Communication

1. Importance of communication.

Communication (derived from a Latin word “communicate”

meaning “to share”) which involves exchanging of
information, data, actions, words, emotions in between two
or more parties.

Communication plays a very significant role in our society for

everything. It helps us evolve our ideas, progress our work,
wellbeing and society etc. as so individuality only takes us so
far, different perspectives, ideas and sharing of them
especially helps in development.

Communication helps us all connect throughout the world,

different organisations and much more with help of
technology.

How it helps us:-

1. Individually:- It helps us to grow as a person,
understand different perspectives better, helps us
connecting with others and betterment of ourselves.
2. Work:- Helps us in invention of new technologies etc.
helps us stay connected throughout the places of work,
ideas help in creation.
3. Society:- helps us in bonding together, stay emotionally
bonded, evolve ideas together, increase the quality of
life.
 2. Purposes of communication.
Communication has multiple purposes, to help us
understand better, here are some purposes of communication:-
1. To exchange information with other individuals
2. To share emotions, cultures, ideas etc.
3. To understand others and their perspectives.
4. To enhance the quality of relationships between people and
work.
5. For better development of things.
6. To understand and learn from others as well as ourselves.
7. Helps us in evaluating things.
8. To converse, connect and help us not to have
misunderstandings.

For example:-
1. A person without understanding or knowing the adverse
effects of water poisoning, started to increase his intake of
water in bulk, noticed by a person he later told him that how
higher intake of water than recommended can harm their
body, here is how by a simple exchange of information the
person saved themselves from getting hospitalized or
possibly death.
2. When given the choice between 2 things, lack of evaluation
can make it hard for us to choose. A, from a different state
didn’t realise that things are not same all throughout the
world. While exploring, A met B who talked about things that
were done much differently than what A did, conflicted with
his old practices, he decided to choose what felt right.
 3. Linguistic Barriers.

Linguistic Barriers meaning language barriers as in

misunderstanding language, words, slangs, body language etc.
These can arise if out of state or meeting people from different
places.
Here are some examples of language barriers:-
1. When talking to someone and not understanding the same
language.
2. Understanding the language and it’s slangs partially.
3. Having bad body language and signs.
4. Using more technical terms towards someone with limited
vocabulary.
5. Speech impairments also create barriers
6. Different cultural customs if not understood properly can
arise.
7. Incomplete grammar, pronunciation, punctuation etc.

Some words which are common day to day words in one

language can be swear words in another language, it is better to
be aware of them to avoid any misunderstandings. Person A
being Filipino went to Colombia and was exploring the local foods
and bakeries, they came across rice cakes and while asking for it
to the server she mentions it being called as puto, the female
server taking offence starts screaming at her, after a heated
argument the person learns that the same word is considered a
swear in Colombian.
4. Process, factors and features of communication.

Process and factors of communication involves:-

1. Sender:- the person who sends the primary message
containing info, data etc.
2. Message:- the message can be verbal or non verbal
containing info about what the primary sender intended
to send.
3. Medium:- it is the channel through which the message
transmits, could involve face-to-face talking or any third
party device.
4. Receiver:- The person who receives the end message
of what the primary sender sent.
5. Decode and feed back:- the receiver decides the
message and sends back a feedback to the sender.
6. Context:- The situation or position in which the
communication takes place.
7. Noise:- the external interferences that disrupt the
communication.

Features of communication involves:-

1. Communication is universal that can be formal or
informal
2. Every communication has a purpose to it.
3. It is a circular process in which there is primary
message and a feedback
4. Involves active listening with attention about what the
primary sender is conveying.
5. Non verbal communication including body language,
signs etc. play a role.
 5.Verbal and non-verbal communication.

Verbal communication encompasses physical exchange

of wordings (of a selected language). Verbal communication to be
efficient has to be spoken with clarity and concise.
Some cues to take care of when communicating verbally:-
• Make sure to speak clearly and to check if the other person
is understanding your pace and language.
• Active listening with undistributed attention plays a decent
role for a conversation to go smoother.
• Speaking with confidence can make a greater impact and
influence on the other person if relaying something
important.
• Also, sometimes you have to understand your receiver and
modify the way you talk for better efficiency.
Non-verbal communication involves interactions with
either parties not using words but conversing through actions and
body language.
Non verbal communication is affected by:-
▪ Body language:- plays a significant role into how the receiver
perceives you.
▪ Gestures or actions from the primary sender.
▪ Facial expressions can be misunderstood if not right.
▪ Using the receiver’s personal space as in touching, standing
close etc. can influence the person.
6.Importance of feedback in communication.

Feedback plays an essential role in communication as it

ensures the primary sender if the receiver has understood and
received the message properly as intended. It also helps in
clearing out confusion, misunderstandings of the message.
Proper feedback is vital as it completes the communication
process and assess the primary sender for any effective
communication. Feedback also helps as to analyse the message
by the sender, increasing trust in between each other, helping fine
places for development of delivery of the message etc.
As mentioned above its primarily is to ensure if the receiver got
the original message without any disruptions and how it helps a
person in different scenarios.

While having discomforts in the abdomen person A went to the

hospital to get it checked out professional, after explaining the
symptoms to the doctor, the doctor thoroughly explained all the
things A should do to get rid of the discomfort and when the
doctor asked A if he understood or not, he just nodded. Few days
passed the discomfort didn’t go away, A visited doc again and
when he said the pain didn’t go away, the doctor asked if he did
everything right and A explained what all he did. The doctor
caught on the fact that A didn’t follow through the process and
when asked why he didn’t reconfirm it with the doc, he stayed
silent. The doctor again explained made sure that A understood
completely even interacting and asking a few questions related.
The pain went away after a few days.
7.Significance of active listening.

Active listening is vital in communication as it helps

understanding different view points, concepts etc. that help both
the primary sender and the receiver. Active listening can be done
by having full concentration and attention towards the
communication, taking notes, asking questions related to
understand concepts better. It helps in overall development of our
attention span also.
The benefits of active listening:-
1. Helps understanding concepts efficiently
2. It creates a sense of trust between the sender and receiver
3. It can help with not having misunderstandings and conflicts
4. It helps you from missing out any important information
5. Helps you increase your knowledge and confidence overall.

Person A working for an Organisation Xyz. Ltd. As a legal advisor.

Some of the executives came over for some consultations and
updates over the company policies and to check if they are any
new problems arising. One of the executive asked person A for a
legal advise and while A was explaining he kept on checking his
phone without hearing it completely. Later he proceeded with the
problem with how A suggested but missed out and important point
making him end up in more trouble. When he faced A again, A
mentioned that he did it completely wrong and he should have
asked if he missed out a points.
 8. Presentation skills using PPT and visual aids.

Presentation skills matter a lot when you are explaining,

pitching a business idea or in any situation where you have to
elaborate and explain a topic. Having thorough understanding and
knowledge about the topic gives you confidence and helps you
explain it better. Using external tech and software, you can
enhance the quality of your pitch.
Power point presentation (PPT) developed by Microsoft office
program. The program helps a user to prepare slide shows,
pictures, data etc. making it easier to understand.
Some features of PPT contain slideshows, creating presentations,
adding visual images, data charts (pies, bar diagram etc.).
The presentations can make learning and explaining fun for the
users.
While doing PowerPoint presentations and explaining it, make
sure to acquire general knowledge on the topic more than what is
presented so in the case of any counter questions you can be
confident while explaining it.
For making it more interactive prepare the slides in a way that
makes the user ask you questions related to the topic, helps you
generate goodwill and also users feel like they understand it
better.
 9. Poor audience engagement.

Audience engagement plays a vital role in effective

communication between the speaker and the audience.
Engagement helps in overall understanding of the topic the
presented and help in generating positive emotions towards
the topic presented.

Poor audience engagement might take place due to

numerous reasons being:-
1. The speaker doesn’t show complete interest toward the
audience.
2. The way of presentation might be less engaging.
3. Presentation has flaws and nothing that might be eye
catching or arise curiosity of the audience.
4. The audience is engaged with other distractions.
5. Might also take place when the audience consistently
asks questions to the speaker but the speaker gives no
response or attention towards them.

For an enhancement of audience engagement following can

be done:-
1. Keep the presentation interactive.
2. Ask related questions to the audience.
3. Keep the presentation fun and eye catching.
4. Present with confidence and surety.
5. Make sure you answer every question from the
audience.
6. Take a note of the audience and upgrade presentation.
10.Relevance of accurate pronunciation.

Accurate pronunciation helps people not to have any miss

understanding and increase the comprehension of the other
person.
Accurate pronunciation is important as it helps with the following:-
• Incorrect pronunciation will increase the risk of confusion
and change meaning of the original message.
• Speaking with clarity helps people understand better.
• It also shows the efficiency of the speaker.
• Confidence sparks professionalism in a person which is a
good influence towards the receiver.

Inaccurate pronunciation might feel ragged in most situations if

the other person doesn’t completely understand the language
either. To avoid this we can take the following steps :-
1. Read every day aloud.
2. Practice tough words.
3. Give it time and progress
In a hypothetical situation, a person learnt a language to travel
across another country while asking to go to a particular place,
the word meaning a water park of sort, she ended up saying the
same word with different syllabus, the local not being able to
understand it it’s a water park or a zoo, told her the directions of a
zoo.
11.Strategies of effective communication.

Effective communication is vital for any type

conversations as it helps in better understanding of the message,
the person and everything.
Here are some strategies to enhance your communication
process:-
❖ Always making sure that the other person is understanding
what you’re conveying.
❖ Speaking louder and clear.
❖ Asking counter questions to the related topics.
❖ Explaining a topic within 20 minutes.
❖ Ease them into the conversation by talking non work related
things so that they feel relatable with you.
❖ Making sure that they don’t have any discomfort.
❖ Changing the tone from casual to serious when changing
topics.
Person A, being a representative of a company had a business
idea which would generate a good amount of net profit. He
decided to partner up with another company and started to
prepare his business pitch. When he researched about it he found
out about little tricks to keep the person engaged and that a
human attention only lasts for more or less 20 minutes. When he
met the representative from the other company, the initial
conversation was casual and he mentioned about how and why
they should choose them subtly by mentioning little achievements
and experiences, then finished the pitch in 20 min. He got the
deal.
12. Globalization and threat to multilingualism.

Globalization can defined as interdependence of world’s

economics, cultures, population etc. brought in by trade of goods
and services etc.
While it is rather exciting about learning of new cultures, their
language and ethics. There can be some times where our own
language and traditions can feel inferior because of pressurized
influence.
We can take the invasion of British in India as an example of how
our language changed, beauty standards changed, accents
changed etc. also how if you are not able to speak English, you’re
often judged.
Slowly everything is westernised and while now other cultures are
also effecting the younger generations of our country. People are
forgetting their local language, most forgot how to read and write
their native languages. There has been data of people feeling
inferior to speak Hindi or their native language in some places
and felt how only English is acceptable. Taking measures together
as a society to learn the indigenous languages back and feeling
pride in our own kin is important as most of our culture is fading
back with the names of stereotypes etc.
Sumathi from a backward village from the state of Maharashtra
visited the city for some work related to her family business, while
exploring the city and cafes, she noticed how some people started
treating her differently whenever she spoke in Marathi but not
when she spoke in English.
13. Biases and interferences in Communication.

Biases and interferences in communication can significantly

hinder the clarity end effectiveness of communication.
Biases are human tendencies that can influence how a message
can be interpreted. Some common biases are cognitive bias,
cultural bias, gender bias, stereotyping, and status bias. These
effect on how the delivery of our message takes place often
misleading etc.
Interferences can be defined as external factors that interfere with
a communication process. These can include physical noise,
psychological noise (which can be because of any cognitive
diseases or stress), semantic noises, technological noises
(disruptions in technology or devices used), emotional noises etc.
Biases and interference can create barriers of effective
communication. To reduce these we can use clear language listen
actively, managing distractions which would help us understand
more better.

This is an example of a cultural bias. Aditi an Indian went to

another state overseas faced discrimination, felt unheard and
undervalued even though she looked well presentable and spoke
clear English, she also mentioned on how some people gave
comments as to “How she should just go back to her Country”.
Cultural bias often walk hand in hand with stereotyping people
where she also felt that when some people asked her how she
smelt so nice or if she is good at math.
14. Mass communication and public speaking.

Mass communication can be defined as to when the

speaker has a larger amount of audience usually done through
social media digital platforms etc. these are often done when
targeting large groups to relay information or explain something or
any sort of communication. It usually involves one way
communication. This can be digitally as well as physically.

Public speaking involves the speaker to be talking with a large

number of people in public face to face. Being confident and
knowledgeable about the topic relaying helps greatly while
influencing them towards the aim of the communication. Here, the
public can interfere and interact with the speaker with questions
or any other statements that peek curiosity to them. It is done
mostly offline in front of people.
Both public speaking and mass Communication have larger
audience, relaying information in common. The difference arises
where no interaction with the audience takes place in mass
communication but it does in public speaking.
You can enhance your public speaking skills by making sure that
you are confident in the language relaying and interacting with the
audience frequently to make sure that they are actively listening
and understanding. For Mass communication make sure you
have thorough knowledge of the topic and an outlined script. Both
of these need decent amount of practice to get through smoothly.
15. Information gap and information overload in
communication.

Information gap can be referred to when there is a lack of

information between two individuals to complete a task etc. but
there is a need to know in either of them.

Information overload can have a negative impact on the

communication process, it is when the brain gets more data than
it can process leading to a crash. These have a physical impact
on your health by making you feel fatigued, decrease in
concentration and attention, give you anxiety, poor decision
making etc.

For information gap it is primary to understand where the data

sources are and exploring and studying them, increasing your
knowledge. While reading, writing down, practicing some
information can help you gain confidence and make a positive
impact on yourself.

For information gap to be coped, you can take things slow, doing
things once at a time, taking breaks, giving body physical
exercises and stretches. These can help you gain control over the
state of your mind again increasing productivity after a period of
time.