Define the conversation vs other speech events?

A conversation is communication by two or more people, or by one's self. Conversations are the ideal form of communication in some respects, since they allow people with different views on a topic to learn from each other. A speech, on the other hand, is an oral presentation by one person directed at a group.

Those engaging in conversation naturally relate the other speaker's statements to themselves, and insert themselves (or some degree of relation to themselves, ranging from the replier's opinions or points to actual stories about themselves) into their replies. For a successful conversation, the partners must achieve a workable balance of contributions. A successful conversation includes mutually interesting connections between the speakers or things that the speakers know. For this to happen, those engaging in conversation must find a topic on which they both can relate to in some sense.

other speech

There are four types of conversations. Discussion is the most familiar and pragmatic; dialogue is also pragmatic but less common. Dialectic and design are more disciplined orientations.

Dialectic conversation focuses on framing a logical argument for distilling the truth. It is a scientific approach, a disciplined inquiry into whatever is being examined. In dialectic conversation, participants are often rigid in their beliefs and debate for what they perceive as truths. The nature of the dialectic conversation is one of debate and logical argument within a context of limited negotiations for change. This often results in factionalization or breaking apart of individuals into different camps.

Regarding school change, participants often see their truths as the only truths, and subsequently see any attempt at school change as a personal attack on their understanding of the school world.

Discussion conversation is the forum in which many of us advocate for our own individual position. Unlike the logical argument expressed by a dialectic, discussion is more subjectively influenced by opinion and supposition. Discussion conversations are transactional in nature, one participant negotiating with others with the advocacy and preservation of personal assumptions as the center of the discourse. Incoherence in thinking is brought on and reinforced by the advocacy or preservation of personal opinions and rigid mindsets, especially when ungrounded suppositions enter the discourse and participants are unwilling to disclose their beliefs or suspend their judgments of others' points of view. This results in a breakdown in communication.

Regarding school change, most discussive conversation has been about specific change in issues in schools and not within the change process itself.

Dialogue conversation is a conversation where meaning is constructed through sharing. It is a community-building form of conversation. Its purpose is to create a setting where conscious collective mindfulness can be maintained. This form of discourse transforms the individual thinking and thought processes, creating collective thought. It requires that individuals first examine their personal assumptions or opinions and then suspend these assumptions before the entire group. They must step out of their advocacy for personally held assumptions as well as those of others. This type of conversation recognizes variously held common experiences.

Regarding school change, in a school setting this begins with unconcealing the hidden assumptions or opinions and suppositions which guide the interactions among individuals. It then moves to examining the diverse views of meaning held for educational change. Finally, participants suspend their individual thinking and begin to share collectively, thus creating commonly shared meanings for educational change or constructing a shared purpose.

Design conversation focuses on creating something new. Dialogues help the design participants create collective consciousness as well as clear the minds of distorting or conflicting assumptions that lead to incoherence of thinking. Through creating coherence of thinking, a community evolves wherein collective thought is possible and the creative consciousness may emerge to focus outside the constraints of old mindsets on the process of designing a new educational system. Design conversation goes beyond the suspension of personal opinions and moves into a suspension of mindsets themselves.

Regarding school change, design conversation is rare in school settings because school practitioners and change agents typically engage in conversations focused on solutions to problems within the existing system, rather than engaging in dialogue through which they can begin to create a design space together. Whereas dialogue transforms collections of individuals into a community of action, design conversation focuses on a change that transcends both systemic constraints within the school and the constraints of a narrow, traditional view of how change should happen.