PRELIMS

• Communication is a process by which information is exchanged between individuals through a common system of symbols, signs, or behavior
• Communication is the imparting or exchanging of information by speaking, writing, or using some other medium
• Purposive Communication is a type of communication that takes place with a purpose in mind
• Purposive communication serves five purposes: informing, expressing feelings, imagining, influencing, and meeting social expectations
• People we communicate to:

  • Internal: People whom you can communicate immediately
  • External: People whom you cannot communicate immediately and usually require formal permission
• We communicate to inform, persuade, instruct, and document
• Benefits of effective communication in personal and professional settings:

  • Helps understand people better and be more understandable, verbally and nonverbally
  • Shows how to maintain good relationships, even during arguments
  • Saves time and energy by avoiding misunderstandings, guilt, and anxiety
  • Boosts grades by improving interactions with professors [and classmates]
  • Develops leadership skills and enhances position among friends, co-workers, or team members
  • Increases chances of getting the desired job on own terms
  • Eases interactions with organizations and institutions
• Types of Message Flow in Business Communication:

  • Upward communication: Information originates from lower levels like employees, supervisors, and team leaders
  • Downward communication: Information flows from senior management and executives to middle management and employees
  • Lateral communication: Transfer of information between individuals at the same hierarchical level
  • External communication: Communication with external stakeholders like suppliers, customers, and investors
• Formal communication:

  • Structured and professional, used in workplaces or environments requiring clear communication
  • Adheres to professional norms, procedures, standards, and hierarchical command structure

  Informal communication:

  • More relaxed, open, and casual, not following predefined channels
• The word “communication” first appeared in the Late Middle English from the Old French word communicacion from the Latin communis meaning “to share”.
• Communication is “the imparting or exchanging of information by speaking, writing, or using some other medium.”
• Verbal Communication:

  • Words and other utterances we use to express ourselves
• Nonverbal Communication:

  • Includes how we look, gestures, facial expressions, tone, pacing, pauses, etc.
• Different nonverbal dimensions identified by Judee Burgoon (1994):

  • Kinesics or body movements including facial expressions and eye contact
  • Vocalics or paralanguage including volume, rate, pitch, and timbre
  • Personal appearance
  • Physical environment and artifacts
  • Proxemics or personal space
  • Haptics or touch
  • Chronemics or time
• Ways verbal and nonverbal communication interact in real life:

  • Repeating: nonverbal behavior reinforcing a verbal message
  • Substituting: using a gesture or nonverbal cue instead of a word
  • Turn-taking: relying on nonverbal cues to signal turn-taking
  • Complementing: enhancing a verbal message with nonverbal communication
  • Emphasizing: accentuating a verbal message, especially in speeches or presentations
  • Contradicting: nonverbal cues contradicting spoken words
• Nonverbal Leakage:

  • Gestures revealing hidden intentions when trying to conceal something
• Microexpression:

  • An emotion that quickly flashes across a person's face
• Kinds of verbal communication:

  • oral communication (spoken words)
  • written communication (written words)
  • mediated communication (using information technology)
• • Kinds of nonverbal gestures:
  • Emblems: nonverbal cues with universal meanings within a specific culture
  • Illustrators: automatic nonverbal gestures and cues used subconsciously to emphasize spoken words
• The Seven Universal Facial Expressions of Emotion

  • Happiness
  • Surprise
  • Contempt
  • Sadness
  • Fear
  • Disgust
  • Anger
• Transmission Model of Communication:

  • Pioneers: Claude Elwood Shannon and Warren Weaver
  • Based on a technological angle reminiscent of a phone system
  • Belief that meanings are contained in words (Container Model)

  • Once the message is sent, communication already takes place.
  • There is no need for feedback from the receiver and non-verbal cues do not exist.
  • Communication is one-way or linear, comparable to a blindfolded archer or a pipeline
• Transactional Model of Communication (cont.):

  • Communicators generate social realities within social, relational, and cultural contexts (Fields of Experience)
  • We communicate to create relationships, form intercultural alliances, shape our self-concepts, and engage with others in dialogue to create communities.
  • Communication helps to construct our realities.
• Constitutive Model of Communication:

  • Pioneer: Robert T. Craig
  • Communication creates and produces our social world
  • It is the driving force in our lives and relationships, creating all other social forces in society
  • Concrete buildings and brands are the result of ongoing communication
  • Craig emphasized that communication itself is the primary constitutive process explaining psychological, sociological, cultural, and economic factors
  • Jimmy Manning highlighted that communication is not just a tool for expressing social reality but also a means of creating it
• Transactional Model of Communication:

  • Pioneers: Paul Watzlawick and Dean C. Barnlund
  • Individuals are simultaneously sending and receiving messages
  • Also known as the two-way communication model
  • Meaning is in people, not in words
  • Communication creates shared meaning and involves both content and relationship dynamics
• Communication can be intentional or unintentional
• It is impossible not to communicate
• Communication is irreversible
• Communication is unrepeatable
• Communication is contextual
• Psychological aspect: refers to who is having the conversation and what it is about
• Relational aspect: entails one's reaction and feedback
• Situational aspect: refers to where the parties are communicating with respect to the psycho-social 'situation'
• Environmental aspect: refers to where the parties are communicating in a physical perspective such as physical location, temperature, time of day
• Cultural aspect: refers to the parties' behavior as a variable affecting the effect of textual communication
• We say communication is contextual because it occurs in particular situations or systems (aspects) that influence what and how we communicate and what meanings we attach to the messages.
• Patience is essential with Russians during negotiations
• Misconception 1: Meanings are in words.
• Do not "hurry to respond," but ‘hurry to listen’
• Misconception 2: More communication is better.
• Constant checking by a boss can lead to negative reactions from employees