About the Book

“….Empowering communication Skills provides ample authoritative models from stellar Anglophone writers and cleverly conceived exercises that should help dedicated students improve their communicative competence. This is a book that will be useful not only to Indian students and professionals but also to their counterparts in the Kachruvian ‘outer Circle’ of English speakers, especially those who do not speak this foremost world lingua franca natively”. Prof. Salikoko S. Mufwene, University of Chicago

The book, written to meet the requirements of professional courses on communication skills and to get an edge in preparation for various competitive examinations and interviews, will surely empower its users with oral and written communication skills. Prof. Omkar Nath Koul, Formerly at the L B S Academy of Administration, Mussoorie

“….Empowering Communication Skills, grounded in a solid knowledge of the nature and structure of language in general and that of English in particular, without any doubt, helps in communicating effectively. It is built on examples of real life, conversational duels, interviews, aspects of grammatical cohesion and idea-level coherence in spoken and written texts….” Prof. Rama Kant Agnihotri (Retired), University of Delhi

This book focuses on various types of oral and written communication. It analyzes real examples with a view to finding realistic solutions and guidelines. It also highlights problem-areas in Indian English to make it internationally acceptable.  This user-friendly book may prove useful to all — students, researchers, trainers, professionals and the common readers.

About Author

Anjani Kumar Sinha (Ph.D. from University of Chicago), a former Professor and Head, Department of Linguistics, University of Delhi, taught at the University of Patna, Taiz and Sana’a (Yemen), University of Chicago, Michigan (Ann Arbor) and Osmania University, Hyderabad and University of Delhi. He has also been a Visiting Professor at the University of Hyderabad, NEHU (Shillong), Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu (Nepal), Aligarh Muslim University and Baroda University. Widely travelled, Prof. Sinha has contributed more than fifty research articles and written three books. 

Contents

Preface

List of Tables

Introduction

 I. To Speak or Not to Speak 3

When Silence Communicates; Pause and Hesitation; Body Language; Culture-bound Gestures  

 II. Conversation: A Verbal Duel 9

Conversational Cues; Conversation Start; Turn Taking (AB, AB); Hedging; Diversionary Tactics; Vague Statement; Hedging Devices; Listener’s role; Cooperative Principles; Violation of the Maxims; Presupposition and Implication; Conversational Norms

 III. Interview: A Calculated Verbal Duel

Formal Conversation; Interview by a Media Reporter; News Conference; Cross-Examination; Job Interviews: How to Approach Them; Samples of Mock Interviews (For Civil Services)

 IV. Telecommunication and Electronic Media Skills

Conversation on Telephone; Telephone vs. Face to Face Conversation; Interview on Telephone; Mobile Phones; Television Interviewing; Video Conferencing

 V. The Persuasive Presentation

Types of Presentation; Analysis of a Presentation; Question and Answers Sessions

 VI. Speaking for Result (How to be Interesting and Intelligible)

Speech and Lecture; Guidelines: Outlining and Preparing a Speech; Types of Speech

 VII. Role of Politeness in Effective Communication

Politeness in Language Use; Power and Solidarity between the interlocutors; Politeness in Telecommunication; Intercultural Communication in Contemporary India

 VIII. Speaking Intelligible Indian English

The Significance of Intelligibility in Indian Context; The Sound System of Indian English (IE); Stress; Spelling and Pronunciation; Intonation; The Predictability of English Pronunciation

 IX. How do Sentences Grow?

Generating Sentences; Essential Arguments; Additional Arguments; Complements; Parallelism; Generating Sentences with Expansion; Deletion; Coordinate Conjuncts; Expansion of a Verb Phrase; Expanding  the Noun Phrase; Complex Sentences; Tensed and Tenseless Clauses; Participial Clauses; Inversion for Focus; Need for a Proper Word-Order; Dangling Modifiers; Pronominal Cohesion

 X. How to Develop a Coherent Paragraph

Common and Coherant Theme in Paragraph; Structure of a Paragraph; Paragraph with no built-in Order

 XI. Précis Writing

Goal of Précis Writing; Précis: Dos and Don’ts; Guidelines; Procedure for Précis-writing

 XII. Comprehension, Summarising and Reporting

Comprehending Oral Communication; Comprehension of Written Materials; Summarising and Note-Taking

 XIII. Arranging Paragraphs in an Essay

Link between Paragraphs; Structure of an Essay; The Narrative Essay; The Descriptive Essay; The Expository Essay; Length of an Opening Paragraph; Some Essential Strategies; The Argumentative Essay

 XIV. Writing a Research Paper/Thesis

The Orientation of Research; Theoretical Paradigm; Choosing the Topic of Research; Writing a Thesis Proposal; Defending the Proposal; Collecting Material; Drafting and Revising One’s Own Writings; Formatting the Final Draft

 XV. Communicating through E-mail

E-mail; Functions and Advantages over Telephone; Advantage over Letters; Structure of an E-mail; Variation in Style; The Main Body; Abbreviation; Graphology; Emoticons / Smileys; Internet Neologism

 XVI. Connecting Prefixes and Suffixes to Words

Use of Prefixes and Suffix to increase one’s vocabulary; Prefixes: The Drivers of Words; Negative Drivers which Reverse the Route; Antonyms; Prefixes Indicating Before, After and Beyond; Over-/Under as Antonyms; In, Out and In-between; Around and Again; Prefixes that Indicate Size; Prefixes that Indicate Number; Hidden, New and Incidental; Prefixes Denoting Rank; Auto- or Self-; Scientific and Technical Terms that are Attached like Prefixes; Prefixes that Change the Grammatical Category of Words; Suffixes that Shape the Word; Formation of Nouns; Formation of Adjectives; Formation of Verbs; Formation of Adverbs; Compound Word Formation; Reduplication; Blend/Brunch/Portmanteau Words

 XVII. Reiterating the Old and Discovering the New

Some Foreign Phrases and Expressions in English; Some Indian Words in English; Some Modern Slangs; Invention of New Words

  Phrasal Verbs

Phrasal Verbs in Colloquial English; Criterion to Define a Phrasal Verb; Characteristics of Phrasal Verbs; Some Frequently Used Phrasal Verbs

 XIX. The Network of Words: Friends and Enemies

Synonyms: Similar Concepts; Synonymy: Friendly Communities of Words

(With Subtle Differences); A Family of Say Type Verbs in Use; Nouns; Adjectives; Adverbs; Antonyms: Words of the Enemy Camp; Antonyms; Morphologically unrelated Pair of  Antonyms; Verbs of Converse Relation

 XX. Revisiting Aspects of Grammar

Sentence Fragments; Run-on Sentences; Agreement; Structure of an NP; Some Common Errors in Indian English; Quantifier as Head of an NP; Compound Subjects; Nature of Conjoining; Agreement between a Pronoun and its Antecedent; Ambiguous Reference of Pronoun; Tense and Tense-Sequence; Simple Past vs. Present Perfect; Future Tense in Conditional Clauses; Past Tense in Conditional Clauses; The Subjunctive Mood; Present and Past Infinitives; Sequence of Tense; Word Order; Word-Order in Questions; Word-Order in Reported Speech; Exclamatory Sentences; Some Problem Areas in Indian English

 XXI. Punctuating for Clarity

Punctuation Marks; Comma; Use of Semicolons; Use of Colons; Use of Dashes; Use of Parenthesis (i.e. a pair of round brackets); Brackets; Period (Full Stop); Note of Exclamation Mark; Use of Question Mark; Use of Ellipsis Dots; Use of Inverted Commas; Use of an Apostrophe; Use of a Hyphen; Use of Capital Letter; Use of Italics

 References

Key to Exercises

Acknowledgements

Index  

Additional Info.