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Human Communication

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Title: Human Communication


1
Human Communication
  • UDSM, January 2010.
  • English for Water Managers

2
Introduction to Communication
  • In todays world, communication enables man to
    influence and control his environment and is seen
    as one of the conditions for development. Not
    only is communication an integral part of human
    life, but it is also the pivot of society as the
    key component of all cultural, political,
    educational and economic activity.

3
Communication cont/
  • Positive change is achieved as a result of the
    efficient and effective flow of information, a
    process that can only obtain through the use of
    effective communication skills.
  • . People in organizations typically spend over
    75 of their time in an interpersonal situation
    thus it is no surprise to find that at the root
    of a large number of organizational problems is
    poor communication

4
Purpose of this module
  • The Communication Skills module will enable
    Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM)
    experts to examine the relationship between the
    theory and practice of communication,
  • to demonstrate how the acquisition of
    Communication Skills enhances decision-making
    processes,
  • encourages the smooth flow of information and
    how, through mastery of communication skills,
    IWRM experts can address the challenges
    encountered in their field.

5
Objectives of the Module
  • Raise an awareness and understanding of
    communication dynamics
  • equip IWRM experts with requisite skills needed
    in making their clients aware of IWRM-related
    issues.
  • Enable IWRM managers make informed decisions on
    crucial issues affecting their interaction with
    the environment.
  • equip Water Managers with the knowledge, skills
    and techniques needed in evaluating a variety of
    situations and circumstances likely to arise
    during interaction with clients.
  • Working with different view points
  • Define the term communication.
  • Identify the various components of the
    communication process.
  • Discuss the role and importance of communication
    in development issues.

6
What is Communication?
  • Communication is a process in which feelings,
    ideas are expressed as verbal and/or non-verbal
    messages, sent, received and comprehended.
  • Theodorson (1969) quoted in McQuail and Windhal
    (1993) defines communication as the transmission
    of information, ideas, attitudes or emotions from
    one person or group to another primarily through
    symbols

7
Definition (cont)
  • Rodgers (1986) in Communication Technology
    defines communication as a process in which
    participants create and share information with
    one another in order to reach a mutual
    understanding.
  • Carey (1992) defines communication as a symbolic
    process whereby reality is produced, maintained,
    repaired and transformed .

8
Communication (cont)
  • Human communication is dynamic the
    communication process is always in a constant
    state of change. As attitudes, feelings,
    expectations, emotions of persons who are
    communicating change, the nature of their
    communication changes as well

9
Communication
  • Communication is continuous it never stops.
    Human beings are always processing information
    and ideas, thoughts, expressions all the time,
    whether awake or asleep our brains remain
    active and are always communicating.
  • Communication is irreversible once we send a
    message, we cannot undo it. Once we make a slip
    of the tongue, or give a meaningful glance

10
Communication
  • Or an emotional outburst, we cannot erase it.
    Sometimes our apologies, denial cannot erase what
    has taken place.
  • Communication is interactive as communicators,
    we are constantly in contact with other people
    and with our selves. Other people react to our
    speech, actions and we also react to our own
    speech it becomes a cycle of action
    reaction becomes the basis of our communication.

11
Communication
  • Communication is contextual it is a part of our
    entire human experience. We need to develop an
    awareness and skills necessary to function as
    effective communicators and to adapt to
  • the setting
  • the people present
  • the purpose of the communication

12
Human Communication
  • This occurs on basically 3 levels
  • Intrapersonal communication with one self. It
    encompasses thought processing, personal decision
    making, listening, and determination of self
    concept.
  • Interpersonal communication takes place between
    two persons who establish a communicative
    relationship. This includes

13
Human Communication
  • activities such as interviews, conversations
    and small group discussions.
  • Public communication is characterized by a
    speaker sending a message to an audience. This
    may be face to face or direct communication for
    example, delivering a message or it maybe
    indirect such as relaying a message through the
    radio or television.

14
Communication Process
  • SENDER (SOURCE OF INFORMATION Originator of the
    message (WHO).
  • MESSAGE WHAT IS COMMUNICATED.
  • CHANNEL By WHAT MEANS is the message
    communicated.
  • RECEIVER AUDIENCE
  • FEEDBACK RESPONSE to the message.

15
Source of the Message
  • Communication starts when a Source is consciously
    or unconsciously stimulated by some event, object
    or idea. A need to send a message in then
    followed by a memory search to find the
    appropriate language (verbal or non-verbal) in
    which to take the ideas and put them into message
    (encode).

16
Message
  • What is to be communicated to the audience.
  • The Channel
  • The means by which the message is communicated to
    the audience e.g, we rely on five senses,
    electronic channel telephones (sound),
    television (sight), physical contact e.g. tapping
    a person on the shoulder (touch channel)

17
Examples of Communication Channels
18
Communication channels cont.
19
Choosing a channel
  • When choosing what channel to use to communicate
  • particular information, the following should be
  • focused on
  • the availability of the channel
  • the credibility of the channel
  • permanence
  • speed with which information is disseminated
  • and potential for feedback from the receiver to
    the source or sender of the information.

20
Communication channels cont.
  • the diversity of cultural, linguistic and social
    groupings
  • the physical barriers of terrain and distance
    which have resulted in an undeveloped transport
    and communication infrastructure
  • the educational barrier of illiteracy
  • limited access to the mass media

21
Audience
  • Audience refers to the Receiver of the message.
    The message must be translated (Decoded) into the
    receivers own language system. This message is
    not identical to the other encoded by the source
    because each persons symbol system is shaped by
    a unique set of perceptions.

22
Feedback
  • Once meaning is assigned to the received message
    - the receiver is in a position to respond.
    Feedback can be a verbal or non-verbal reaction
    to the message or both. Feedback indicates
    whether the receiver understands the message e.g
    by nodding, misunderstands (by shrugging
    shoulders), encouraging source to continue (by
    leaning forward and saying yes) or by pulling
    back (disagrees).

23
Feedback (cont)
  • The act of responding by which the receiver sends
    feedback to the source, actually shifts the role
    of the receiver to that source.
  • Noise
  • Messages are influenced not only by
    interpretations of each communicator but also by
    noise which is any internal or external
    interference in the communication process (e.g.
    environmental, physiological, semantic (meanings
    of words), syntactic (inappropriate grammatical
    use), cultural, psychological-stress,
    frustration, irritation

24
The Context.
  • Communication does not occur in a vacuum it
    always relates to a context. That is
  • Who is present
  • Where the communication is taking place (e.g.
    size of the room)
  • General attitude of those assembled

25
Communication cont.
  • Communication is power. Those who have mastered
    its effective use can change their own experience
    of the world and the worlds experience of
    them.(Anthony Robbins).
  • What do you think is the single most important
    benefit of learning the skills of communication?

26
Test yourself
  • Respond to each of the following statements with
    T for true if you think the statement is always
    or usually true and F for false if you think the
    statement is always or usually false.
  • Good communicators are born, not made
  • The more you communicate, the better your
    communication will be.
  • Unlike effective speaking, effective listening
    really cannot be taught.

27
Test
  • 4. Opening lines such as Hello, how are you or
    Fine weather today serve no useful communication
    purpose
  • 5. Like good communicators, leaders are born and
    not made.
  • 6. Fear of public speaking is detrimental and
    must be eliminated.

28
Language and Meaning
  • The process of communication involves using words
    to create meaning and expectations. Meanings are
    in people and not in words as you go through
    this course, it is important for you to note that
    you have your own meaning that you ascribe to
    words you use and other people have theirs.
  • A Japanese proverb By your mouth you shall
    perish brings in another dimension on language
    and communication the dimension of meaning and
    culture.

29
Language and Meaning
  • As Water Managers, you work in different cultures
    and subcultures different from your own. All
    these have different languages that vary from
    culture to culture - it is important to
    recognize that the language we speak helps
    sustain our perception of reality and our view of
    our world
  • -in your day to day interaction with communities
    you work with, you should not assume that the
    words you use and the words people from other
    cultures use mean the same thing and that people
    see reality the same when viewing the same
    situation.

30
Language and Gender
  • Sometimes the sex of the communicators affects
    not only the meaning they give to their
    utterances but also the very structure of those
    utterances. A linguist, Deborah Tannen, points
    out that women and men use different
    gender-lects
  • while women speak and hear a language of
    connection and intimacy,
  • men speak and hear a language of status and
    independence.

31
Language and Gender
  • As a result, when conversing with men,
  • women tend to listen attentively rather than
    interrupt
  • or challenge, what a man is saying.
  • Another researcher, Gillagan (1982) asserts that
  • women are guided morally by a motivation to
  • maintain relationships and protect their social
  • partners they tend to seek to minimize harm to
    all
  • persons within the social context.

32
Language and Gender
  • Men are said to argue linearly to solve a problem
    of a moral conflict, generally arriving at a
    definitive conclusion distance is established
    to distance oneself from personal involvement in
    the decision-making process itself
  • the assumption seems to be that challenging men
    in conversation could damage the established
    connection that most women believe must be
    preserved at all costs.

33
Male-Female Communication
  • Men
  • Use speech to report
  • To compete
  • To gain attention
  • To maintain their position in a social hierarchy
  • Women
  • Use speech to gain rapport
  • To maintain relationships
  • To reflect a sense of community.
  • .

34
Men-Female
  • Men
  • Men tend to use Language to preserve their
    independence
  • Men tend to say what they have to say, assume
    that the message is clear and proceed from that
    point.
  • Women
  • Tend to use Language to create intimacy and
    connection
  • Women use more words to make their point they
    tend to be more sensitive to the needs of their
    listener, spend time clarifying to their listener

35
Male-Female
  • Men
  • Men tend to be task-oriented, they want results
    at all cost
  • Men are more direct when men want something,
    they ask for it directly
  • Women
  • Women tend to be more maintenance-oriented
  • Tend to be more supportive conversationalists
    they are likely to check the connection of
    conversations they tend to ask more questions.
  • Women tend to be more indirect and tend to use
    tag questions e.g that movie was terrific, dont
    you think?

36
Male-Female
  • Men
  • Men tend to be self-oriented and concerned with
    action.
  • Men have been taught to hide or disregard their
    feelings
  • Men are interested in visual stimulation and
    physical detail
  • Women
  • Women disclose more personal information than men
    do. In their vocabulary, women tend to be people
    oriented and concerned with psychological and
    emotional states.
  • Women have larger vocabularies for describing
    emotions and aesthetics. Women have been taught
    to express their feelings
  • Women are interested in tactile sensations,
    emotional overtones and intimacy.

37
Meaning and Experience
  • The meanings of words are based on our
    experiences with the words and things they
    represent. Take note of this observation from
    Anton Chekov If you cry Forward! you must be
    sure to make clear the direction in which to go.
    Dont you see that if you fail to do that and
    simply call out the word to a monk and a
    revolutionary, they will go in precisely opposite
    directions(Anton Chekov)

38
Male-Female
  • Men
  • Men offer solutions and invalidated feelings
  • Men tend to pull away and silently think about
    what might be bothering them
  • Men are motivated when they feel needed
  • Men primarily need a love that is trusting,
    accepting and appreciative
  • Men think women want solutions rather than
    empathy
  • Men feel that instead of feeling nurtured, he
    feels hes being controlled

39
  • Women
  • Women offer unsolicited advice and direction
  • Women feel an instinctive need to talk about what
    is bothering them
  • Women are motivated when they feel cherished
  • Women primarily need a love that is caring,
    understanding and respectful
  • Women complain that men dont listen they want
    empathy
  • Women might think that they are nurturing men.

40
Communication and Culture
  • Communication and Culture have a direct link.
    Culture consists of all those individuals who
    have a shared system of interpretation.
  • No culture can live, if it attempts to be
    exclusive (Mahatma Gandhi)

41
Communicating in a Culturally diverse world and
society.
  • To help you assess your personal preparedness to
    communicative effectively with persons of
    different cultures, respond to each of the
    following statements by labeling as either True
    or False
  • 1. I try to communicate with persons like me as
    often as I can
  • 2. I rarely consider my culture or the cultures
    of the individual I am interacting with
  • 3. I find it difficult to , tell when persons
    from other cultures do not understand me
  • 4. I am fearful of persons from different
    cultures
  • 5. Persons from other cultures have no right to
    be angry at members of my culture

42
  • 6.People from other cultures who dont talk when
    around others act that way because they usually
    have nothing to say
  • 7. Disagreements with persons from other cultures
    should always be expressed openly
  • 8. My culture is superior to other cultures
  • 9. I am uncertain how to behave with persons of
    different cultures.
  • 10. I am unfamiliar with rules of any culture
    other than my own.

43
Intercultural Communication
  • This can be defined as the process of
    interpreting and sharing meanings with
    individuals from different cultures. It also
    comprises interracial, inter ethnic,
    international, intra-cultural which includes
    all forms of communication among members of the
    same racial, ethnic or sub-cultures.
  • Who are the people involved in teaching members
    of a community their culture? Parents, teachers,
    religious institutions, peers, mass media.

44
Activity
  • What steps have you personally taken to reduce
    the strangeness of strangers? (Intercultural
    Communication)
  • Note all of us work hard enough to understand or
    to be understood by those with whom we differ. To
    counter this strangeness, we need to
  • Open ourselves to differences by adding to our
    knowledge of others
  • By learning to cope with uncertainty
  • By developing an appreciation of how increasing
    our cultural sensitivity will positively affect
    our communication competence

45
Activity
  • How do individuals feelings about socialization
    differ from your own?
  • To what extent do the individuals values and
    attitude differ from yours
  • Which of your behaviours did the individual have
    difficulty understanding or accepting? Which of
    his or her behaviours did you have difficulty
    with?

46
Activity
  • Individualism versus Collectivism
  • Individualistic cultures for example, in the UK,
    France, Germany, Canada focus on stressing the
    individual goals, whereas collectivistic cultures
    for example, Arabic, African, Asian, Latin
    American countries, group goals are given
    precedence instead.

47
Activity
  • Collectivistic cultures
  • Tend to nurture group influence We is
    dominant in such cultures.
  • These are also referred to as high context
    cultures, that are tradition bound, that is,
    cultural traditions shape the behaviour and
    lifestyle of group members causing them to appear
    overly polite and indirect in relating to others.

48
Activity
  • Individualistic cultures
  • Cultivate individual initiative and achievement
    - I is important
  • Generally encourage members to exhibit a more
    direct communication style for example, Americans
    tend to speak directly on an issue, whereas
    individuals from Japan, Korea, China prefer to
    avoid confrontation to preserve
  • sense of harmony
  • to make it possible for the individuals with whom
    they are speaking to save face or maintain
    self-esteem.
  • For example, Saudi Arabians rarely criticize one
    another publicly, to do so would be to label the
    individual as disloyal and disrespectful.

49
Intercultural communication
  • Improving intercultural communication
  • One can do this by accepting the fact that our
    culture is
  • not superior to other cultures
  • avoid basing our behaviour expectations for
    members of other cultures on our own cultures
    norms.

50
Activity
  • How to improve your ability to communicate
    interculturally
  • limit your reliance on stereotypes that can
    diminish your success when you interact with
    others
  • there is need for you to reduce your uncertainty
    levels regarding the persons of different
    cultures with whom you communicate
  • Refrain from formulating expectations based on
    solely on your culture
  • Recognise how faulty education can impede
    understanding(personal biases, prejudices,
    acknowledge differences that you have developed
    over the years)
  • Make a commitment to develop communication skills
    and abilities appropriate to life ins of a
    multi-cultural world.
  • Familiarize yourself with the communication rules
    and preferences of members of different cultures
    so that you can increase the effectiveness of
    your communication encounters.

51
Communication and self concept
  • How do your friends picture you?
  • Self-concept
  • Spend some time considering who you are and what
    you intend to do with the rest of your life. Self
    concept is everything you think and feel about
    yourself.
  • It is the entire collection of attitudes and
    beliefs you hold about who and what you are. E
    One is not born with self concept but develops
    one. Although one undergoes changes, it is
    difficult to alter or change the picture you have
    of yourself. The way we are treated by others
    influences our sense of self.

52
Self concept is shaped by
  • Ones environment
  • By people around you for example, peers,
    relatives
  • If people important to you have made you feel
    accepted, valued, worthwhile, lovable and
    significant, you have probably developed a
    positive self concept.
  • On the other hand, is those important have made
    you feel left outm small, worthless, unloved,
    insignificant, you probably have developed a
    negative self concept.
  • Self concept is a mental picture you have of
    yourself. If you feel you have little worth, you
    probably expect to be taken advantage of, stepped
    on, demeaned by others.
  • Our opinions about ourselves grow more and more
    resistant to change as we become older and
    presumably wiser, how you look at yourself is
    affected by how you look at other people, how
    people actually look at you, how you imagine or
    perceive that people look at you. Self concept
    may be realistic or unrealistic self concept is
    derived from experience and projected into future
    behaviour

53
Communication and self concept
  • 1. List the names of all the people with whom you
    interacted during a single day this week/ or last
    week. For each
  • Identify the environment in which you
    communicated
  • Choose an adjective to describe your image of
    yourself during each interaction and an adjective
    to describe your image of the person with whom
    you spoke.
  • What can you say about the nature of your
    self-image? To what extent does your view of
    yourself change as you move from person to person
    what contributes to these changes.
  • Are you the person you think you are?
  • 2. If you could trade places with any TV or film
    or well known person or your hero who would the
    person be? What does this person real of
    fictional do for you? Why would you like to be
    like them? Why would you like to be more like the
    media image? Or would you like the image to be
    more like you?

54
Purposes of Communication.
  • Intrapersonal (communication with oneself) To
    think, reason, analyze, reflect
  • Intercultural (between people of different
    cultures)
  • To learn, relate, influence, help, play.
  • Mass (addressed to an extremely large audience,
    mediated by audio and/or visual means) To
    entertain, to persuade, reinforce, change,
    activate, inform, confer, create ties

55
Visuals and Communication
  • The use of visuals in communication are
    classified into three categories namely, those
    that are used for telling, and showing and doing.
    He points out that visuals that allow the
    audience to do or experience something are more
    concrete than visuals that simply show
    something. Examples from Dales cone of
    experience
  • Telling using verbal symbols, visual symbols,
    graphs, charts, cartoons, diagrams, pictures,
    sketches, maps, bar graphs, line graphs.
  • Showing using demonstrations, excursions, study
    trips, video clips, films these bring the
    audience closer to reality than mere telling.
  • Doing participation by the audience for
    example, role playing, working on case studies.

56
Activity
  • Think about textbooks, newspapers, magazines you
    have read. How have visuals in these helped you
    to understand the information being put across?
    Have they
  • clarified an image not made quite clear by words
    alone?
  • guided you through a maze of unfamiliar
    information?
  • emphasized materials so that you remember it?
  • allowed you to find information quickly? and to
    make comparisons between items?
  • People rely on non-verbal messages to help them
    communicate and people respond to visuals to a
    higher degree and this is probably because people
    think in images as well as symbols.

57
Visuals and Communication
  • Advantages of using visuals in communication.
  • visuals, especially tables can consolidate a
    great deal of information int0 relatively little
    space.
  • They clarify concepts
  • They emphasize materials
  • They guide the audiences through important
    material
  • They make it easier to see an overall pattern and
    draw comparisons
  • They help to make ideas concrete and encourage
    creative thinking by projecting alternate
    solutions to a problem.
  • can express simultaneous conditions as words
    cannot.
  • They help in solving anticipated problems in
    conveying ideas or information and to add
    emphasis.

58
remember
  • Remember,
  • Communication takes place within a system as we
    enter into communicative relationships with
    others, we set a pattern by which we will
    interact
  • We teach others how to treat us we need to
    develop a system, a structure within any
    communicative exchange, and each person plays a
    role within the system. If the role is accepted
    by the other person, it becomes a pattern
  • We communicate what and who we are every time
    we communicate, we tell a great deal about
    ourselves our selection of words, we tone of
    our voice and the gestures we use combine to give
    a picture of our values, likes, dislikes,
    experiences, beliefs and self perception. We give
    clues of our background by the pronunciation
    patterns we produce, and the attitudes we express

59
remember
  • Much of our communication centres on our wanting
    others to act or think or feel as we do in other
    words, much of it is an attempt at persuasion
  • Meaning is in people, not in words the meaning
    of a word only has that meaning by virtue of the
    meaning people give to that word
  • We cannot not communicate communication does
    not necessarily stop simply because people stop
    talking and listening much of our communication
    is done below the verbal level

60
remember
  • People react to our action we are constantly
    demonstrating the action reaction
    principle. For example, when we smile, others are
    likely to smile back.
  • We do what we do because in the end we expect to
    achieve happiness when we enter into
    communication, we do so hoping to gain from the
    experience.
  • We cannot always have the same understandings and
    as others- as we communicate we must recognize
    that because of differences in our cultures, the
    only areas we share are those in which we have
    common experiential ground.

61
Human Communication
  • THE END
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