7.1 COMMUNICATION 153 Dalton E. McFarland, American expert on business management, defines communication as the process of meaningful interaction among human beings . Give your own personal definition of communication. Think of a real-life example for each of these communicative purposes. Name five different channels you can think of in under 30 seconds. Proxemics is the study of human use of space (e.g. how far people stand from each other when interacting). For the most part, people in the US, Canada, the UK, and Nordic countries have the largest personal-space requirements. Those living in South America, Europe, and Asia have far smaller standards of personal space. Not respecting these may cause miscommunication. 310 WORK WHAT IS COMMUNICATION? Definition Communication is strongly linked to all other human activities: it overcomes the gap between individuals and groups through information, be it factual, emotional, social, or personal. It helps people understand, bringing people closer and creating clarity of thoughts and expression. Over the course of the years, people have learned to communicate to exchange information through a common system of symbols, signs, or sets of behaviour. Encoding: the process of converting messages into communication symbols such as words, pictures, gestures, symbols, etc. Encoding translates the internal thought of the sender into a language which can be understandable. Purposes of communication The five major purposes for communication are: to share knowledge; to imagine unreal situations or stories; to influence (e.g. advertising); to meet social expectations; to express feelings. Feedback: the receiver s response, which confirms that the intended recipient has got the message. The process of communication The process of communication refers to the transmission of information in the form of a message from the sender, through a selected channel, to the receiver, overcoming barriers. The process of communication is a cyclic one as it begins with the sender and ends with the sender again in the form of feedback; it is a continuous and dynamic interaction. Channel(s): the way the message is carried through. Receiver: the person or group the message is addressed to. Decoding: the process of translating the encoded message back into comprehensible language. Noise Sometimes, communication can be hindered by different barriers (also called noise ) which could give rise to miscommunication and make it more difficult or even impossible. These may be: linguistic, visual, semantic, physical, cultural , physiological, emotional, psychological. Elements in the process of communication Sender: the creator of the message that needs to be transmitted. Message: the heart of communication, the content the sender wants to convey. to address to: to hinder: ostacolare indirizzare to overcome: superare to convey: trasmettere stuttering: balbuzie