Spoken business communication

Spoken discourse is unplanned and spontaneous (written text are planned).
There is a shared context (references to the immediate situation). Language is more simple, speakers have little thinking-time.

Spoken business communication is very important because TALK is central to doing business and business conversation play an important role in both the performance and orginization of corporate activities.

There are two important spoken business genres: meeting and negotiations.

MEETINGS play an important role in almost every organization and a great deal of time is spent in meetings. Meeting are important in organizing structure and action, time and space. A research carried out by the Victoria University of Wellington show that meetings are important in the decision-making and problem-solving process of organizations.
A problem-solving oriented meeting has three phases: an opening section, an exploratory phase and a resolution section. In the opening section the problem is defined, then the main issue is developed and in the end, in the resolution section, decisions are summarized. There are two approaches of holdind meetings: linear or cyclical. The linear approach consists in proceeding logically through the various points so all topics are covered; on the contrary, the spiral or cyclical approach consists in considering the main issue from different perspectives, touching the various points several times. In meeting the Chair, a more senior person in the company, has some tasks, such as opening the meeting, keeping track of the progress of the meeting and negotiating consensus.

NEGOTIATIONS are important in business and language play an important role in negotiations. A negotiation is about trying to reach a satisfactory agreement in a situation where two people or two parties have different but also some shared goals. Sales negotiations, where buyer and seller discuss about price and conditions for the purchase of a product, are usually carefully prepared and may last hours or even days. A negotiation may be divided in four phases: exchanging information, bidding, bargaining, settling and concluding.