Human communication
Human communication, or anthroposemiotics, is a field of study dedicated to understanding how humans communicate. Humans' ability to communicate with one another would not be possible without an understanding of what we are referencing or thinking about. Because humans are unable to fully understand one another's perspective, there needs to be a creation of commonality through a shared mindset or viewpoint.[1] The field of communication is very diverse, as there are multiple layers of what communication is and how we use its different features as human beings.
Humans have communicatory abilities other animals do not. For example, humans are able to communicate about time and place as though they are solid objects. Humans communicate to request help, inform others, and share attitudes for bonding.[1] Communication is a joint activity largely dependent on the ability to maintain common attention. We share relevant background knowledge and joint experience in order to communicate content and coherence in exchanges.[2]
The evolution of human communication took place over a long period of time. Humans evolved from simple hand gestures to the use of spoken language. Most face-to-face communication requires visually reading and following along with the other person, offering gestures in reply, and maintaining eye contact throughout the interaction.[1]
Category
The current study of human communication can be branched off into two major categories; rhetorical and relational. The focus of rhetorical communication is primarily on the study of influence; the art of rhetorical communication is based on the idea of persuasion. The relational approach examines communication from a transactional perspective; two or more people interact to reach an agreed perspective.[3][citation needed]
In its early stages, rhetoric was developed to help ordinary people prove their claims in court; this shows how persuasion is key in this form of communication.
Classification of human communication can be found in the workplace, especially for group work. Co-workers need to argue with each other to gain the best solutions for their projects, while they also need to nurture their relationships to maintain their collaboration. For example, in their group work, they may use the communication tactic of "saving face".
Spoken language involves speech, mostly human quality to acquire. For example, chimpanzees are humans' closest relatives, but they are unable to produce speech. Chimpanzees are the closest living species to humans. Chimpanzees are closer to humans, in genetic and evolutionary terms, than they are to gorillas or other apes. The fact that a chimpanzee will not acquire speech, even when raised in a human home with all the environmental input of a normal human child, is one of the central puzzles we face when contemplating the biology of our species. In repeated experiments, starting in the 1910s, chimpanzees raised in close contact with humans have universally failed to speak, or even to try to speak, despite their rapid progress in many other intellectual and motor domains. Each normal human is born with a capacity to rapidly and unerringly acquire their mother tongue, with little explicit teaching or coaching. In contrast, no nonhuman primate has spontaneously produced even a word of the local language.[5]
Definition
Human communication can be defined as any Shared Symbolic Interaction.[6]
- Shared, because each communication process also requires a system of signification (the Code) as its necessary condition, and if the encoding is not known to all those who are involved in the communication process, there is no understanding and therefore fails the same notification.
- Symbolic, because there is a need for a signifier or sign, which allows the transmission of the message.
- Interaction, since it involves two or more people, resulting in a further increase of knowledge on the part of all those who interact.
Types
Human communication can be subdivided into a variety of types:
- Intrapersonal communication (communication with oneself): This very basic form of information, is the standard and foundation, of all things communication. This communication with ourselves showcases the process in which we think on our previous and ongoing actions, as well as what we choose to understand from other types of communications and events. Our intrapersonal communication, may be shown and expressed to others by our reactions to certain outcomes, through simple acts of gestures and expressions.[7]
- Interpersonal communication (communication between two or more people) - Communication relies heavily on understanding the processes and situations that you are in, in order to communicate effectively. It is more than simple behaviors and strategies, on how and what it means to communicate with another person. Interpersonal communication reflects the personality and characteristics, of a person, seen through the type of dialect, form, and content, a person chooses to communicate with. As simple as this is, interpersonal communication can only be correctly done if both persons involved in the communication, understand what it is to be human beings, and share similar qualities of what it means to be humans. It involves acts of trust and openness, as well as a sense of respect and care towards what the other person is talking about.[8]
- Nonverbal communication: The messages we send to each other, in ways that cover the act of word-by-mouth. These actions may be done through the use of our facial features and expressions, arms and hands, the tone of our voice, or even our very appearance can display a certain type of message.[9]
- Speech: Allowing words to make for an understanding as to what people are feeling and expressing. It allows a person to get a direct thought out to another by using their voice to create words that then turn into a sentence, which in turn then turns into a conversation to get a message across. "What is spoken or expressed, as in conversation; uttered or written words: seditious speech. A talk or public address, or a written copy of this: The senator gave a speech. The language or dialect of a nation or region: American speech. One's manner or style of speaking: the mayor's mumbling speech. The study of oral communication, speech sounds, and vocal physiology".[10]
- Conversation: Allows however many people to say words back and forth to each other that will equal into a meaningful rhythm called conversation. It defines ideas between people, teams, or groups. To have a conversation requires at least two people, making it possible to share the values and interests of each person. Conversation makes it possible to get messages across to other people, whether that be an important message or just a simple message. "Strong conversation skills will virtually guarantee that you will be better understood by most people" [11]
- Visual communication: The type of communication where it involves using your eyes that allow you to read signs, charts, graphs, and pictures that have words or phrases and or pictures showing and describing what needs to be portrayed to get information across. Using visual communication allows for people to live daily lives without constantly needing to speak. A simple example is driving in a car and seeing a red sign that says "stop" on it; as a driver, you are using visual communication to read the sign understand what is being said and stop your car to not get into an accident. "If carried out properly, visual communication has various benefits. In the information era and fast-paced society in which time is limited, visual communication help to communicate ideas faster and better. Generally speaking, it offers these benefits: instant conveyance, ease of understanding, cross-cultural communication and generation of enjoyment".[12]
- Writing: What I am forming together right now is called writing where it revolves around putting words together to create a sentence that flows into a sentence of meaning. Words are letters that are put together to transform a word that allows the person to understand and follow along with what is being portrayed. Writing requires us to use our hands and paper to form words and letters to create the flow of a message or conversation. Writing can also be done in the form of typing which is what you are seeing here, forming words together on a computer. "Writing" is the process of using symbols (letters of the alphabet, punctuation, and spaces) to communicate thoughts and ideas in a readable form".[13]
- Mail: This is in the form of postage which is in a letter or package. When someone uses the post office service requiring them to send a letter that they wrote with pencil and paper or they are using the postage service to send an object to someone out of state. Makes for an easier process to send a loved one messages or objects that do not live next to you or within a 20 min drive distance. "Material (such as letters and packages) sent or carried in a postal system".[14] For an example a loved one is in the military and is out of state, to let them know what is going on in your life and to also ask how they are doing you send them a letter via the postal service to get that message to them at their location. Workers at the postal service get the letters and packages across states and countries.
- Mass media: "The means of communication reaching a large number of people such as the population of a nation through certain channels like film, radio, books, music, or television in that the consumer participation stays passive with comparison to interactive network platforms".[15] The television allows for getting messages to a lot of people in different locations in a matter of minutes making it for the fastest communication skill.
- signal flags, and optical heliographs), to electrical cable and electromagnetic radiation, including light. Such transmission paths are often divided into communication channels, which afford the advantages of multiplexing multiple concurrent communication sessions. Telecommunication is often used in its plural form".[16]
- Organizational communication (communication within organizations): Defined by structure and planning, making words, phrases, and images flow into direction and meaning. "The construct of organizational communication structure is defined by its 5 main dimensions: relationships, entities, contexts, configuration, and temporal stability".[17] Making it easier to work into groups of different culture and thoughts.
- Mass communication: This type of communication involves the process of communicating with known and unknown audiences, through the use of technology or other mediums. There is hardly ever an opportunity for the audience to respond directly to those who sent the message, there is a divide/separation between the sender and receiver. There are typically four players in the process of mass communication, these players are those who send the message, the message itself, the medium in which the message is sent, and those who receive the message. These four components come together to be the communication we see and are a part of the most, as the media helps in distributing these messages to the world every day.[7]
- Group dynamics (communication within groups): Allows ideas to be created within a group of people, allowing many minds to think together to form and create meaning. "The interactions that influence the attitudes and behavior of people when they are grouped with others through either choice or accidental circumstances".[18]
- Cross-cultural communication (communication across cultures): This allows different people from different locations, gender, and culture, in a group to feed off of each other's ideas to form something much bigger and better. "Culture is a way of thinking and living whereby one picks up a set of attitudes, values, norms, and beliefs that are taught and reinforced by other members in the group".[19]
Face-to-Face Communication
Face-to-face interaction is
Studies on Face-to-Face Communication
Most research and studies on face-to-face interaction is done via direct observation; the goal is to explain the regularities in the actions observed in these interactions.
Mediated Communication
Historically, mediated communication was much rarer than face-to-face.[26] Even though humans have possessed the technology to communicate in space and time (e.g. writing) for millennia, the majority of the world's population lacked the necessary skills, such as literacy, to use them.[26] This began to change with the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg that led to the spread of printed texts and rising literacy in Europe from the 15th century.[26] Since then, face-to-face interaction has begun to steadily lose ground to mediated communication.[26]
Compared with Mediated Communication
Face-to-face communication has been however described as less preferable to mediated communication in some situations, particularly where time and geographical distance are an issue. For example, in maintaining a long-distance friendship, face-to-face communication was only the fourth most common way of maintaining ties, after telephone, email, and instant messaging.
Despite the advent of many new
In the end, there are both pros and cons to each form of communication. Several studies compared the two groups in order to determine the advantages and disadvantages of each. One group was communicating only through face-to-face communication, while the other was communicating only through computer-mediated communication. These studies found that computer-mediated groups perform better than face-to-face groups on idea generation tasks, while face-to-face groups excel in social emotional exchange. This is because face-to-face groups have more tension release and agreement statements, while computer-mediated groups have a tendency of giving more suggestions, opinions, and formal expressions.[27] There is a greater equality of participation in computer-mediated groups, but there's also a higher rate of uninhibited behaviour because computer-mediated groups induce a greater loss of self-awareness.[28] There is generally a reduced sense of social pressure in computer-mediated groups, but there is a stronger perception and sense of understanding in face-to-face groups.[29]
Face-to-Face Interactions Versus Social Media
Talking to someone face to face gives a person non-verbal cues, such as smiling, physical movement, and body positions that help people communicate. However, since social media lacks face-to-face communication, some individuals have adapted to blind communication when speaking online, seen through texting, commenting, and sending/receiving messages.[30]
By nature, humans are social. Social interaction is essential to survival. With recent advances in technology, such as the Internet, instant messaging, and smartphones, forms many channels and ways to interact with others. However, the human brain has evolved to adapt and keep up with this flood of mass communication. While face-to-face communication is predicted to improve quality of life, Internet and social media communication did not.[31] The Internet opens a new realm of possibilities in connecting with people around the globe with inherent factors in online communication that limit its ability to promote the same level of social satisfaction as traditional face-to-face communication. There are significant differences between online and face-to-face communication, leading to online communication being less emotionally satisfying and fulfilling than face-to-face communication. Social interaction on the internet and through social media platforms makes the interaction considerably difficult to distinguish nonverbal cues.[32] Transitive memory development is also brought by face-to-face communication, which is more effective than online communication.[33]
While technology has been able to bring communities and people closer together, humans have a responsibility to cultivate those connections and nurture them through old-fashioned face-to-face communication. As a human species, continuing to connect with others without hiding behind electronic screens is crucial.
Cross Multicultures
Although there are increasingly virtual communications in large transnational companies with the development of Internet, face-to-face interaction is still a crucial tool in communication between employees and staff workers. Face-to-face interaction is beneficial to understand underlying truths that are presented through emotion and body language, especially when there are language and cultural differences present amongst individuals.
Cooperation in a multicultural team requires knowledge sharing. Ambiguous knowledge which arises frequently in a multicultural team is inevitable because of the different language habits. Face-to-face communication is better than other virtual communications for the ambiguous information. The reason is that face-to-face communication can provide non-verbal messages including gestures, eye contact, touch, and body movement. However, the virtual communications, such as email, only have verbal information which will make team members more misunderstanding of the knowledge due to their different comprehension of the same words. On the other hand, the understanding of professional standards shows no difference between face-to-face interaction and virtual communications.
Van der Zwaard and Bannink (2014) examined the effect of
Important figures
See also
- Communication basic topics
- General semantics
- History of communication
- Language
- Mass communication
- Mass media
- Outline of communication
- Pragmatics
- Semiotics
- Intercultural communication
- Cross-cultural communication
- Proactive communications
References
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- ^ Clark (1996). Using Language. Cambridge University Press.
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- ^ a b Stacks, D.; Salwen, M. (2009). An Integrated Approach to Communication Theory and Research. New York: Routledge.
- ^ Fitch, Tecumseh (2010). The Evolution of Language. Cambridge University Press.
- ^ Grossi, Franco C. (2014). Human Communication. ACADEMIA. Retrieved 2022-01-14.
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- ^ Publishers, HarperCollins. "The American Heritage Dictionary entry: speech". www.ahdictionary.com. Retrieved 2022-04-20.
- ^ "Six Benefits of Better Conversation". 2006-10-30. Archived from the original on 30 October 2006. Retrieved 2022-04-20.
- ^ "Benefits of Visual Communication - Edraw". www.edrawsoft.com. Retrieved 2022-04-20.
- ^ "What Is Writing? | Writing | EnglishClub". www.englishclub.com. Retrieved 2022-04-20.
- ^ "Definition of MAIL". www.merriam-webster.com. Retrieved 2022-04-20.
- ^ "What is Mass Media | IGI Global". www.igi-global.com. Retrieved 2022-04-20.
- ^ "Telecommunications", Wikipedia, 2022-03-25, retrieved 2022-04-20
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- ^ "Definition of group dynamics | Dictionary.com". www.dictionary.com. Retrieved 2022-04-24.
- ^ Communication, in Cultural; Communication, Intercultural (2014-09-25). "Cross Cultural Communication". Communication Theory. Retrieved 2022-04-24.
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[(]face-to-face interaction) may be roughly defined as the reciprocal influence of individuals upon one another's actions when in one another's immediate physical presence
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- ^ ISBN 978-90-279-7569-0.
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- ^ Carter, Michael (2015). "Symbolic Interactionism". sociopedia.isa.
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- ^ ISBN 978-0-19-533741-9. Retrieved 5 June 2013.
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- ^ "How social media is changing the way people get to know one another | Penn State University". www.psu.edu. Retrieved 2022-04-07.
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- ^ Psychminds (2020-04-13). "Communication: Online vs. Face-to-Face Interactions". Psychminds. Retrieved 2022-04-07.
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Further reading
- Richard Budd & Brent Ruben[permanent dead link], Human Communication Handbook.
- Budd & Ruben, Approaches to Human Communication.
- How Human Communication Fails (Tampere University of Technology)