Communication is a process of transferring
information from one entity to another.
Communication processes are sign-mediated
interactions between at least two agents
which share a repertoire of signs and
semiotic rules.
Communication is commonly
defined as "the imparting or interchange
of thoughts, opinions, or information by speech,
writing, or signs". Communication can be
perceived as a two-way process in which there
is an exchange and progression of thoughts,
feelings or ideas towards a mutually accepted
goal or direction.
2.0 OBJECTIVES OF THE NOTE
On completion of this note, you should be
able to:
· Discuss the process that
takes place in communication
· Explain the interaction
among the agents of communication
· Identify the various levels
of communication
· List the tips for effective
communication
3.0 MAIN CONTENT
3.1 Communication process
Communication is a process whereby
information is enclosed in a package and is discrete
and imparted by sender to a receiver via a
channel/medium. The receiver then decodes
the message and gives the sender a feedback.
Communication requires that all parties
have an area of communicative commonality.
There are auditory means, such as
speaking, singing and sometimes tone of
voice, and nonverbal, physical means, such as
body language, sign language, paralanguage,
touch, eye contact, by using writing.
Communication is thus a process by which we
assign and convey meaning in an attempt
to create shared understanding. This process requires
a vast repertoire of skills in
intrapersonal and interpersonal processing,
listening, observing, speaking, questioning,
analyzing, and evaluating. It is through
communication that collaboration and
cooperation occur.
There are also many common barriers to
successful communication, two of which are
message overload (when a person receives too
many messages at the same time), and
message complexity.
3.2 Communication modeling
Communications Skills – The Importance of
Removing Barriers
Problems with communication can pop-up at
every stage of the communication process
(which consists of the sender, encoding, the channel,
decoding, the receiver, feedback
and the context – see
the diagram below). At each stage, there is the potential for
misunderstanding and confusion.
To be an effective communicator and to get
your point across without misunderstanding
and confusion, your goal should be to lessen
the frequency of problems at each stage of
this process, with clear, concise, accurate,
well-planned communications. We follow the
process through below:
1 Source
As the source of the message, you need to be
clear about why you're communicating, and
what you want to communicate. You also need
to be confident that the information you're
communicating is useful and accurate.
2 Message
The message is the information that you want
to communicate.
3 Encoding
This is the process of transferring the
information you want to communicate into a form
that can be sent and correctly decoded at the
other end. Your success in encoding depends
partly not only on your ability to convey
information clearly and simply, but also on your
ability to anticipate and eliminate sources
of confusion (for example, cultural issues,
mistaken assumptions, and missing
information.)
A key part of this is knowing your audience:
Failure to understand who you are
communicating with will result in delivering
messages that are misunderstood.
4 Channel
Messages are conveyed through channels, with
verbal channels including face-to-face
meetings, telephone and videoconferencing;
and written channels including letters,
emails, memos and reports.
Different channels have different strengths
and weaknesses. For example, it's not
particularly effective to give a long list of
directions verbally, while you'll quickly cause
problems if you give someone negative
feedback using email.
5 Decoding
Just as successful encoding is a skill, so is
successful decoding (involving, for example,
taking the time to read a message carefully,
or listen actively to it.) Just as confusion can
arise from errors in encoding, it can also
arise from decoding errors. This is particularly
the case if the decoder doesn't have enough
knowledge to understand the message.
6 Receiver
Your message is delivered to individual
members of your audience. No doubt, you have
in mind the actions or reactions you hope
your message will get from this audience. Keep
in mind, though, that each of these
individuals enters into the communication process
with ideas and feelings that will undoubtedly
influence their understanding of your
message, and their response. To be a
successful communicator, you should consider these
before delivering your message, and act
appropriately.
7 Feedback
Your audience will provide you with feedback,
as verbal and nonverbal reactions to your
communicated message. Pay close attention to
this feedback, as it is the only thing that
can give you confidence that your audience
has understood your message. If you find that
there has been a misunderstanding, at least
you have the opportunity to send the message
a second time.
8 Context
The situation in which your message is
delivered is the context. This may include the
surrounding environment or broader culture
(corporate culture, international cultures, and
so on).
In a simple model, information or content
(e.g. a message in natural language) is sent in
some form (as spoken language) from an
emisor/ sender/ encoder to a destination/
receiver/ decoder. In a slightly more complex
form a sender and a receiver are linked
reciprocally.
A particular instance of communication is
called a speech act. The sender's
personal filters and the receiver's personal
filters may vary depending upon different
regional traditions, cultures, or gender;
which may alter the intended meaning of message
contents.
In the
presence of "communication noise" on the transmission channel (air,
in
this case), reception and decoding of content
may be faulty, and thus the speech act may
not achieve the desired effect. One problem
with this encode-transmit-receive-decode
model is that the processes of encoding and
decoding imply that the sender and receiver
each possess something that functions as a
code book, and that these two code books are,
at the very least, similar if not identical.
Although something like code books is implied
by the model, they are nowhere represented in
the model, which creates many conceptual
difficulties. Creating and delivering the
effective presentation requires basic
understanding of a communication process
Between parties, communication includes acts
that confer knowledge and experiences,
give advice and commands, and ask questions.
These acts may take many forms, in one
of the various manners of communication. The
form depends on the abilities of the group
communicating together, communication content
and form make messages that are sent
towards a destination. The target can be
oneself, another person or being, another entity
3.3 Levels of communication
Communication can be seen as processes of
information transmission governed by three
levels of semiotic rules:
1. Syntactic (formal properties of signs and
symbols),
2. Pragmatic (concerned with the relations
between signs/expressions and their
users) and
3. Semantic (study of relationships between
signs and symbols and what they
represent).
Therefore, communication is social
interaction where at least two interacting agents share
a common set of signs and a common set of
semiotic rules. This commonly held rules in
some sense ignores auto communication, including
intrapersonal communication via
diaries or self-talk, both secondary
phenomena that followed the primary acquisition of
communicative competences within social
interactions.
3.4 Tips for Effective Communication
Note that any communication processes whereby
there is no action and reaction
between the sender and receiver is
ineffective. The receiver must be able to respond to
the message being sent by the sender. These
are some of the tips for effective
communication
· Be honest while
communicating. Dishonesty will somewhere show up along a
line.
· Take interest in the people
you are communicating with. Remember that people
are more attracted towards those who have
interest in them, and pay more
attention to what they say.
· Think before you speak or put
pen to paper: what message are you trying to
convey?
· What outcome do you want to
elicit?
· Be direct and not
aggressive. Lots of flannelling around can make the people lose
interest and miss a vital point.
· Don't use jargons, acronyms
and technical expressions, unless you are sure that
your listeners do understand.
· Do not fall into the trap
of using long words just because they are written down.
· Take time. Whether in the
speech or in paper, rushing will make you seem
nervous, unconfident and downright scared.
3.5 Barriers
and Limitations to Effective communication.
To deliver your messages effectively, you
must commit to breaking down the barriers
that exist within each of the stages of the
communication process.
Let’s begin with the message itself. If your
message is too lengthy, disOrganized, or
contain errors, you can expect the message to
be misunderstood and misinterpreted. The
use of poor verbal and body language can also
confuse the message.
Barriers in context tend to stem from senders
offering too much information too fast.
When in doubt here, less is oftentimes more.
It is best to be mindful of the demands on
other people’s time, especially in today’s
ultra-busy society.
Once you understand this, you need to work to
understand your audience’s culture,
making sure you can converse and deliver your
message to people of different
backgrounds and cultures within your own organization,
in your country and even abroad.
Noise-is the interference that keeps a message from being
understood or accurately
interpreted.
External noise: Comes from environment. i.e. loud music, hot
sun, babies...
Internal noise: Occurs in the minds of the sender or receiver
when their thoughts and
feelings are focused on something other than
the communication at hand.
Semantic: Caused by people's emotional reaction to words.
3.6 Types of communication
Intrapersonal communication is communication that occurs within us; it is
also referred
to as Self-talk.
Interpersonal communication occurs when we communicate on a one-to one
basisusually
in an informal, unstructured setting.
Small group communication occurs when a small number of people meet to
solve a
problem.
Public communication the sender-receiver sends a message to an
audience.
Intercultural communication is communication that occurs whenever two or
more
people from different cultures interact.
Ethical communication is communication that is fair, honest, and
considerate of others
rights.
4.0 CONCLUSION
Generally, communication is part of every
living thing. Even the plants have there means
of communication. However, the most important
thing in communication is that it
involves the interaction of every element in
the communication process. Lack of this
interaction can be seen as noise or barrier
in communication process. Knowledge of this
is need for effective business communication.
5.0 SUMMARY
This note explained the following concepts in
communication.
· Communication process
· Levels of communication
· Barriers to communication
· Tips for effective
communication
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