9.8 Performance levels in oral expression.
People differ as to their communicative and language skills. The two skills do not necessarily go hand in hand. Excellent communicators, who relate easily to people by eye-contact, facial expression, eloquent posture, gait and manual gestures, may have a limited range of language at their disposal. On the other hand we also know of gifted writers and linguistic acrobats who communicate awkwardly in person. They produce fluent and precise language, the contents of their speech may be intelligible and intelligent, still they may communicate poorly. Shunning eye-contact, their gaze turned inward or to the walls and the ceiling, they make no effort to register the effect of their words, nor do they make it easy for their listener to stay interested or to respond. Where and when do such differences arise? Shyness or lack of empathy may be inherited traits or be bred by bad role models.
Speech difficulties and deficiencies, known under the name "cluttering", may have a hereditary base. It would make it easier if there were a clear boundary between clutterers and normal speakers. We run into some difficulties here. A mentally and physically normal individual is born with the possibility for verbal communication with his fellow-men. Some are highly gifted in this respect, others less so. The gift can be developed by application and practice. Very few people have taken the trouble to achieve more than a tiny portion of their potential capacities in the use of voice, pronunciation, verbal and non-verbal means of expression. The Map number 9.8.1 shows the gradations, from very poor performance, to performing at the artistic level.