Ventriloquizing In Communication

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Have you ever encountered a situation when you needed to convey a message to your audience through the adaptation of an indirect approach to communication? Indirect approaches are deemed as necessary when the subjects involve family members, relatives or loved ones. Furthermore, topics of discussion could comprise of highly sensitive, subjective or critical information whereby direct communication may lead to conflicts, misunderstanding or even strain the relationship between people.

Obliviously for many, effects of “framing a discourse” could be done through non – verbal medium, such as babies, puppies or pets. At times, people may even discharge their intentions through different medium unconsciously without prior planning. This method is known as “ventriloquizing”, in which one party attempts to convey meanings of a message to another party, through a non-speaking third party by animating another’s voice i.e. “baby talk”. Ventriloquizing technique is utilized at times to achieve certain objectives such as (1) Provision of justification or explanation (2) emphasis on the lessons learnt (3) indirect criticism or praising (4) drawing attention from the receiver and others. Whatever the objectives, ventriloquizing makes good use of humour and teasing to “sugar-coat” the messages, removing the element of hostility perceived. Before I proceed further to elaborate on samples of ventriloquizing, I would like readers to have a clear mind on the concept of “framing” and “meta-information”.

Framing and Meta-Information
In a conversation, we can’t simply apply the words based on the meanings explained in dictionaries, it is important to consider the context in which these words are being used. No doubt, we could interpret...

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...terance of reprimanding her. By directly communicating to his wife may result in a more hostile outcome which has been avoided through clever use of “baby talk” which imitates his pet dog to mediate the situation (through a pet). Furthermore, Elvis used the plural form of “us” to highlight his indirectness in conveying the message to Brenda. In a way, Elvis was trying to criticize his wife for the failure to prepare dinner knowing he would be returning home soon. Readers would have taken notice that in this example, Brenda understood the intention and respondedaccordingly. Hence, Elvis’s strategy for an indirect proposition for response was successful. Knowing that the pet dog is being treated as an integral part of the family by his wife, he reinforced the social communications by using it as a non-verbal resource to seek for the wife’s emotions and affections.

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