Adapt your conversational style to your listener(s). One style does not fit all.

 

Some conversers struggle with this requirement and need to learn how to adapt.

 

For example:

 

When talking to small children, it's often best to kneel down to see eye to eye, then to talk in a simpler language without big grown-up words. When talking to hearing-impaired elders, you must talk more loudly and clearly. When talking adult to adult, it's wise to show interest in the other's concerns, not just show your own. When men talk to women or women to men, they can make small adjustments for better rapport and understanding.

 

G.B. Shaw once said that he spoke "English" in three different languages: he uses one for writing his plays, he uses the other when arranging official functions of life, and he uses the third with his intimate friends; these three languages are quite dissimilar to each other.

 

A language has not only regional dialects, but it also has "genderlects" and dialects suited to particular professions or cultural groups. In my life, I have worked on the Great Lakes ore boats, have served in the U.S. Army, have done construction work among roughnecks building an oil pipeline, and have interacted with "locals" in Hawaii who spoke pidgin, the Hawaiian creole language. When I made adjustments, I had better rapport and understanding.  

 

To adapt means "to make or become fit (as for a specific or new use or situation) often by modification."

 

It is not required that we mimic the styles of other speakers, but only that we adjust to their way of talking, perhaps by slowing down our rate of speech, learning some of the vocabulary they use (as with physicians and attorneys), or giving more "think-time" to introverts before we continue. Sometimes, if we are able, it's best to talk in the first language of the other, as I do when a Latino worker landscapes my yard.

 

Until next week,

 

Loren