Reflection on Speech Events

Just some reflections i've had over the past week after our last lesson on Speech Events.

The NUS career fair was over last friday and being in my final semester, the need for a job after graduation never seemed more important than it does now. With tons of Human Resource staff all exalting the positives of their individual companies, a sense of eagerness filled the air as final year students all moved from booth to booth collecting as many brochures as their arms could manage (although some were spotted just flirting with the pretty HR ladies instead).

When I first entered the class last week, I was honestly lost as to the difference between speech acts and speech events. All these functional terms that sound alike do no help to assist me in my understanding. But I got them eventually. A speech act is basically a subset of a speech event, with many speech acts making up the entire speech event. Speech events are also not only governed by how we use speech but also by externalities like setting, message form and participants.

So. I've gone home and then begin to plough through the mess of brochures on my desk, seiving out the ones i like and the ones that perhaps did not suit me as well into two neat piles; after which placing the ones that were not lucky enough to get picked on the coffee table in the living room for my parents perusal. I began to read through the ones I did like and I thought to myself,

"jobs= interviews, interviews = ................................SPEECH EVENTS!"

Ah. the interview is a speech event! Thus, I began to reflect on how I could use Dr Deng's lecture to my benefit to get the dream job I desired.

Breaking down the interview into a speech event made planning more transparent and systematic.

1. Genre: Interview

2. Topic: Why I should be given the job

3. Purpose: To hire me if the interviewer found me suitable

4. Setting: Probably an office or a lunch meeting of sorts

5. Key: Formal in an office and semi-formal over lunch

6. Participants: Interviewers and me. (maybe simon cowell)

7. Message Form: Face to face interaction and writing in the form of portfolio or resumes

8. Act sequence:

a. I greet interviewer
b. Interviwer greets me and offers me a seat
c. Some informal conversation begins
d. I begin to tell him why I want the job so badly
d. Interviewer reads and inteprets verbal and non-verbal communication
e. Question and Answer
f. End of interview

9. Rules for Interaction:

a. Politeness
b. Self-confident
c. Approachable
d. Do not use negative language
e. Listen actively

10. Norms of Interpretation

a. The Interviewer's facial expressions, tone and wording determines the Interviewee's persuasion methods; if negative, changes to the method is needed.

b. Especially over a lunch interview, acceptance of any invitation during lunch with thoughtfulness is considered to be positive and well-mannered


The above is just a simple breakdown of an interview speech event but can be tailored specifically to each job interview I attend in the future. Different job scopes have different interview requirements, for example, in the sales line, a positive demeanour and confidence in speaking tone is important as opposed to an engineering job where tenacity, accuracy and reliability are true factors.

Thus, not only has this course taught me how to interact between cultures but the course content can be translated into other factors of my life as well and this is one of the best takeways a student could have; transferrable life skills.