We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 21
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
Communication Skills: Learn How to Talk to Anyone, Read People Like a Book, Develop Charisma and Persuasion, Overcome Anxiety, Become a People Person, and Achieve Relationship Success.