Persuasion and Negotiation in English
Persuasion and Negotiation in English
 Ice Breaker
 Task: 5 minutes

Find one thing that all the people in your group
have in common (avoid obvious things like ‘we
are taking this class’ or ‘we live in the Bay
Area’).
Persuasion and Negotiation in English
Two overall goals in this class:
 to improve your spoken professional
English
 to better understand and engage in
negotiation and persuasion in English
Persuasion and Negotiation
 How are they related?
Persuasion definition
Persuasion is a form of influence. It is the process
of guiding people toward the adoption of an idea,
attitude, or action by rational and symbolic
(though not only logical) means. It is a problemsolving strategy, and relies on "appeals" rather
than force. Persuasion is meant to benefit all
parties in the end.
(Source: wikipedia.com)
Negotiation definition
Negotiation is the process whereby interested
parties resolve disputes, agree upon courses of
action, bargain for individual or collective
advantage, and/or attempt to craft outcomes which
serve their mutual interests.
(Source: wikipedia.com)
Possible contexts for
persuasion/negotiation?
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buying something at a flea market
personal decisions with family members, friends
renting an apartment
buying a house (or anything that may not have a pre-fixed
price)
salary or terms of employment
union and management
international agreements
business deals (regarding services, products)
policies or actions within an organization
legal disputes – plea bargaining, settlements outside of court
Principled Negotiation
‘Hard on problems, soft on people’
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Preparation
Thinking in terms of underlying interests rather
than declaring rigid positions
Staying open to and imagining various options
before committing to one solution
Using objective criteria as much as possible for
determining fair outcomes
Being prepared to walk away if necessary, and
know what other possibilities you have
Who gets the orange?
How far do we open the window?
Who gets the Sinai peninsula?
1978
Egyptian-Israeli
Peace Treaty
Our focus regarding negotiation:
how to use language to…
 Build honest relationships with others
 Discourage adversarial conflict and
defensiveness
 Encourage working on the negotiation as a
problem-solving effort
 Focus on interests, options, and objective
criteria
Persuasive Presentations
Persuasion : three components
 Factual issues
 Value issues
 Policy issues
Persuasion : three components
 Policy issues
 Value issues
 Factual issues
Fact / Value / Policy ?
1. Pablo Picasso paintings have been sold for
2.
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millions of dollars
Pablo Picasso was a great painter
Paying college athletes violates NCAA
ethical codes of conduct
The NCAA should ban schools who pay
athletes
Requiring anti-lock brakes is too expensive
If anti-lock brakes were standard, we could
save 5,000 lives per year
Persuasive topic example #1
 Baseball
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Fact
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Value
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Policy
Persuasive topic example #2
 Iraq war
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Fact
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Value
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Policy
Persuasive topic example #3
 Your topic here
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Fact
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Value
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Policy
Policy persuasion
 Two types
Policy persuasion
 Two types
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Passive agreement
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Immediate action
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Policy persuasion
 Two types
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Passive agreement
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You should see a baseball game sometime
.
Immediate action
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Go to a Giants game this Friday evening
.
Policy persuasion
 Two types
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Passive agreement
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You should see a baseball game sometime
Saddam Hussein should be overthrown.
Immediate action
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Go to a game this Friday
Your country should join our coalition to invade
next week. Send 25,000 troops and
$1,000,000,000.
Persuasive Speech: 1/23
Assignment Description
 Talk 4-5 minutes MAX
 Two weeks from tonight
 Persuade audience
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Policy level
Immediate Action
 Use visual aids (e-mail ppt if you use it)
 Can be a “fun” topic
 Should be a “useful” topic
Next week
 More information about persuasive
presentations
 Information about how to deliver a
presentation
 Practice delivering presentations
 No homework for next week, but you could
start preparing for your presentation on day 3.
 You will not need to bring your textbook until
day 4.