How to understand the controllability principle of public relations language

Whether it is the overall public relations of enterprises or the art of personal public relations, the expression and application of language is very important and is an important factor related to the success or failure of public relations. Therefore, if a public relations learner wants to become a master of public relations, he must first master the basic principles of public relations language art in practical application. The basic principle of language art in public relations refers to the principle of using language in public relations practice. The language art of public relations is closely related to the practice of public relations and the principles of verbal communication. The language art of public relations is a kind of speech activity and speech act, and its fundamental task is to use natural language and body language to transmit information to a specific internal public or social public and realize two-way communication with the public. The goal of public relations language art is to pursue the ideal expression effect. In order to achieve this goal, the use of public relations language should follow the basic principles of sincerity, adaptation to context and effective communication.

principle of good faith

In public relations activities, whether apologizing or praising people, or discussing specific matters, we must first be true in content and sincere in attitude, minimize flowery rhetoric and avoid people's avoidance and suspicion.

The principle of good faith is an extremely important principle in all public relations activities and the basis for the existence of public relations. Because the relationship between the public and the public is to make the organization and the public contact and communicate on the basis of mutual understanding through communication, how can there be real understanding and communication without telling the truth and the principle of sincerity? Luis brown, an American public relations expert, pointed out: "... distorting, playing tricks and covering up the facts are the three enemies of public relations." The principle of sincerity requires public relations personnel to spread true information and tell the truth in actual operation; Need a sincere and loyal attitude. In these two aspects, the authenticity of information is the first and decisive. Because no social organization or individual can tell the public a false information with the most honest and sincere attitude. Any public who receives false information and feels cheated will not admit that the disseminator is sincere and frank. Without real information, there can be no sincere attitude. Only a sincere and open attitude can spread true information. Just like Zhuangzi's "Fisherman" said "insincere and insincere, not touching" and "the real insider is moved by the outside, so it is valuable".

The principle of good faith is also very important in business practice. 1982, seven people in Chicago, USA died of poisoning after taking Tylenol, an analgesic pill produced by Johnson & Johnson. This medicine was originally a broad-spectrum analgesic and can be bought everywhere without a doctor's prescription. Because of its good curative effect, it has a good reputation in the market and a high market share. Now there has been a major drug poisoning case in which seven people died, and the company's reputation has plummeted. The company knows that its products do not contain toxins and will not cause death. However, the spread and misleading of rumors make the situation develop in a negative direction, and the company faces unprecedented difficulties. How can we tell the truth to the public and be accepted by the public? The company employs a professional public relations company to objectively investigate and analyze, tell the truth, and seek justice for the enterprise and restore its credibility. In this incident, the public relations company first investigated the accident and found that the tablets did contain toxic ingredients outside the formula, indicating that the toxic ingredients were mixed in later, that someone deliberately poisoned them, and that it was a criminal act by people with ulterior motives. On this basis, through the news media, the investigation results of public relations companies and drug inspection departments were announced to the public, explaining the truth to the general public: how the pills were mixed with poison and which pills were poisoned in the market. In this regard, the company resolutely withdrew 32 million bottles of pills from the market, publicly destroyed these pills worth 654.38 billion US dollars, and made videos to be widely released to the society. And the company learned this lesson, improved the drug packaging, ensured that the new packaging could not be disassembled, and told the public how to identify whether it had been disassembled. The whole process repeatedly explained the truth to the public through press conferences, telephone hotlines, TV broadcasts and other media. "Sincere, stone opens the door", in less than a year, the company has restored its reputation and expanded its market share. It can be seen that in public relations practice, only telling the truth, telling the truth, can win understanding, understanding, support and trust.

The jerseys sold by Mizuno Sports Equipment Company are accompanied by the following instructions:

This kind of sweatshirt uses the best dyes in China, and the dyeing technology is the best in China. But it's a pity: colors such as sauce purple still can't fade forever …

One of the most important moral norms in business society is honesty. The people are the soil and the most direct supervisor of this morality. If an enterprise's behavior lacks the necessary integrity, it will certainly not get the support of the people. Without the approval of consumers, enterprises will die. Therefore, Mizuno's instruction finally impressed customers with sincerity, which not only brought good economic benefits, but also established a good image of the company.

In addition to honesty and trustworthiness, the principle of sincerity is also embodied in plain language. Public relations language is a practical language, which takes it as its responsibility to convey public information accurately and concisely and win public trust. Therefore, the language art pays attention to being plain and unpretentious. Plain means plain and true, without embellishment or exaggeration, and with as little rhetoric as possible, giving people a natural, cordial and unpretentious feeling. This sentence also tells us that in public relations practice, we should talk less beautiful words and use less exaggerated modifiers. Public relations activities are often public relations propaganda and a commitment to the public. In the face of public propaganda, we should act rationally as far as possible, because excessive emotional exaggeration is easy to be seen through, and it is not easy to have a good public relations effect, which is also extremely unfavorable to our own image. Simple language helps to express accurately, so in public relations practice, it is more stable and reliable to express information honestly and accurately in plain language. People who know the language art of public relations often use simple language to give people an honest face and win the trust of the public. For example, 1990, there is an advertisement for Arctic explorers:

I plan to set up an Arctic expedition, and I need to recruit a group of members ... My team's income is meager, the journey is cold and refreshing, and it is dark and dangerous day after day, which is likely to be difficult to survive ... but once the expedition is successful, you will also get great honor as compensation.

Sincere attitude and unpretentious language describe the sinister environment, the shortage of equipment and supplies, the dangers on the way, etc. But this did not scare away a real explorer, but made the public feel more authentic through plain language. On the contrary, some public relations advertisements are exaggerated, such as "world-famous", "world first", "leading the new trend in the world", "enduring" and "treating diseases with medicine", which can only make the public feel rebellious and unable to convey information. This principle is also true for individuals, and realism is extremely important in public relations activities. Only by giving people sincerity can we gain the trust of others and achieve the purpose of public relations.

Adaptation context principle

Information exchange and communication are becoming more and more important in modern society, and people communicate more and more frequently, especially in business activities. The arrangement and handling of public relations has become an important topic for companies or enterprises. In the practice of public relations, only deep emotional experience can produce better understanding and communication and affinity. In other words, contact, communication, understanding and affinity are all based on emotional communication. Emotional connection cannot be covered by treaties or regulations, but must be produced in mutual communication. Therefore, modern society needs communication activities, and public relations practice needs public relations communication. In order to ensure correct language communication, both parties must abide by the same rules of language planning and use, otherwise it will inevitably cause communication obstacles and affect the communication effect. In addition, the language environment plays an important role in ensuring the smooth progress of language communication and achieving good results.

Adapting to the context principle means that the use of public relations language must be consistent and coordinated with the specific context. Only in this way can public relations spread normally and achieve the expected good results. As far as language environment is concerned, it usually includes two aspects: narrow context usually refers to coherent language fragments in the process of language communication, and language will show unique significance in such an environment; Context in a broad sense refers to various internal and external objective situations such as identity, experience, occupation and thoughts of public relations personnel and objects, as well as various factors such as time, place and occasion of communication. The context of communicative discourse has a direct influence on the structure and meaning of the discourse, but its influence scope is limited; Communication occasion is the scene of communication atmosphere formed by communication topic and the role relationship between the two parties in a certain time and space, and communication background is the general name of the times background and cultural background. Although their influence on communication is not reflected in language and writing, it actually restricts speech expression and understanding more widely and explains the meaning of words more deeply.

1. Context's Restriction on Public Relations Language

The Warring States Policy Song Weice told an interesting story: a patriotic man married a new wife. As soon as the newlywed wife got on the bus, she asked, "Whose three horses are driving?" The driver said, "Borrowed." The new wife said to the servant, "Take care of the horses and don't whip them." The bus arrived at the door of her husband's house. While visiting her family, her new wife said to the old nurse who was with her, "Go and put out the fire in the kitchen quickly, or it will catch fire." When she entered the room and saw the stone mortar, she added, "Move it under the windowsill and put it here to hinder others from walking." Everyone in her husband's family thinks she is funny. In isolation, there is nothing wrong with the three good words said by the new wife, but why are they still ridiculed? The problem is that she didn't grasp the time and occasion of her speech, so "the article is beside the point." This story tells us from the opposite side that context restricts verbal communication.

The language environment exists objectively, and public relations personnel must follow this objective reality in the process of public relations communication. On the one hand, they should try their best to avoid and overcome the obstacles caused by their inadaptability to the language environment, on the other hand, they should consciously and flexibly explore the potential expression functions according to the language environment in order to achieve good public relations results.

For example, once a northern guest went to an embroidery shop in Shanghai to buy an embroidered quilt cover, and was attracted by the quilt cover of a pair of bald birds, but he still hesitated: the bird had a beautiful posture, but its mouth was too sharp, and it looked like a quarrel. The salesgirl noticed his idea and smiled and said to him, "This bird's hair is white, which indicates that husband and wife will grow old together in the future;" Their mouths are very long and they are whispering to each other, indicating that the husband and wife love each other. "By observing the face and color, the salesgirl accurately grasped the customer's mind and interpreted the' bird's beak' as' whispering with its mouth open' in a specific context, which made the customer full of joy and bought the quilt cover.

In addition to the flexible use of public relations language according to the situation, we should also pay attention to the principle of adapting to the objective and actual environment.

Public relations personnel should pay attention to their own status and the characteristics of their contacts when interacting with people. In public relations affairs, we should choose appropriate language expressions according to the characteristics of ourselves and our contacts. In real life, everyone is in a multi-dimensional and multi-level relationship. This relationship and status directly restrict the use of both languages. Therefore, it is hard to imagine that a company manager will copy his speech to internal employees to the negotiating table, or use a corporate public relations advertisement in his report to his boss. Such language use, regardless of time and place, does not distinguish the characteristics of the relationship between the two sides, can not achieve satisfactory results. To understand the status and characteristics of both parties in communication, we should not only know what to say and what not to say, but also choose the most appropriate expression to achieve the best communication effect.

For example, when a shop assistant introduces goods to foreign customers, he doesn't know the situation of foreign customers, but receives them in the same way as China customers, and as a result, he drives them away. The thing is, when an English guest expressed interest in a handicraft in a shop, the clerk took out the handicraft and said to the guest, "Sir, this one is good and cheaper." The customer listened to her words, dropped the goods and turned away. Why do these words drive customers away? It turned out to be "cheap". Because it is beneath the British to buy cheap goods, the deal has not been made.

Pay attention to the space-time environment of communication. The temporal and spatial factors in the context restrict the use of public relations language mainly in two aspects: First, public relations language is restricted and required by a specific era and a specific atmosphere, so it is impossible to surpass the times and must follow the current factual principles. We should adapt to the characteristics of the times in atmosphere, style, choice of language materials and means of expression. Secondly, the specific time and space factors of language communication restrict the specific choice of language expression means and the determination of the overall scale of discourse.

During World War II, the "one word" between the Dutch Prime Minister and British Prime Minister Churchill can be said to be a vivid example of the adaptation of language use to time and space factors. At that time, the Dutch mainland was occupied by the Germans, and the Dutch government in exile set its headquarters in London. When the Dutch Prime Minister met British Prime Minister Winston Churchill for the first time, he extended his hand to Churchill and said, "Goodbye!" "In this regard, Churchill said," Sir, I really hope that all political meetings are so brief and to the point. "Such an important meeting, with so little time and such a simple language, was completely determined by the specific time and space factors at that time. They condensed rich and profound contents in concise language form: this moment is the moment of actual action, not the moment of sitting and talking.

Attach importance to the grasp of social and cultural background. The influence of cultural background has a very important influence in public relations activities, especially in language communication, which is one of the basic requirements for public relations personnel to choose language materials and occasion context. Attaching importance to social and cultural background can avoid and overcome the uncoordinated and unsuitable situation with specific background, so as to realize effective language communication. In 1960s, China's Foreign Minister Chen Yi visited an Asian country. At a local public meeting, a religious elder presented a Buddha statue to Foreign Minister Chen Yi on behalf of ten thousand monks. This matter is of great significance, and if it is not handled properly, the consequences will be unimaginable. Chen Yi piously and happily held the Buddha statue in his hand and said loudly, "With the blessing of Lafayette, I am no longer afraid of imperialism." As soon as the voice fell, the audience laughed and the atmosphere was very active. The producers of * * * are materialists and don't believe in Buddhism, but this is a diplomatic occasion and it is in a Buddhist country. This social and cultural background made Foreign Minister Chen Yi decide to adopt the above-mentioned language expression, combining the two meanings of respecting the religious beliefs of his own people and not forgetting the purpose of the * * * producers, and expressing them in a humorous way, which has received good communication effects.