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i. objectives
i. objectives
1. explain the nature and process of communication;
2. understand the relationship of the functions of communication to everyday life; and
3. illustrate the process of communication
ii. discussion & enrichment activities
ii. discussion & enrichment activities
Communication comes in various forms. From the simple nodding of your head, stretching of hands, raising your eyebrows up to your daily conversations with your friends over the phone, constant exchange of text messages, and regular browsing in social networking sites, these are but some examples of how humans communicate their thoughts, feelings, ideas, and insights. These only signify that humans really engage in communication.
How will you react to the following picture?
Believe it or not, your coming to your family is a great joy! Your first cry immediately after birth announced your arrival into this world. Afterwards, your mother understood that when you cry, you were hungry and gave you milk in response. Your face also expressed your feelings. As years passed by, you started pronouncing short words and responded by waving your hands or nodding your head and most of the times, laughing out loud. Today, you can act out, speak, and write to tell everyone what you think and feel. These are the ways you communicate.
When you exchange ideas with someone or you send information to others, you do it in two ways. You either use words to say what you want to say or you express yourself through gestures and facial expressions. Since then, people have the inherent need to communicate. Humans are social beings. They live to interact regularly with others. In fact, their endurance is due to their ability to express themselves and connect to one another and the world they live in.
When you look back in the history of humankind, you will find that early man could not speak as you do today. Records show that people have used various communication techniques such as the use of symbols, gestures, sounds, drawings, and sign languages (Littlejohn, 2002 as cited in Amudavalli, n.d.). Words and languages developed much later in human history.
Over the years, communication has progressed tremendously. Language developed side by side with technology. Now in the 21st century, we realize the power of communication in building relationships and the community at large. Hence, we see the importance of communication.
Look at the pictures below. Identify the different ways of communicating with others. Write your answers on a separate sheet of paper.
What is communication and why do we communicate?
NATURE OF COMMUNICATION
Communication is a two-way process of connecting to both living and nonliving things. It is also a means of sharing and exchanging messages, information, ideas, and feelings for mutual understanding (Gregoriom, J.C., 2015).
Communication connects people and the world they live in. It is through communication that people are able to express their thoughts and ideas or convey information and messages through word of mouth, gestures and signals, signs, and others. People have always communicated with one another in various forms.
Let us further define communication using the two key terms stated above, “message” and “understand”.
1. Communication is a message understood.
Unless a message is understood, we cannot say that communication has taken place. Let us send a message to someone and say, “where came first”. The person who gets this message would wonder what it means, for the arrangement of the words does not make any sense. The message is sent but the receiver does not understand it. Therefore, for communication to take place, we have to consider two conditions. First, there should be a clear message. Second, the message must be understood by the receiver for whom it is meant.
2. Communication is social interaction through messages
Think of someone telling, “It is very warm today.” In this case, we are communicating what ‘we experience’. The weather being warm is what we feel or experience physically. In this scenario, we are sharing our feeling or experience with someone else. Thus, we may say that “communication is a sharing of experience.” In our society, we all interact with messages. Without interactions, a society cannot survive. Social interaction is always through messages.
We discuss problems and arrive at solutions. We exchange ideas and interact with others. We transact, and then we negotiate. In doing all these, we use communication. Imagine a situation where we are not able to speak and interact with others or think of a family living in the same house without speaking to each other or relating any form of message to one another. Such situation can be very lonely and problematic. Without communication, all forms of human relationships will vanish and die. Communication is therefore crucial in building and maintaining relationships.
PROCESS OF COMMUNICATION
There are also times when we fail to communicate effectively which results to misunderstanding or miscommunication. Why do you think this thing happens? What are the ways to avoid them?
We are sometimes misunderstood due to the level of speech we use during conversation - by the volume of our voice or the rate of our speech when we talk with our friends or acquaintances. Sometimes, we are misunderstood due to the nonverbal actions that we project or incorporate in our speech during face-to-face communication. Also, when we send text or chat messages, we are misinterpreted because those messages are often brief and devoid of emotion.
Let us now try to consider the process of communication. How does communication take place? Who are involved? What processes are considered? By understanding the communication process, we can also duly avoid misunderstandings and / or miscommunication.
Our everyday transactions with people follow the communication process.
As seen in the illustration, communication begins when the speaker or source of communication responds to a stimulus and decides to encode or transmit it in the form of a message (or a “code”) through a particular channel or means of communication.
The receiver decodes or interprets the message sent and responds accordingly based on his interpretation of the message. This response comes in the form of a feedback sent to the original source of communication (sender). As the communication transaction continues, the sender and receiver may exchange roles until understanding is achieved. Barriers to communication sometimes block the transmission of the message thereby creating misunderstanding.
Through this process, we are able to understand that communication is systematic. In the advent of technology, the exchange of information and messages in society has advanced and has been a subject of many studies.
FUNCTIONS OF COMMUNICATION
Why do we communicate?
Since communication is certain in our lives, it comes naturally and unknowingly. Communication serves many purposes. The following are some of the many reasons why we communicate:
From the above table, we realize that communication serves many purposes. Whether we are at home, in school, at work, or at play, we engage in communication.
iii. assessment
iii. assessment
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