Topic 9. Expressing Compassion

I. General

Practicum 9.1

Study the communication strategy of Expressing Compassion

Step 1	Make sure that a person really needs your compassion or sympathy
Step 2	Make roundabout, indirect inquiries about what happened
Step 3	Word your compassion, show your sympathy, offer help, or give encouragement

When practicing Expressing Compassion you may need the terms to follow

Is there anything / what is the matter?

Oh, no! I am sorry, …

You mustn’t let it get you down

What a shame!

Would you like to talk about it?

Never mind! Take it easy

Things do happen. Don’t take it too close to your heart

Iknow how it feels

Sometimes life does seem to be going from bad to worse

But it’s not the end of the world, is it?

Let it be the worst thing to have happened in your life

Is there anything I can possibly do for you?

I am sorry to hear about that

Don’t let it worry you. Be strong

What really is the problem?

It is always like this: starts with bad, gets worse, and becomes the worst

Try to look at it from another angle

Believe me, everything will be all right

Practicum 9.2

Arrange the above vocabulary in 3 groups relating to 3 steps of Expressing Compassion strategy

Step 1	Step 2	Step 3
You look so downbeat today	What is up? Is it your car again?	What bad luck. Can I do anything for you?

II. Expressing compassion Practice

Practicum 9.3

Express compassion (give encouragement) in the situations to follow

- What he said was so unfair!

- Now I do realize that we sold our country house at a great loss

- Her death was a great personal loss to me

- Professor N. gave me such a rough time at the exam!

- His blood pressure is up again. I’m so worried about him

- My parents are getting divorced

- Our project has been turned down and we’ve lost the tender

- I have missed so many classes. I won’t be able to catch up with the others

Text 9a

The text to follow deals in talking economics. Study the text and use it as a starting point for discussion

Advertising and Persuasion

No one can seriously pretend to remain unaffected by advertisements. It is impossible to turn a blind eye to the solicitous overtures to buy this or that article that fill our streets, newspapers, and magazines. Whatever its measurable effects, advertising clearly matters to advertisers, since huge sums of money are spent on advertising budgets and spending has increased tenfold over the last decade. Since advertising uses powerful images to promote its products, it incidentally promotes ‘lifestyles’. The kind of values portrayed in advertising stories and the way they are presented create the ideologies that envelop the product.

Commercials do not lie, in an obvious way. But they do offer a highly selective form of truth-telling speaking of status, style and success more than the actual features of the products which, if acquired, may appear to be solutions to our problems. In the sanctity of our livingrooms, advertisers are waiting to pounce on their helpless victims as they tune to their favorite radio or television programmes. In time, no matter how hard we resist, clever little tunes and catch-phrases seep into our subconscious (minds) and stay there. Though they seem so varied, all the commercials have one thing in common: they make strong appeals to our emotions.

Fear is the biggest weapon of all. The consumer is literally scared into spending his money when he is reminded that he may die tomorrow and leave his family unprovided for; his house may be burnt while he is away on holiday; that mysterious pain he has in the stomach (which he innocently took to be indigestion) is really the first symptom of a serious nervous disorder. The bait dangled before his nose is security and he is gripped with fear when he compares his miserable lot with that of the smiling, healthy-looking man in the advertisement, who was provident enough to do all the right things at the right time. But what if you cannot afford what is on offer and what if it fails to fulfill its promise? It is not infrequent that advertisements promote feelings of dissatisfaction, creating discontentwith here and now, and as such they have effects beyond stimulating the need to buy.

But we are not always dealt with quite so roughly. Sometimes, it is not our fears that are invoked, but our sense of comfort. Human ingenuity has devised countless machines that take the drudgery out of housework. All you need to do is press a button…Why should you freeze every winter? It’s time you had this inexpensive heating system installed. Immediately you conjure upglowing visions of yourself, drifting around the house in shirt-sleeves when it’s 20 below outside.

The softest spot of all is our vanity. No male wants to be bald before he is thirty; no female wants to lose her school-girl complexion. We are flattered andcoaxed until we almost believe that we have the makings of potential film stars, providing, of course, that we use…! Sometimes the methods employed are even more subtle. They persuade us that we are superior to other people and it is time we realized it. The funny man in the poster establishes immediate contact with us by making us feel that we belong to the select few who have a sense of humor. Austere black type and profoundly serious statements confirm what we knew allalong: that we are highly intelligent.

No amount of logical argument can convince so much as this assault on our emotions. When a crunchy, honey-filled chocolate bar stares up at you from a glossy page, or when a mythical (‘Martini’) world is offered as a superior form of existence, what else can you do but rush out and buy one? Because advertising is an art form, an art of persuasion.

 

Practicum 9.4

Translate the italicized parts of text 9a into Russian

Practicum 9.5

Practicum 9.6

Arrange the commercials’ vocabulary into the table

Advertising

Media radio

Methods jingles

Verbs persuade

Adjectives funny

 

Directories, persuade, promote, cinema, run, mailshots, place, free samples, interesting, slogans, inspiring, eye-catching, sexy, commercials, public transportation, launch, leaflet, flyer, target, informative, shocking, powerful, humorous, exhibition, billboards/hoardings, overstreet banners, word-of-mouth, radio, point-of-sale, posters, research, sponsor, endorsement, television, press, sponsorship, publicize

Practicum 9.7

Support the views to follow

-People remember advertisements not products.

-Advertising raises prices.

-Advertising promotes ‘lifestyle’, rather than products.

-Commercials do not lie, in an obvious way.

-Advertisements promote feelings of dissatisfaction with the way things are.

-Advertising is the greatest art form of the XX-XXI centuries.

III. Communication Practice

Brainstorming

-Your favorite advertisement with reasons for liking it. Exchange the views and opt for the best

-Suggest advertising principles that you find offensive / unacceptable (hints: using children in ads, using nudity, promoting alcohol, subliminal advertising when an image is flashed onto a screen very quickly so that people are affected without noticing it, etc.)

 

Role play

Practice Expressing Compassion strategy at a debriefing session with a psychoanalyst counseling his patients (in a group therapy format) on how to cope with the problems they have to face

Assume a role of: a psychoanalyst, a client of a bank that went bust, a victim of plastic surgery, the owner of an advertising firm that was taken over by a rival company, a woman who lost her dog in a car accident, a former famous film star living in obscurity now, a young girl who lost faith in men after an unsuccessful love affair.

Text 9b

The text to follow deals in talking economics issues. Study the text and use it as a starting point for communication in formal setting