes to form what may be called the aptitude of the person to converse. Some people, to put it very simply, enjoy talking to others. Such people are generally good conversationalists by virtue of the fact that they get more practice.

The arts of socializing and making conversation go together. From infancy, those children who are encouraged to have parties of their own and indulge in social discourse and relationships of their own turn out to be better talkers than others who have not received similar encouragement. Participation in a conversation can also be taught to children or adults like any other art, and with sufficient practice, a person develops the desired disposition to talk in any situation and on any topic.

Alertness

This is the attitude of mind that one has to develop to become a successful participant in conversation. Sharpness refers to the sharpness of mind, intellect and attention. A person has to focus his attention carefully and for long periods, if required, on the topic that he is discussing with friends or other persons. Sharpness of all kinds may be of particular help in a conversation, calling for the capacity to recollect an incident or a name at the opportune moment. The same sharpness may enable him to categories his arguments serially to win advantage over another who may not be so well trained, or he may, due to concentration on the subject, go on finding out more and more points covering all aspects of the topic under discussion, thus rendering more benefit and knowledge to those who are talking or listening to him.

Interest

With all the sharpness and mental capacity that a man may have acquired, he may yet lack the disposition to take part in conversation because the topic happens to be outside his range of interests. If a person has only limited interests and if he has not tried to diversify them, it is only natural that his conversation too will be limited. Youth is the period to develop interests because in youth the mind is pliable and can be easily turned from one subject to another according to need or necessity.

A person who has no interest in the subject under discussion will be unable to concentrate and will not be interested in taking part in it. It is not possible for a person to have no interests at all, but there certainly are degrees. One who is interested in life and people in general will be interested in, if not knowledgeable about, all that is happening around him and in the world. Such persons will have a large conversational base to dip into and will be able to communicate far more freely than those whose interests are limited.

Gardening may be an uninteresting subject to some having pets, or bird-watching but that does not mean that a person cannot remember the names of a few flowers, dogs or birds, for that matter. It is a wrong notion that one has to be absolutely thorough to be able to talk on any subject or to take part in any conversation concerning it. Sometimes a smattering of knowledge is enough for a person to talk with interest to another who may be an expert. Any person who is trained in the art of conversation will know how to take interest in subjects about which he or she may be completely in the dark.

Vivacity

When we are talking of interest on conversation, we should not fail to mention that this interest cannot be kept up if the physical capacity of the conversationalists does not permit him to sustain the strain of the conversation for any length of time. Without mental stamina, a person may find even laughter a very tiring exercise and will be as exhausted at the end of prolonged laughter as he will under any other kind of physical exertion. So along with interest a person is expected to have the backing of a sound body and mind to sustain conversation for any reasonable duration of time.

There may be persons who are of a morbid and morose disposition, and it goes without saying that such persons present a most depressing spectacle to others.

Vivacity literally means liveliness that encourages other to engage in conversation. Before a vivacious person, the others cannot remain silent for long, because the former will not allow the latter to do so. Vivacity should not, however, degenerate into boisterousness or frivolity because while vivacity encourages, boisterousness may easily put people off.

General Knowledge

Ordinarily a conversation will proceed even though the person engaged in it only talk about their own family and personal matters. There may be many persons of the fair sex who, though educated themselves, take delight in talking only about their children and their homes. In a conversation of a general nature those taking part in it will do well to have varied interests because the wider the range of their interests, the better will they be able to converse.
What the term general knowledge means and what is to be excluded from it is not easy to decide or to define. A person cannot know everything about everything, but if he keeps his interest alive, he will pick up the little tidbits of knowledge that are thrown in his way and treasure them in the in the storehouse of his knowledge.

Practical Bent

Conversing is a practical affair. Imaginative and theoretical geniuses are not always able to master this art. Firstly, they do not necessarily have themselves to be good conversationalists since whatever they say will automatically be accepted and listened to and secondly they sometimes become too abstruse, ornamental or technical in their expression. It has been invariably found by experience that the person who has the gift of tackling a situation in a particular manner is more readily appreciated by others than one who attempts to be flowery, poetic or literary in his style.

Executive training, in fact, centres round the development of this practical bent in the trainee. When he gives his ideas and opinions, he will be brief and to the point and will not beat about the bush. It may surprise quite a few to know that the doyens of business or king-pins of industries take decisions about their business or trade transactions in a matter of minutes.

Leaving aside these exceptional cases, a person with a practical bent of mind knows that to speak extra or additional words is a waste of time besides being repetitious. The moment more words than necessary are added, the progress of the conversation is slowed down and becomes incapable of reaching its logical height.

Co-existence

Every man is endowed with certain characteristics of his own and each may learn from the other. This idea of co-existence by way of tolerating others for their worth and opinions is a fine point in any conversation.
Co-existence is of particular importance for building up one’s own gift for dialogue. If one person is reserved with one another or speaks to hi not as man to man but from an elevated position expecting deference, agreement or even flattery, it cannot be said that the person is disposed to talk. If, on the other hand, he treats others with respect and civility due from one human being to another, he cannot only project his best side as a conversationalist but also draw the best out of the other person.

No man is inferior in this world. Circumstances and situation make. Orphans adopted and bought up by persons of high status have achieved their foter parents’ position in life. There was an English film in which a group of people belonging to the aristocracy on a cruise are marooned on a desert island. The gentleman in the company proves useless from every angle and the butler takes over and becomes the de facto leader. He successfully manages to procure food and sustenance for the marooned people and the whole group thrives under his leadership till another ship comes along and rescues them.

The humors of the situation lies in the fact that the ladies in the group throwing their high connections and social status to the four winds are ready and eager to bestow their favour on the butler, who, thanks to his own scruples and good sense, does not take a advantage of the situation. This may be an extreme example of inversion of an existing social order but ut is a good example all the same, and a pointer to the fact that to develop a proper attitude and disposition for any dialogue, a person should eschew his snobbery, and take all human beings on their intrinsic merits and not according to social status.

BREVITY

As is well known, brevity is the soul of wit. Short and to-the-point answers and statements are always more effective than long winded speeches. A simple no may be enough without going into whys and wherefores. If reasons are asked, these must be given but they should also follows the same patters of brevity. There are stories and incidents that a person cannot do without describing but in all such instances, words and expressions should be chosen with great care.
It should not be imagined that brevity goes against the disposition for talking.

Short speeches and expression do not necessarily mean that a person is averse to speaking. It may be that the person concerned in conversation is an eager to listen as to speak. On the other hand, brevity has been taken as one of the preconditions of good speech because unless a person restrains himself and is selectively in his speech, he may lose track of what he has been saying.