Week 5 & 6 Flashcards
(16 cards)
What are the communication barrier?
- Differing Frames of Reference: Everything you see and feel in the
world is translated through your individual frame of reference. Your
unique frame is formed by a combination of your experiences, education,
culture, expectations, personality, and other elements. As a result, you
bring your own biases and expectations to any communication situation.
Because your frame of reference is totally different from everyone else’s,
you will never see things exactly as others do.
Bypassing: Choice of words is vital to the effectiveness of any communication. Many
words have different meanings. Our background knowledge and experience affect our
understanding. Bypassing happens when people miss each other with their meanings.
Foreign languages, dialects, regional accents and the use of technical/specialist language
should always be considered.
Lack of Language Skill: No matter how extraordinary the idea, it won’t be understood
or fully appreciated unless the communicators involved have good language skills. Each
individual needs an adequate vocabulary, a command of basic punctuation and grammar,
and skill in written and oral expression.
Information Overload & Underload: Communication load refers to the amount and
complexity of information as it is perceived by persons who receive it. Having too much
information in volume or information that is too complex to decipher easily is referred too
as overload. Having not enough information is referred to as underload.
What are elements of communication?
• Communication occurs when one or more persons send and receive
messages, that are distorted by noise, occur within a context, have
some effect, and provide some opportunity for feedback.
• Be it any form of communication (intrapersonal, interpersonal, small
group, mass communication), or through any medium (face-to-face, on
call, or through internet), the following elements are necessary for
successful and effective communication.
1. Context 2. Sources-Receiver 3. Messages 7.Encoding
4. channels 5. Noise 6. Effects 8.Decoding
What is communication process?
Communication refers to the act, by one or more persons, of sending and
receiving messages that are distorted by noise, occur within our context,
have some effect, and provide some opportunity for feedback. The
communication process takes place in a context (physical, cultural, social-
psychological, and temporal) and is subjected to interference by noise
(physical, psychological, and semantic). The interaction of messages with
the encoder-decoder leads to some effect.
What is communication context?
• All sort of communication takes place in a context, which exerts
influence on the context of your message (what and how you say it). it is
divided into FOUR dimensions;
1. Physical context – tangible or concrete environment (e.g. classroom,
park)
2. Social-psychological context – status relationship (friendliness,
seriousness) and roles of people, and cultural rules of society (e.g.
communication at graduation party is different from that in a funeral)
3. Temporal (time) Context – includes *time of the day (e.g. for some
morning is better), *time in the history (e.g. messages on racial, sexual, or
religious attitudes can’t be understood outside of their time in history),
*time of a message i.e. how it fits into the sequence of communication
event (e.g. the meaning of a compliment is different when you say it after
receiving a compliment, or before asking for a favor, or in the middle of
the fight)
4. Cultural Context – related to culture, beliefs, values, behavior
What are source receivers?
• Source-receiver is a compound term that emphasizes that each person
involved in communication is both a source (speaker) and receiver
(listener).
• You send a message when you speak, write, gesture, or smile. This is
called encoding.
• Similarly, you receive messages in listening, reading, smelling, etc. this is
termed as decoding.
• As with source-receivers, this is a compound term i.e. encoding-
decoding, as you are simultaneously speaking (encoding) and
deciphering (decoding).
What are Messages?
• The communication messages take many forms, and require either one
or a combination of your sensory organs.
• Communication is not only verbal (oral/written), but also non-verbal.
• Everything about you communicates. E.g. the clothes you wear, the way
you sit or smile, or shake hands, etc.
• There are three types of messages; metamessages, feedback messages,
and feedforward messages.
Metamessage – is a message that refers to another message or refers to an
underlying meaning. E.g. All is ok, when actually it’s not. It can be non-verbal,
e.g. winking when lying (obvious), complimenting without a smile (subtle).
• Feedback message – is the one a speaker gets from the listener, as a reaction
to what was said. It may be verbal (yes/no) or non-verbal (smile, pat on the
back, punch in the face). It is both intrapersonal and interpersonal.
• Feedforward message – is the information you provide before sending your
primary message, and it reveals something about the message to come. E.g.
introduction before speech, table of contents, buffers before negative
message, etc.
What are channels?
The communication channel is the medium through which a message
passes.
• Communication rarely takes place over only one channel, a speaker may
use two, three or four different channels simultaneously.
• E.g. in face-to-face interaction, you listen and speak (vocal channel), use
gestures (visual channel), emit and detect odors (olfactory channel),
touch (tactile channel).
• facilitates the sending of the message to the receiver
What is noise?
• Noise is anything that interferes with receiving of a message.
• It may prevent a message from source to receiver.
• E.g. line static may distort the whole message over call.
• With virtually no noise interference, the message sent and received are
almost identical.
• Noise is further categorized into physical, physiological, psychological,
and semantic.
• Physical noise – is the interference that is external to both speaker and
listener, it interferes with the physical transmission of the message. E.g.
screeching of passing cars, illegible handwriting, sunglasses, etc.
• Physiological noise – is created by barriers between the sender and receiver
of the message. E.g. visual impairment, hearing loss, articulation problems,
etc.
• Psychological noise – is mental interference in the speaker or listener. E.g.
preconceived ideas, wandering thoughts, biases, and prejudices,
emotionalism, etc.
• Semantic noise – is created when the speaker and listener have different
meaning systems. E.g. language or dialectical differences, jargon, ambiguous
or abstract terms, etc.
Effects of communication:
Communication always has effects on one or more persons involved in the
act.
• There is always a consequence, for every communication act.
• The effects are distinguished into three types;
• Intellectual (cognitive) effects – are changes in your thinking, e.g. class
lecture.
• Affective effects – are changes in your attitudes, values, beliefs, and
emotions, e.g. you become frightened after watching a horror movie.
• Psychomotor effects – are changes in behaviours, e.g. learning new dance
moves, to paint a room, to use different verbal or non-verbal behaviours.
What is encoding?
Encoding is the process of changing the message (from its mental form)
into symbols, that is, patterns of words, gestures, or pictorial forms or
signs.
• It means putting ideas, facts, feelings, and opinions into symbols, which
can be words, actions, signs, and pictures.
• The communication symbols are selected by the sender keeping in mind
the receiver’s ability to understand and interpret them correctly.
What is decoding?
• This is the act of translating symbols into their ordinary meanings.
• However, the total meaning lies in the meanings of the words (symbols)
together with the tone and attitude of the sender as reflected by the
structure of the message and the choice of words used by him or her
(the sender).
Significance of effective communication?
• Effective communication helps businesses in numerous ways, by promoting
❖ A stronger sense of trust between individuals and organizations
❖Closer ties with important communities in the marketplace
❖Opportunities to influence conversations, perceptions, and trends
❖Increased productivity and faster problem solving
❖ Better financial results and higher returns for investors
❖ Earlier warning of potential problems, from rising business costs to critical safety issues.
❖ Stronger decision making based on timely, reliable information
❖Clearer and more persuasive marketing message
❖Greater engagement of employees with their work, leading to higher employee satisfaction and
lower employee turnover
The Seven C’s of Effective Communication:
• These principles provide guidelines for choice of content and style of
presentation, adapted to the purpose and receiver of your message
• According to Francis J. Bergin all the seven C’s can apply to both oral
and written communication
• Through our message we are trying to convince someone to act or react
in a positive way, to compose effective written or oral messages,
• These principles provide guidelines for choice of content and style of
presentation, adapted to the purpose and receiver of the message.
• Our reader/listener will respond quickly only if our meaning is crystal
clear.
The 7 C’s of effective communication:
- Completeness
- Conciseness
- Consideration
- Concreteness
- Clarity
- Courtesy
- Correctness
Intercultural Communication:
i. Honeymoon:
In the first stage, there is fascination, even enchantment, with the new culture and its people.
Many tourists remain at this stage because their stay in foreign countries is so brief.
ii. Crisis Stage:
At this stage, the differences between your own culture and the new one create problems.
This is the stage at which you experience the actual shock of the new culture.
iii. Recovery:
During this stage, you gain the skills necessary to function effectively. You learn the language
and ways of the new culture. Your feelings of inadequacy subside.
iv. Adjustment:
In the final stage, you adjust to and come to enjoy the new culture and the new experiences.
You may still experience periodic difficulties and strains, but on the whole, the experience is
pleasant.
Intercultural communication:
- Ethnocentrism
Ethnocentrism is the use of one’s own culture and its practices as the
standard for interpreting the values, beliefs, norms, and communication
of other cultures. Ethnocentrism fosters negative judgments of anything
that differs from our own ways. In place of ethnocentrism, one can adopt
the perspective of cultural relativism, which recognizes that cultures vary
in how they think, act, and behave as well as in what they believe and
value. - Prejudice
Prejudice means decision-making on the basis of incomplete information
or pre-judging. It is a subjective attitude, opinion, or feeling formed
without prior knowledge, thought, or objective reason. - Stereotyping
A stereotype is a method of understanding, which works through
classifying individual people into a group category. As a typical picture of
a social group, a stereotype may be accurate or inaccurate, justified or
unjustified. It is though, the negative, the inaccurate, and the unjustified
stereotypes that distort communication. - Discrimination
Discrimination is the differential treatment that favors one individual,
group, or object over another. - Culture Shock
Anthropologist Kalervo Oberg (1960), who first used the term cultshock,
notes that it occurs in stages:
