Definition of oral communication, meaning and its importance

Think of the last time you called a friend instead of texting because the text “wasn’t coming out right”. You picked the voice because it could carry warmth, urgency and a quick “wait, what do you mean?” that a message cannot. A lawyer makes that same choice many times a day: in court, in a client’s living room, across a negotiation table. This topic asks what oral communication actually is, and why a profession built on argument cannot do without it.

In two minutes

Oral communication is the exchange of ideas, facts and feelings through the spoken word, face to face or through a medium such as a phone or video call, and it matters because it is immediate, two-way, personal and persuasive in a way writing is not.

The rest of this chapter

The full explanation, the cheat sheet, every previous-year question at every mark weight, the quiz and the answer skeletons are part of English – I on LexBlox Semester. Sign in to unlock the subject, or read Module 1 of Legal Language and Writing free.