More About the What of Communiction: Topic Facual and Topic Orienting

A major premise behind SAVI is that all verbal statements are made up of two elements:  person and topic (see previous blog entry).  As a quick review, let's look at the following two examples.  Determining which statement is more heavily 'person' oriented and which more heavily 'topic' oriented is rather intuitive.

Example 1:  SAVI stands for System for Analyzing Verbal Interaction.

Example 2:  I use SAVI at work every day

The first example is 'topic' dominated.  The only 'person' element associated with the statement is introduced by the speaker's tone of voice.  For example, I can deliver the statement with a tone of voice that is calm as I answer a question from a colleague who has never before heard of SAVI, or I can use a tone of voice that is irritated and condescending as I once more clarify the term with a colleague who has asked me the same question five times in the last hour!

The second example is 'person' dominated because it allows the listener to understand personal information about the speaker.  There are, of course, 'topic' elements associated with this statement, such as SAVI, work, day; however, the overall orientation is more heavily 'person' than 'topic'.  Tone of voice is also an important 'person' element as well, which only increases the 'person' orientation of the statement as a whole.

But what about the following example:

Example 3:  SAVI is a wonderful communication tool that is very helpful during meetings.

According to SAVI analysis, 'topic' and 'person' elements in the above statement are represented in relatively equal amounts.  The listener finds out that SAVI is a communication tool that can be used during meetings (topic), and the listener also learns that the speaker thinks SAVI is wonderful and helpful (person). 

SAVI identifies verbal statements as belonging to one of three person/topic orientations.  Personal statements allow the listener to learn about the speaker's identity.  Topic: Factual statements focus primarily on the topic under consideration.  Topic:  Orienting statements focus on the topic, yet introduce the speaker's personal orientation regarding the topic.  You can say that 'orientating' statements are 'topic' statements with a personal push.

See if you can identify which of the following three statements represent which of the three person/topic orientations:

A:  My favorite book is The Grapes of Wrath.

B:  Steinbeck wrote it during the second half of the 1930s during the Great Depression.

C:  It has just as powerful an impact today as it did when it was first published. 

• Below is an example of how the person/topic elements are represented on the SAVI grid.  The answers to the above three statements are found after.

A:  person
B:  topic:  factual
C:  topic:  orienting
(Remember that tone of voice introduces a 'person' element to all statements)