How a person speaks plays a critical role in how they are perceived. Your speech patterns, pronunciation, vocabulary, and manner of speaking give off conscious and subconscious signals to those around you. These signals can affect how people interact with you, their expectations of you, and whether they will consider you for a job.
Why Is It Important to Speak Formally?
It is important to speak correctly and formally to present yourself as someone who offers respect and deserves it in return. Additionally, formal speech establishes credibility, trustworthiness, and confidence.
When considering how you speak, you should think about it from two sides. What does formal and proper speech say about you, and what does low-quality speech indicate to others?
A Study on Speech and Its Effect on Social Mobility
Michael Kraus studied the effects of speech on how people are perceived at job interviews. His study “Evidence for the Reproduction of Social Class in Brief Speech” shows the negative impacts of low-quality speech on a person’s ability to move up in class. He performed multiple studies in which he had potential employers review written and spoken responses to interview questions. When the person answering the interview question spoke with lower-quality speech, they were perceived as a lower-quality candidate for the job.
The quote below explains how speaking poorly can prevent someone from moving up in social and economic class by limiting their ability to get higher-paying employment.
“We find that Americans can perceive the social class of targets based on exposure to brief speech patterns, that word pronunciation facilitates this perceptual process, and that these cues bias hiring decisions in favor of those higher versus lower in social class. The findings suggest that social interaction patterns related to the perception of brief speech are potentially causal in the maintenance of economic inequality.”
The study results show that we can guess an individual’s social class based on how they speak. When a potential employer thinks you are of a higher social class, they are more likely to hire you for a job; when they think you are lower class, they are less likely to hire you. The goal of this study was to see the effects how one speaks has on one’s ability to move up in social class. Speaking well can clearly have a positive impact on your life. Speaking poorly can cause negative results and hold you back in life.
How I See Low-Quality Informal Speech
I was inspired to write this post by two phone calls I had in the past two days. In both of these calls, the people I spoke with used surprisingly casual speech with me.
The first was a potential client that called my office. He referred to me as “bro” when speaking to me. I am an architect. I think “bro” is too informal for someone calling my office looking for an architect. When I heard him speak, I immediately felt the call would be a waste of time and that his project would be too small for us even before he gave me the details. As it turned out, I was right. The job was too small for us and too low of a budget for me. It was very easy to predict that result by the way he spoke. It was not just that he called me “bro.” It was the entire way he spoke throughout the conversation. It got me looking at him with low expectations, which were proven right by the end of the call.
The second example was when I called a hotel to discuss a booking. The person answering the phone and helping me called me “man.” As in, “Hey man, I’ll check into that.” This hotel was not cheap. I was very surprised by the way he spoke. That informality level is inappropriate for speaking with a guest at a nice hotel. If I were the hotel manager, I would ensure my staff used formal language when talking to guests.
My employees at my office most certainly speak to our clients with formal speech. I would never hire someone who calls my clients “bro” or “man” because it will reflect poorly on my office and our service.
The gentleman that answered the phone and called me “man” will never become manger of that hotel. He will be stuck answering the phone on the night shift. Upward mobility will only be an option for him if he learns to speak properly.
The Positive Impacts on Speaking Formally
How a person looks, speaks, and acts signals what type of person they are to those they meet. In just a few moments of speaking with someone, we can establish an opinion of them based on our first impression. If you speak formally, you present yourself differently than when you speak poorly or casually. If you are in a professional setting and use more formal speech, you show others that you take the situation seriously. Addressing others in a formal manner shows respect. When people feel you take them seriously, they will take you seriously. When people think you deserve respect, they will respect you.
The Negative Impact of Not Speaking Formally
When a person speaks too informally or uses poor-quality speech, they make a low-quality impression. They will be perceived as less educated and associated with inferior traits. The way an employee speaks reflects on the integrity of the company. Why would someone hire a candidate who lacks basic communication skills when there are so many people who speak very well and are equally qualified for the position?
You Do Not Need a College Degree to Speak Well
I am concerned that people who read this will respond to my statements by saying, “But I didn’t go to college.” It does not matter if you went to college or not. You can still speak well.
I have a very good friend who is incredibly articulate, and he dropped out of high school. Just because you do not have formal education does not mean you can not learn to speak correctly. I learned to speak properly as a small child, not in college.
Formal Speech Makes You Look Good
Speaking properly and appropriately will make you look good. You will appear more confident, intelligent, and trustworthy. Speaking poorly will give a negative impression, making you look less intelligent and lower in social status. If you want to move up socially, you need to act like you deserve to be there.
