How Do the Following Affect Oral Communication: Culture, Religion, Age, Gender and Education?

Communication, in its most basic form, is the exchange of information between at least two people. There are many forms of communication including oral, written and sign language communication. The choice of a particular form depends to a larger extent on the audience or recipient. While oral communication is used in a homily or sermon, as the case may be, communication by sign language is used when addressing a person or persons with hearing disability. The focus of this paper will be mostly on oral communication. In our everyday life, we communicate with different people. Communication is ‘something people do with and to each other’ (Samovar, 4). This almost always has an effect, a consequence, on the audience. For instance, a speech about reducing waste may have the effect of changing people’s attitude towards the use of resources such as water, money, food, and so on. As to whether or not a message makes any impact on an audience depends to a great extent on some factors which the communicator must consider. These include culture, religion, age, gender and education. The success of one’s message on the audience depends on a careful consideration of these factors in preparing the message. These elements will be analysed in the following paragraphs. Culture can be defined simply as the general way of life of a particular people at a particular time. It comprises all the values and/or principles that have been passed on from one generation to another, in addition to the changes or particularities that are proper to each generation, making culture dynamic. Some of the cultural elements include language, food, dressing and manners. Just as a habit, once imbibed, is difficult to change, the culture of a people takes a long time to change. The reason for change must really be strong to make culture change rapidly. ‘Each culture teaches its members ways of perceiving the world and patterns for communicating with that world’ (Samovar, 14). Agreeably, cultures are different all over the globe. It is very dangerous to generalize in matters pertaining to culture. It is the duty of a communicator to look out for the differences and similarities that possibly exist among the audience so that his or her message achieve relevance. For instance, making reference to hamburger in a speech directed to an Ivorian audience is quite useless whereas this makes sense to an American audience. There is often the temptation on the part of the speaker to dwell on preconceived notions about a particular culture. This has the danger of throwing the message completely outside of context. For example, most Nigerian movies appear to portray Nigeria as a nation which values kingship. However, the Igbo society is a serious exception to this notion. Each Igbo man is a ‘king’ in his own home; communal kings are not common. A communicator who has not further researched about this aspect of the Igbo culture stands the risk of making no sense at all if he alludes a lot to kingship in his message. In addition to this, the communicator should not transfer without discernment the elements of his or her own culture onto the audience. He or she should not assume too much. However, in spite of the fact that cultures are different, there are some elements of similarity among these different cultures. The audience may share some of these similarities. They are helpful to the communicator if he or she is able to identify and use them. The extent to which he or she is able to grasp the cultural differences and similarities existing among the audience influence the success of his or her message. It is, therefore, imperative on the communicator to ‘be sensitive to culture and subculture’ (Zvaiwa). I would not be surprised if a speaker is beaten and thrown out by an Islamic audience when he or she tries to describe how delicious pork can be. Similarly, a speaker stands the risk of being lynched if he or she is overly carried away by his insistence on the existence of God in a message directed at an atheistic audience. Like culture, religion has a tremendous influence on the way people perceive the world and live in it. For many centuries, people have been influenced by their religious beliefs, serving as a kind of direction to life. Religion guides the life patterns of adherents to the extent that social and ethical issues are seen through the lenses of an individual or a group’s religion. As the religions differ, so do the beliefs and practices. For instance, whiles polygamy is acceptable in Islam and some indigenous African religions, it is unthinkable in the Christian realm. A similar situation of difference arises in matters concerning contraception and abortion. To achieve relevance, the speaker cannot ignore the importance of ascertaining the religious affiliations of the targeted audience. It is easier to deal with a single religious audience that a multi-religious one. In the case of the latter, one has to look for the points of neutrality so as not to appear as favouring one side against the other. Inasmuch as there are differences in religious beliefs and practices, there are also many similarities upon which a communicator can dwell. One would expect very minimal difference in an audience of Christians of different denominations as these come from the same source. Even in an audience containing Christians and Muslims, there are some similarities which the speaker can allude to without offending a portion of the audience. This calls for a thorough research into the religious composition of a target audience as well as the principles, belief systems and practices of these religions. This has a great effect on the acceptability of the message being communicated. I was asked to speak to a student body about relationship. Halfway through the speech I realized that most of the primary kids were sleeping. Actually, they had no idea about what it means to be in a relationship. The high school adolescents were all fully awake and obviously excited about the speech. I then concluded that the primary kids should not have been there in the first place, or, at least, separate sessions should have been had for the two departments of the school in order to achieve relevance. The story above indicates that the age of the audience matters a lot in determining the topic and the content of a message. ‘The age of the audience will also help determine their fund of knowledge and what subjects they are interested in’ (Samovar, 68). The examples which one uses in a message should be relevant to the age of the audience. An older audience is likely to connect with events which occurred a few centuries ago. There is are differences in the television channels each age group is interested in watching. Therefore, when a speaker wishes to use some examples of characters in shows or presenters, he or she should necessarily keep the age of the audience in mind. A difficulty is posed by the size of the age range of the audience. A large range of the ages of members of an audience makes life really tough for the speaker since he or she has a greater job of meeting the needs of the varied ages. This challenge is mostly experienced in churches where a mix of different ages exists. The preacher just cannot simply focus on sections of the audience and ignoring the other. Some speakers end up making ‘umbrella’ generalizations which end up influencing none of the groups. A small size of the age range, say adolescents between thirteen and sixteen years of age, is easier to deal with as is the case of students in a particular academic class. There may be a few exceptions since every old person had been a young person before. It is therefore important that the communicator know his or her audience’s age range so that he or she can determine what it is interested in and how the members can be influenced by the message. Especially in a world today where gender has become a very sensitive issue all over the globe, not sparing even the cultures which were hitherto male-dominated, a message ends up offending an audience instead of winning them over if gender is not considered in it. It is important to note that gender influences an individual’s way of thinking and looking at issues. There are times when it appears as if men and women are from different planets. Their stance on most issues can be at opposite sides. Often, arguments turn into a kind of battle between sexes. This is why a speaker cannot commit the dangerous mistake of ignoring the gender composition of his or her audience. The composition of the audience in terms of gender has to influence the selection of the subject, its development and delivery. When it comes to issues regarding family life, child care, orphans, rape and sexual harassment, one can be quite sure of the greater interest and cooperation of women than of the men. The men are generally more interested in labour and wage issues, defence, politics, technology and so on. A particular sex can be more easily persuaded on certain issues than the other. A communicator ought also to be aware of the fact that times have changes and cultural perceptions about gender roles have also changed. For instance, it is a great insult nowadays to claim that the place of the woman is the kitchen. It is the duty of the speaker to find out if the audience is going to be an all-male or all-female one; or if there is going to be a mix of the sexes, he or she must obtain the male-female ratio. The extent to which a speaker is able to balance the sex aspects of his or her message, carrying each group along and not demeaning any of these, affects his or her credibility as far as the audience is concerned. The education of an audience has a lot of influence on its understanding of the message and the possibility that it will be influenced positively or negatively by the message. The level of education matters a lot as what is relevant to university students may not be relevant to primary school kids. When a speaker knows how far the audience is in terms of education, it becomes easier for him or her to determine the topic and the kinds of examples to use in the preparation of the topic. In addition, near accurate assumptions can be made about the knowledge the audience already has about what is going to be presented. For example, it is expected that a high school student already knows something about adolescence. Even if the level of education is known, the type of education is also worth investigating. This has to do with the field of study and the specialization within the larger field. These have a great influence on the audience’s understanding of the message. The speed at which a psychologist may grasp the issue of insanity is going to be different from that of an engineer. The influences on these two different persons is also going to be different in line with the understanding. When an audience contains persons of varied levels and types of education, it is quite more difficult to handle. There is more work to be done in order to meet these varied groups of listeners. This is not the case when one is dealing with a homogenous group such as a group of university students or a class of Physics students. However, great care must be taken to avoid either underestimating or overestimating the audience’s education. It is not uncommon to find some uneducated people making strong and amazingly reasonable arguments about an issue. Some points, even if they are assumed to be already known, can still be mentioned in passing to place the audience on the same page. To conclude, speaking to an audience is not one of the easiest jobs around. While some audiences are easy to work with, others are quite tough. However, a good knowledge of the cultural, religious, age, gender and educational composition of one’s audience is of great help to dealing with it since these elements affect oral communication. BY: Forster Sallah, S.J List of Sources Ask.com. "How does culture affect communication?" n.d. 28 February 2016. . Meghan, M. "How Does Gender Affect Communication?" n.d. HubsPages. 28 February 2016. . Novinger, Tracy. "Intercultural Communication." n.d. 28 February 2016. . Samovar, Larry A. Oral Communication. 10th ed. Boston: McGraw Hill, n.d. Zvaiwa, A. Class Lecture(Notes). Oral Communication. Arrupe College, Harare. Jan-Feb 2016.