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It is advisable to be prepared for negotiation although not all negotiations
require planning. Planning prevents the situation ofbeing taken by surprise.
Analysing the destination or recipient of a communication
Reticence I Communication And Apprehension I Anxiety
Giles and Street Jr. mention research by Phillips (1968) stating that reticent
speakers hesitated more in their speech and McKinney's (1982) research that reticent
speakers did not participate effectively and were not likely to be leaders. Other research
mentioned by Giles and Street Jr. in Knapp and Miller (1985:208), is that by
McCroskey (1977) and Burgoon and Hale (1983) where high apprehensives were found
to "talk and disclose less than low apprehensives" and also "displayed greater
productivity, less intense language, more varied vocabulary, more complex language,
and less comprehensible vocalizations." Concerning verbal behaviour Jordan and
Powers" (1978) research indicated that high communication apprehensives used
"shorter words, more adjectives and adverbs, and more phrase repetitions than low
apprehensives" (Knapp and Miller 1985:208) in personal, infonnal settings whereas in
social, fonnal settings the two groups perfonned similarly.
Anxiety has also been found to influence speech tempo as Siegman's (1978)
research found that mild to moderate levels of anxiety result in people talking faster
with fewer pauses while people who are either very low or very high in anxiety talk
slower with longer pauses. Other research also found that simple and familiar tasks i.e.
those that do not require too much cognitive action, are easier to perfonn through
anxiety arousal than complex and unfamiliar tasks. Situational anxiety also led to an
increase in speech disturbances like "false starts and incomplete phrases." (Knapp and
Miller 1985:209) When one anticipates that the audience may disagree with what one
says, one may feel "cognitive stress" or anxiety also causes people to keep a distance
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