PSYCHOLINGUISTIC PECULIARITIES OF MODELLING EFFECTIVE BUSINESS ENGLISH PRESENTATION WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF SPEECH ACTIVITY THEORY

Abstract

The article considers business English presentation as a form of speech activity from the point of view of Communicative Linguistics. It is viewed as a means of interaction between an addressor and addressee. The psycholinguistic peculiarities of its successful modeling as an instrument of impact and persuasion are analyzed. The author considers these peculiarities by outlining the key notion of activity, since activity, being a unit of measurement, is regarded to be a synthesis of all processes in which a person is engaged, in particular with reference to their speech activity. Activity is defined as series of sequential actions in which each action has its own objective, which in turn are subordinated to one common goal of the entire activity. It is noted that speech activity interweaves any kind of mental activity. Therefore, all psycholinguistic events are to be analyzed through the prism of the “activity frame”. Prominent scholars, psychologists, psycholinguists, who are at the foundation of the theory of speech activity, define it as a dynamic system in the state of permanent transformations. The structure of the language activity as well as of any other activity comprises the following main components: a motive, an objective, an action and an operation. According to the given structure, the first major factor of any successful business presentation is a motive, which presupposes a number of specific actions. The second stage is the outlining of an objective which contributes to a meaningful visualization of its outcome. This article views business English presentation as an effective tool of persuasion. Moreover, the author presents an idea that establishing any principal objective means not what an addresser is about to inform but what outcome is to be achieved. While focusing on the next stage of the scheme, an action which serves as a conscious implementation of any principal objective, it is necessary to specify the preparation of the structural parts of the presentation and development of its speech framework. A signifi cant psychological aspect of retaining three focuses of attention: on a speech, on the addressee and on the addresser’s behavior are introduced extensively.