HSS-103

Basic Communication Skills

Contents
Communication skills: Process of Communication, Barriers to
Communication, Ways to avoid barriers, Oral and written
Communication, Verbal and Non-verbal Communication.
Reading Skills: Process of Reading, way to improve reading skills,
Reading Comprehension Skills, Searching for information, drawing
information and making generalizations.
Language skills: Common Grammatical Mistakes, Diction,
Strategies, Economy emphasis, Clarity, Concreteness, Unity and
Coherence etc.
Spoken Language skills: Descriptive, narrative, argumentative and
expository techniques in spoken language use.
Listening skills: Importance and process of listening, Types of
Listening, Barriers to Listening.
What is communication?
⚫ Communication is an interactive process of constructing
meaning that involves producing, receiving and processing
information.
⚫ It is a process which involves sending and receiving messages
through verbal and non-verbal methods.
⚫ It is often spontaneous, open-ended and evolving.
⚫ It is to convey information to another person effectively.
⚫ It is a two way process by which information is transmitted
between two individuals or organizations.
⚫ It is a continuous process of meaningful interaction.
⚫ Communication skill is generally understood to be an art or
technique of persuasion through the use of oral written and
non-verbal features.
History
Even though the basic skills of communication have
been considered as speaking, listening, reading and
writing but human beings have a very long history of
communication. We started communication even before
we developed spoken and written language. Most experts
agree that our first few attempts at communication were
care paintings of some 50,000 years old. Needless to say
communication has been a crucial part of our lives ever
since those ancient times.
Definition of Communication
⚫ Communication, the buzz word in today’s world,
originates from the Latin word ‘communico’ or
‘communicare’ which means ‘to share’ various researcher
and analysts have defined the term ‘ communication’ in
their own ways. Despite their different versions, it can be
briefly summed up that communication essentially means
that transfer of ideas, feelings, plans, messages or
information from one person to another.
⚫ However, communication is considered effective only
when it gets the desired action or response.
Process of Communication
In the process of communication information is encoded, channeled
and sent from a sender to a receiver through a medium. The receiver
then decodes the message and gives the sender a feedback that
effectively winds up the process. So the seven most important
elements of commutation process are
⚫ Message
⚫ Sender
⚫ Encoding
⚫ Channel
⚫ Decoding
⚫ Receiver
⚫ Feedback
⚫ Message: A message is a key idea or information that the sender
wants to communicate. Communication process begins with
deciding about the message to be conveyed. It must be ensured
that the main objective of the message should be very clear.
⚫ Sender: A sender is a person who sends the message. The sender
makes use of the symbols, words, graphics and visual aids to
convey the message and produce the required response.
⚫ Encoding: It is a process when the information would be
communicated gets transferred into a form to be sent and then
sent to the receiver.
⚫ Channel: Channels are the ways to convey a message. These
channels include verbal as well as non-verbal communication
such as e-mail, text messaging etc.
⚫ Decoding : Decoding is on the receiving end of the
communication. This stage is just as important as
encoding. The Decoding of a message is how an audience
member is able to understand and interpret the message.
⚫ Receiver: Receiver is a person who receives the message.
He is the one who decodes the message and gives his
feedback.
⚫ Feedback: Feedback is the main component of the
communication process as it permits the sender to analyse
the efficacy of the message.
Principles of communication
It includes 7 Cs which indicates complete clarity,
concise, courtesy, correctness, concrete, consideration.
⚫ Completeness of Information
It is the responsibility of the communicator to think end to end
before communicating his/her information to the targeted
audience. When end to end planning is not done by the
communicator, it paves way for the recipients to guess or
imagine the untold information in their own manner. This leads
to misinterpretation or confusion in a typical business,
environment. For instance, when all communication is shot, out
calling for a meeting, it is the responsibility of the
communicator to provide information about the agenda of the
meeting (why), the venue of the meeting (where) participating
in the meeting (who), information to be provided by the
participants (what) and the date and time of the planned
meeting (when).
⚫ Clarity of communication: Clarity in communication is
the most important aspect since lack of the same defects
the whole purpose of communication. The communicator
must take enough clarity about what and to whom he is
planning to communicate. He must structure the
communication message keeping in mind the
comprehension levels of the received.
⚫ Crispeness in communication : Brevity (concise and
exact use of words in writing in speech) adds immense
value to communication. Communicator must ensure he
uses minimum number of words to convey exactly what
he intends to communicate. Long messages dilute the care
of the message making the reader feel bored.
⚫ Practice courteous Communication: Courteous and
polite communication has more reach to the targeted
audience than an authoritative one. Ensure professional
terminologies are used in the communication. Make the
receiver feel respected so the anticipated respond is
received.
⚫ Correctness of information communication: It is the
responsibility of the communicator to collect information
that is authenticate and accurate before communicating it
to others. When wrong or inaccurate information is
communicated internally it may cause unnecessary
confusions among the employees leading to productivity
loss and loss of faith in the Management team.
⚫ Consideration is the key to communication: Before
communicating message one must step in shoes of the receiver.
The communicator must understand the background and
behavior of the receiver and translate the message in the
manner that will be well understood and positively perceived
by the receiver.
⚫ Concreteness and consciousness of body language: One
must ensure that the communication message sent is framed in
an objective manner rather than being subjective. A subjective
approach may lead to partial response from the receiver. A
subjective approach in communication may not get a positive
response from the targeted group. Body language has to be in
line with the verbal communication taking place any mismatch
will create anxiety and lack of faith between the concerned
parties.
Forms of Communication
⚫ Verbal Communication: Verbal communication stands
both for the spoken and the written word used in the
communication process. It can further be divided into oral
and written communication.
⚫ Oral communication: A face-to-face interaction between
the sender and the receiver is called oral communication.
In this type of communication, there could be two or more
than two persons who use spoken language as a medium
of communication. For instance, whenever we make
presentations, deliver speeches, participate in group
discussions, appear for interviews, or simply interact with
somebody, we are involved in oral communication.
⚫ Written communication: In this type of communication,
the sender uses the written mode to transmit his / her
messages. Reports, proposals, books, handbooks, letters,
emails etc. come in this category. Written communication
is routinely used for documentation purposes in business
and government organization.
Non-verbal communication
When a message is communicated without using a word,
the process requires non-verbal cues to be transmitted and
received. Non-verbal communication forms an important part
in the world of professional communication. It can be further
categorized into two parts-body language and paralinguistic
features. Body language involves aspects such as personal
appearance, walk, gestures, facial expressions, hand
movements, posture, and eye contact. The paralinguistic
features include a person’s voice, pitch, volume, rate, pauses,
articulation, voice modulation etc.
The barriers of communication are the obstacles that one
may face when attempting to effectively communicate with
another person.
These barriers can be anything that can misrepresent and
avert someone during the communication forced.
Verbal barriers
⚫ Lack of proper planning: Most often, keeping start
talking the writing without thinking, or planning. They do
not clearly state the purpose of the message. This often
results in miscommunication or partial breakdown in
communication process.
⚫ Selection of a wrong variety of language:
Communication would fail if the sender do not use a
language that the receiver is familiar with. Because of a
wrong variety of language, even a strategy, otherwise
affective and useful, they fail miserably.
⚫ Badly encoded or wrongly decoded messages
The sender may have clarity about the message that is to
be conveyed but may still not reach the receiver because
the message might have been improperly expressed.
Choice of wrong words, absence of punctuation marks or
strongly timed passes, poor organization of ideas, use of
unnecessary jargon etc bring vagueness in the message.
⚫ Semantic gap: Semantic gap or distortion might be
deliberate or accidental for example, an advertisement
saying “we sell for less” arises a question, “less than
what?” Is the product sold” to less number of people
offered at a less price?
⚫ Difference in perception a message: Different people
perceive a particular situation in different ways. This clearly
means that all the people cannot perceive a single message in
the same way. To overcome this problem, one needs to
communicate from various perspectives, try to verify the
matters from different point of view and then come to a
conclusion.
⚫ Variation in languages: Sometimes certain words and
idiomatic expressions are culture specific. If we do not use
them appropriately in the respective cultural context, it might
lead to miscommunication or non-communication. For
instance, we find ‘in Britain ‘to table a proposal’ means ‘to act
on it’, whereas in America it means ‘to postpone’. Therefore, if
we use such expressions indiscriminately, it would lead to
confusion and consequently may lead to the breakdown of
communication.
Non-verbal communication
The language that shares the unspoken emotion in a silent way
is called body language and together with the other
paralinguistic features and proxemics, form an integral part of
non-verbal communication.
Body language: Body language refers to all the expressions
that we share by means of our body movement and not through
words. It includes:
⚫ Personal appearances
⚫ Posture
⚫ Gestures and hand movements
⚫ Eye content
⚫ Facial expressions.
⚫ 2. Paralinguistic features: Just as we can communicate
various attitudes through our postures, positive, expression
and body movement through eyes and hands, and can
express emotions and we feeling with the help of different
aspects of our voice. Following are some of the aspects
paralinguistic feature.
1. Rate
2. Pause
3. Volume
4. Pitch intonation / cadence / voice modulation
5. Proximics / space distance:
Proxemics is the distance maintained by a person while
communicating with others. This is also known as the
psychological zone of a human being while communicating
with others.
⚫ Intimate zone
⚫ Personal zone
⚫ Social zone
⚫ Public zone
Haptics : Study of the sense of touch handshakes, hugging and
patting are some of the examples of haptich.
Conclusion: Since human beings are social animals,
communication is highly required for them. It is important to
share out one’s thought to live a fuller and happier life. The
more we communicate with each other the less we suffer and
the better we feel about everything around us.
THANK YOU