Introduction to Communication

Nature of Communication

Communication is an integral part of our lives. It is a complicated process of give and take
with many dimensions. It not only needs a language but also an attitude, willingness to give
and take, open up to others and accepts others, capacity to look at situations from varied
perspectives. It is the exchange of information between two people for any communication
to take place we need both the sender and receiver. Communication is reciprocal.

The following are the natures of Communication:

1. It is dynamic and on going

2. It is behavioural interaction.

3. It is receiver’s phenomenon

4. It elicits responses

5. It is complex

Process of Communication

For any communication to take place, a sender and a receiver are needed.

1. The sender encodes a message.

2. He sends the message through a proper channel.

3. The receiver receives the message.

4. He decodes it

5. He elicits response

6. The response is again encoded in the form of feedback.

7. The receiver sends the feedback through a proper channel.

8. The feedback is then decoded by the sender.

 In this process any kind of interruption that occurs is termed as “noise”. Talking, posting the
message on a notice board, and writing letters or e-mails act as channels of communication.
If the receiver, decodes the exact message encoded by the sender the communication
becomes successful.

Sender Channel Receiver

Message Message decoded
Message
encoded

Noise

Channel Feedback
Feedback decoded Feedback encoded

Intrapersonal Communication

The Communication that takes place within a single person for the purpose of clarifying ideas
or analysing a situation to reflect upon or appreciate something is called Intrapersonal
Communication.

There are three aspects of Intrapersonal Communication.

a. Self-concept

b. Perception

c. Exception

A. Self-Concept:

Self-Concept is also called as Self-awareness. It is the basis for intra personal

communication as it determines how he/she is oriented towards others.

Self-Concept involves three factors:

 (i) Beliefs

(ii) Values

(iii) Attitudes

(i) Beliefs:

Beliefs are basic personal orientation towards what is true or false, good or bad.

Eg: Considering corruption as unethical.

(ii) Values:

Values are deep-seated orientations and ideals, generally based on and consistent with
beliefs, about right and wrong ideas and actions.

Eg: A person who believes that corruption is unethical will have a value that he will neither
give nor take bribes.

(iii) Attitudes:

Attitudes are learned predisposition towards or against a topic, ideals that stem from
and are consistent with values. Attitudes are often global and typically emotional.

Eg: Considering lawyers as liars and politicians as cheaters.

Other things that affect self-concept are personal attributes, talents, social role, birth order.

B. Perception:

Perception is the outward focus of a person rooted in beliefs, values and attitudes. Eg.
Xenophobia is an Indian Perception.

C. Expectations:

Expectations are future oriented messages dealing with long-term roles and are
sometimes called as life-scripts. They are the projections of learned relationships within the
family or society.

The different levels of Intra personal Communication are

(1) Internal discourse: Internal discourse involves thinking, conception and analysis.
Daydreaming, nocturnal dreaming, prayer, contemplation and meditation belong to this
category.

(2) Solo vocal Communication: Solo vocal Communication includes speaking aloud to
oneself. This is done to clarify our thoughts, rehearse a message intended for others or to let
off steam.

Eg: Talking to yourself as you complain about your boss.

(3) Solo written Communication: Solo written Communication deals with writing not
intended for others.

Eg; An entry in a diary or personal journal.

Interpersonal Communication

It is the Communication that takes place between two or more people. It is of different types
like Dyadic Communication, Group Communication, Direct Inter personal Communication,
Medicated Inter personal Communication and Mass Communication.

Interpersonal communication is divided into five levels depending on the nature, scope ad
depth of interaction. These are:

1. Passing Communication: This is the first level of communication which refers to

daily niceties or phatic communicational patterns like “hello”, “good morning” and
“good night”. The purpose here is to acknowledge the person’s presence. Hence
detailed response is neither expected nor given.
2. Factual Communication: It is the second level of communication where mere
exchange of facts takes place without any emotional risk. Examples of this kind of
communication are giving instructions, evaluating, passing information and so on.
3. Thoughts and ideas: This is the third and higher level of communication which
includes exchange of ideas. It has the possibility of rejections and hence the risk is
much when compared to the first two levels.
4. Feelings: This is the fourth level of communication which involves exchange of
sentiments and feelings. As the sender is vulnerable to rejection there is a higher
degree of risk.
 5. Peak Communication: This is the highest degree of communication which ensures
perfect understanding between two individuals or a group of people. This is the most
difficult level to achieve as it needs creativity and synchronised work culture.

Communication is a dynamic and collaborative process. But there are some barriers that slow
down the process or hinder the process. They are:
1. Physical
2. Semantic
3. Organizational
4. Psychological

Physical Barriers

The major environmental / physical barriers are Time, Place, Space, Climate and Noise.
Some of them are easy to alter whereas, some may prove to be tough obstacles in the
process of effective communication. These factors may just cause distraction leading to
inattentiveness or totally alter the message, causing miscommunication.
Time: Time has an important role in a communication process. Do we not often hear
expressions such as “timely caution”, “timely advice?”. These expressions indicate the
role of time as a factor in communication. An organization that expects quick results
cannot afford to be slack in its channels of communication. The time lag between
countries in Europe / America and Asia has to be overcome by the adoption of modern
and fast communication channels. Quickness of communication is the watchword in the
modern world of communication.
Every concern has to choose a fast channel of communication with good alternatives. You
have to choose a face-to-face oral communication channel to give instructions to a
worker, a public address system to reach a large member of people scattered over a large
area, a visual signal in crowd management and a courier system to reach clientele spread
over and at distance and so on. Railway Authorities and Airline authorities have computer
programmed voice announcements on arrivals and departures which get constantly
updated. Modern banking through voice recording systems is available today. All these
developments emphasise the importance of ‘time’ in a communication exercise.
Immediacy of the objective usually determines the choice of the medium. In modern
times, time consuming slow channels of communication are getting replaced by effective
fast channels of communication.
Space: Space plays an important role in an oral communication situation. It can act as a
barrier to communication or act as an aid promoting good communication. Experts
classify an oral communication situation on the basis of the distance maintained between
sender and receiver as Intimate, Personal, Official and Public.
Intimate: If the distance between the two, the encoder (sender) and decoder (receiver) is
less than a foot and a half (18 inches), the situation is labelled intimate. The mother
coddling the baby, the father and the son, or husband and wife in a familial / private
situation communicate at an intimate level of space.
Personal: Friends and peer groups who are in a process of communication maintain a
distance of about two to three feet which is personal.
Official: In official situation, the space should be at least four to five feet depending on
the message or information.
Public: The distance between the speaker (the encoder) and the listeners (decoder, in this
context an audience) should be over ten feet, in a public situation.

Any reduction of this minimum space parameters will lead to awkward and embarrassing
situations. Generally, Americans and Europeans do not want violation of their personal
space. They refer to their personal body space as the ‘body-bubble’ which they do not
want to be violated by unwanted intrusions. Asians and people from the Middle East do
not attribute importance to space. Space can act as barrier in a cross cultural or trans-
national oral communication situation. Over crowding in elevators, jostling in office
corridors and elbowing in public transport systems are all external factors that do affect
communication as barriers. Proper maintenance of distance will help overcome this
carrier. It will remove miscommunication and prevent distortion of a message or
information.

Place: The place or the location where a communication process takes place can
degenerate into a barrier to effective communication. A simple comparison of the
surroundings in a Government / Municipal office and the ambience provided in a
multinational company will show how place and surroundings play an important role in
effective communication. Inconvenient place, rickety furniture, poor lighting, inadequacy
of space are all factors that make people irritable / impatient and annoyed. Friction and
conflict erupt easily in such places which mar the transaction of any business, leave alone
business communication. Even though it is part of office management, its impact on the
communication process as a barrier is inevitable. Good ambience and suitably lighted and
ventilated places promote effective communication.
Climate: “The talks were held in a cordial atmosphere and in a proper climate” say the
newspapers. Though the word climate refers to the human relations prevailing there, it is
no exaggeration to say that the actual room temperature helps people to keep their heads
cool! Unfavorable climate can act as a barrier to communication leading to wrong
perceptions or decision.
Noise: Noise is a physical barrier to effective communication. Noise may have its origin
from an external source or may exist even in the communication loop. You do not achieve
effective communication by merely shouting. Effective communication is almost
impossible on the factory floor, the bus stand or railway station. No one should try to out
shout a machine to achieve successful communication. Instead he should choose a better
 place with less noise to communicate his message / information. Noise distorts messages
and acts as a barrier to effective communication.

Semantic barriers

Semantics is related to meanings of words. To be more exact, it is related to connotative and

denotative meanings of words and its study. Every word has a direct meaning called the
denotative meaning. In addition to its exact or lexical meaning, words also acquire implied
meanings called connotative meanings. Connotations are understood based only on an
individual’s experience. If the encoder and decoder do not share the some connotative
meaning for a word, miscommunication occurs. We have already seen how ‘bimonthly’ can
mean two different concepts to two different people even at denotative level. Similarly,
examine the word ‘cheap’ as an adjective. You will enjoy a ‘cheap holiday’ because you
spend less than the real cost. Industries desire ‘cheap labour’ to reduce the over all cost of
production. These connotations of cheap as an adjective are different from the connotations in
expressions like “cheap popularity’ and “cheap joke”. If the receiver does not understand the
connotation attributed by the sender, miscommunication takes place. But when words are
used for denotations alone, not much damage will be done. To overcome the semantic barrier
to communication, the communicator should choose the precise and exact word that will
carry the same meaning for the receiver in the given context. The meaning of the word is
related to context at the connotational level. A complimentary expression may derive a
connotative derogative meaning which will ruin the communication process. If you examine
the word ‘fellow’, you will find so many connotations to it. The word used with adjectives
such as ‘nice’ and ‘lousy’ change the complexion of the word ‘fellow’. A ‘nice fellow’ and a
lousy fellow’ are poles apart. If you call someone a ‘fellow scholar’, he is your contemporary.
A ‘fellow traveller’ is simply your co-passenger on a train, but in another context he is a
sympathizer or a secret member of the communist party. Fellowship simply means
companionship / friendliness. However, in special contexts it can have different connotations.
You can be a scholar with UGC (University Grants Commission) getting a fellowship.

SEMANTIC BARRIERS IN COMMUNICATION ARISE DUE TO THE FOLLOWING

REASONS:

CULTURAL DIVERSITIES:
Most of the difficulties in communication arise because the same word or symbol means
different things to different individuals according to one's culture. Let's take the example of
Shiny Abraham. A funny and pity thing happened to Shiny Abraham at the 1986 Asian
Games at Seoul. Despite coming first by a very wide margin in the 800 m. Race, she was
disqualified and lost her gold medal for having crossed the track at the place where she
should not have gone. According to her she mistook the symbol, i.e., the colour of the flag.
Whereas in our country the red flag indicates danger, in South Korea white flag is used for
the same purpose. Misinterpreting the white flag which had been put up at that point, she
crossed the track at the wrong place and suffered a setback. Words, which are in reality
symbols representing a thing, an action or a feeling, can have several meanings.
As explained earlier, words which represent concrete things, e.g., car or house, tend to be
understood in the same way, while abstract words like merit, effectiveness or responsibility,
tend to be interpreted by different persons in different ways. Difficulty in understanding may
arise even in the case of ordinary words which have different contextual meanings. Lately
such difficulties are being experienced increasingly by people working in international
development field. One such problem arose in interpreting the meaning of the word 'steps'. In
a training program of health workers, relating to the family health in Jamaica when a question
"What are some of the steps that a mother should take to make sure that her baby keeps
healthy?" was asked, it was found that there was no response to it. The trainees who were
accustomed to only one meaning of the word- 'steps' based on their experience, could not just
make any sense of the question.
UNFAMILIARITY WITH WORDS: Semantic difficulty may arise because of
unfamiliarity with words. For example, because of a word of some foreign language of which
the receiver has no knowledge. A technical word may not create such a problem - it may be
beyond the ability of the receiver to understand it. In order to make it effective, a
communication must be put into words which are appropriate to the environment and mental
framework of the receiver. This ensures the communication to be grasped properly and
implemented effectively.
A very interesting example of a communication made effective by the use of words
appropriate to the environment in which they were used is provided by the following incident
that took place in one of the agricultural states of the USA. A proposal for raising the salaries
of the faculty members of an agricultural college was under discussion. The farmers' bloc was
totally against giving the raise to the college teachers - they could not see why they should
pay those college teachers $5000 a year just for talking 12 to 15 hours a week. Faculty
representatives made no headway in their negotiations until one of them, who had some
farming experience, got an inspiration. "Gentlemen", he told the members of the
administrative body, "a college teacher is a little like a bull. It's not the amount of time he
spends. It's the importance of what he does!"

Semantic barrier also includes ambiguity in words, sentence or other symbols used in
communication. The ambiguity is caused because everybody sees a different meaning in the
same words, phrases or sentences. The differences in interpretation can be quite small, even
undetectable, in regular communication between people from the same culture, age,
education and experience, or drastically different because of such things as culture, age or
experience.

Techniques of effective communication:

1. Get to know the people we communicate with- E.g. likes, dislikes etc..
2. Learn to look at things from the other’s perspective
3. Seek and offer feedback
4. Choose the medium, right channel
5. Talk less, listen more
6. Mind your tone
7. Plan your communication properly
8. Avoid physical and psychological barriers.
9. Listen and read carefully
10. Be precise and to the point.
11. Be open, frank and positive.
12. Appreciate and understand cultural differences.