Human Communication: Meaning, Concept, and Process, Exams of Communication

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HUMAN COMMUNICATION SEMESTER - I, ACADEMIC YEAR 2025

Table of Content

UNIT CONTENT PAGE NO

I COMMUNICATION (MEANING, CONCEPT AND

PROCESS)

II SOCIALIZATION^

III

THEORIES OF PERSUASION

IV COMMUNICATION BARRIERS 33

V LEVELS OF COMMUNICATION 36

HUMAN COMMUNICATION SEMESTER - I, ACADEMIC YEAR 2025

which the communication takes place is called the “communication environment”. The content of the code is sent in a certain medium (oral, written or non-verbal) using channels (air, mikes, body, pictures, text, etc.) in the form of encoded messages. The “code” is not restricted to only language; it may also involve the use of costumes, gestures, colors among other things. The process of communication can be described in the following manner: The sender sends a “message” using a “medium” and a “channel” to the “receiver”. The message arrives in the sensory world of the receiver. The receiver’s brain filters the message on the basis of his/her knowledge, emotions, attitudes, and biases and gives the message a unique meaning. This meaning may trigger a response which the mind of the receiver forms. The receiver encodes his/her response and sends it across as “feedback” into the sensory world of the sender. This completes one cycle of communication and the process continues in a cyclic manner, i.e. cycle after cycle, as long as the people involved care to communicate.

The components of the communication process can be listed as follows:

1. Idea or impulse that arises in the sender’s mind
2. Formal expression of the idea or impulse using a medium and channel : encoding
3. Interpretation of the message by the receiver: decoding
4. Reaction or response of the receiver
5. Conveying the reaction/response in the feedback using a medium and channel
6. Decoding of the feedback received

The essentials of effective communication are:

1. A common communication environment
2. Cooperation between the sender and the receiver
3. Selection of an appropriate channel
4. Correct encoding and decoding of the message
5. Receipt of the desired response and feedback

Noise:

In some cases, the message may fail to produce the desired response because of a semantic gap or a barrier between the sender and the receiver. This is termed as “noise”; it refers to any unplanned interference in the communication which causes a hindrance in the transmission of the message.

HUMAN COMMUNICATION SEMESTER - I, ACADEMIC YEAR 2025

There are two types of “noise”:

1. Channel noise: This refers to static, mechanical failures, problems in volume, pitch, legibility of text, etc.
2. Semantic: Here “noise” is generated internally resulting from errors in the message itself: ambiguity, grammatical errors, wrong spellings, incorrect punctuation, etc.

Feedback:

The transmission of the receiver’s response to the sender is called “feedback.” It is one of the most vital factors of the communication process. It is essential because it is a barometer of effective communication. The sender needs to know whether the receiver of the message has received it in the intended way and whether he responds in the desired manner. Of course, even if one receives a response, it may or may not be the one you had expected. But once you receive some response, you know that the message has been communicated, e.g. a notice for a meeting.

There could be both positive and negative responses to this message; some may turn up for the meeting and some may not. Communication is said to be fully effective only when you get the desired response. Feedback helps in improving communication as it enables the sender to pinpoint defects in the transmission of the message. A skilful communicator is always looking for warning signs that the communication is not going well and adjusts messages accordingly. Being alert to feedback helps the sender know whether he/she is on the right track. In the long run, it helps in understanding one’s strengths and weaknesses in the communication context. In the business world, managers should ensure that adequate facilities and opportunities exist for obtaining feedback. This is done through establishment of internal systems and forums which enable employees to express their views and influence decisions.

Market research is another way of obtaining feedback and information from employees and external target groups.

Types: Feedback may be positive or negative.

Positive feedback occurs when the receiver receives the desired response based on a clear understanding of the symbols used in the message.

Negative feedback occurs when there is an undesired response because of miscommunication. In some cases, not getting feedback is also a sort of feedback.

For instance, complete silence on the part of the receiver is also an indicator of either effective communication (agreement) or a failure on the part of the communicator (inability to understand, dissent). Observation of changes in the recipient’s behavior in face-to-face communication is a source of valuable feedback in cases where the receiver does not explicitly express his reaction. For instance, if a counselor gives a pep-talk to a depressed student and notices that he is more cheerful, relaxed and willing to talk on his next visit, he interprets this change as a positive response.

HUMAN COMMUNICATION SEMESTER - I, ACADEMIC YEAR 2025

2. Communication is a two way process: Communication is essentially a two way process. It does not merely means sending and receiving messages. It is not complete unless and until the message has been understood by the receiver in the same sense. 3. Purpose of communication: The basic purpose of communication is to create an understanding. The receiver should understand the message sent and should response accordingly. 4. Form of communication:

Communication may take several forms e.g. order, instruction, report, queries etc. It may be verbal or written. It may be formal or informal.

5. Scope of communication: Communication pervades all human relationship. It is essential in all type of organizational and at all levels of management. 6. Communication is a dynamic process: Communication is influenced by the mood and thinking of the sender and receiver. The way a message is accepted depends upon the fact that which of the fine sensory organs of the receiver is active at that time. 7. Communication is much more than words: Communication is not merely sending or receiving facts, expressed in words. It also involves ideas and emotions. A lot of communication is done through signs, symbols and gestures. 8. Communication is a goal oriented process: Communication is goal oriented and is effective only when there is congruence of goals of sender and receiver. 9. Communication is conversational: Communication sets up a link between facts, ideas, and thus helps the communicator and communicates to progress logically. 10. Communication is an interdisciplinary science: Communication to be effective derives knowledge from several sciences like-anthropology (study of body language), sociology (study of human behaviour), psychology (study of attitude) etc.

HUMAN COMMUNICATION SEMESTER - I, ACADEMIC YEAR 2025

The scope of communication can be described as under:

1. One Way Communication:

In olden days that is before the industrial revolution, when the size of business organisation was limited, the scope of communication was also limited. At that time, one way communication was in existence. It was considered as a powerful tool in the hands of the management to get the things done through employees.

One way communication can be called as a downward communication, which usually provides no scope for the rank and file people to show their reaction or forward their opinions, point of views or suggestions to the top level people. In modern times one way communication has become outdated, obsolete, inefficient and ineffective.

In one way communication there is a transmission of ideas or information from executives to the subordinates, it is generally directive in the sense that it causes action to be initiated by subordinates. In today’s environment one way communication is not suitable at all.

2. Two Way Communication:

In the global business world two way communication is always welcomed. There is a wide scope for this type of communication. This upward and downward communication completes of circuit. In this circuit communication goes in upward and as well as in downward direction. The communicator and the receiver get an opportunity to interact with each other and exchange their ideas, opinions, viewpoints, suggestions and emotions etc.

Whenever the orders regarding work are issued by the top level to the bottom level of organisation under two way communication the employees/workers get an opportunity to express and convey to the top level people, their reactions, feelings, opinion, ideas, suggestions etc. freely. It is the duty and responsibility of the supervisor to know, how and what to communicate to the higher executives.

Two way communication helps in building the mutual trust, co-operation, better understanding, mutual respect, between the management and employees which ultimately helps in improving industrial relations and peace. Last but not least, a good communication system should be like a two way traffic, and both the transmitter and the receiver have a joint role in making this communication effective.

3. Intra-Organizational (Internal) Communication:

In modern business organization there are a number of departments established to perform the specialized business activities. Therefore it is necessary to integrate and co-ordinate the activities of these different departments for achieving the common objectives of the organization.

HUMAN COMMUNICATION SEMESTER - I, ACADEMIC YEAR 2025

3. Information Sender and Receiver may be Human or Non-Human Objects:

The concept of communication is quite broader. It is wider field of human interchange of facts and opinions and not the media like telephone, telex, telegraph, radio and others.

4. Communication Requires Some Channel or Medium:

Communication i.e. transmission can be made orally or in writing. Thus the words and paper assumes the nature of transmission media. But these are not the only mediums of communication. Even a silence can communicate some message. Radios, Televisions, Telexes, Telephones, letters etc. are general media of communication. Apart from this, attitudes, behaviors, actions, gestures, and silence are also effective mediums of communications. Communication can be made directly, consciously or unconsciously.

5. Communication has Three Interlocking Circuits:

Transmitting information – (i) Upwards (ii) Downwards and (iii) Intra scaler. Upward circuit is aimed at knowing the idea, comments, actions, reactions, attitudes, reports, complains and grievances from the lower level. Such a circuit flows upwards.

Downward circuit is meant for transmitting flow of instructions, directions, clarifications, interpretations of rules, orders, policies and procedures, to lower level who has to implement them. Such a circuit has a downward flow. Intra scalar or cross contact circuit is for exchange of information between departmental heads, members, executives or between workers all of equal rank.

The following are the objectives of the Human communication:

1. To transmit information and develop understanding among working group, which is a must for group effort.
2. To develop positive attitude which is necessary for motivating the employees and gaining their co-operation and job satisfaction.
3. To strictly prohibit the misinformation, rumors gossip. This helps in reducing the emotional tensions of employees.
4. Workers can be made mentally prepared for changes by communicating such information in advance.
5. Another very important objective of communication is to motivate the employees for new ideas, suggestions, creative thinking, new methods of working, improvement in the product,

HUMAN COMMUNICATION SEMESTER - I, ACADEMIC YEAR 2025

working conditions, encouraging new methods, and thereby reducing time, wastages in production activity.

6. Communication develops, maintains and improves better worker and management relations.
7. Communication ensures free exchange of information and ideas so that all the employees understand and accept them by responding to the status and authority of everyone in the organization.
8. Communication helps to satisfy employees’ basic needs such as self-respect, status, recognition, attachment, sense of belonging, and identity etc.
9. Communication helps to entertain and maintain social relations among the employees.
10. Communication ensures security and conformity of plans, policies and objectives of the business organization.

Purpose of human communication:

Communication serves five major purposes:

 to inform,

 to express feelings,

 to imagine,

 to influence, and

 to meet social expectations.

Communication and Information:

Often, the words “information” and “communication” are used interchangeably. You’ll hear: “I have communicated with her”, meaning that information has been given. But giving information is a one-way process; communication is two-way.

HUMAN COMMUNICATION SEMESTER - I, ACADEMIC YEAR 2025

Shared language is critical to such vital functions as business and education. We are living today in an interconnected global community, where communicating through shared language is increasingly possible.

Overall, communication has a wider scope than language, as communication encompasses language. A good analogy of the relationship between language and communication is to look at communication as the car, and language as the road. The car of communication can go down another road (another language), or even go off-roading.

Language allows us to communicate in a variety of ways, but it is only one set of tools in the larger scheme. Besides language, the communication toolset is comprised of things like empathy, knowledge, body language, facial expressions, and intonation. Relationships thrive through communication, regardless of the shared language. Therefore, it is up to businesses and organizations to communicate with their target audiences in the correct shared language.

Evolution of Social Groups:

Human societies exhibit cooperation, coordination, and division of labor, three features that place them at striking variance with most animals. Cooperation involves individuals doing something for the common benefit of everyone in a social group, as when soldiers defend a whole nation against its enemies. Coordination involves everyone doing things one way instead of another so that social activity can proceed efficiently (Susden, 1986).

 Social groups form the foundation of human society—without groups, there would be no human culture. Working together in groups, however, may lead to a variety of negative outcomes as well.  Similarity, communication, interdependence, and group structure are variables that make a collection of individuals seem more like a group—the perception of group entitativity.  Most groups that we belong to provide us with a positive social identity—the part of the self-concept that results from our membership in social groups.  The more we feel that our identities are tied to the our group memberships, the less likely we are to leave the groups we belong to.  One way to understand group development is to consider the potential stages that groups generally go through. The normal stages are forming, storming, norming and performing, and adjourning.

Organic Structure of Society:

The philosophical contention that society as such is an organism goes back to Plato and Aristotle. Since the Romantic period, however, many aesthetes and literati have used the term ‘organic society’ to denote a specific, idealized kind of society against which modern civilization is to be judged. For them the ‘organic society’ is local, rural and traditional rather than cosmopolitan, urban and mobile. Its central feature is that in it all human relations,

HUMAN COMMUNICATION SEMESTER - I, ACADEMIC YEAR 2025

including and especially the economic and political, are in some sense personal. This distinguishes it from both ‘market’ and totalitarian societies, which are rejected, along with industrialism, as ‘mechanical’.

Verbal communication:

Verbal communication is the use of words to share information with other people. It can therefore include both spoken and written communication. However, many people use the term to describe only spoken communication. The verbal element of communication is all about the words that you choose, and how they are heard and interpreted.

FOUR TYPES OF VERBAL COMMUNICATION:

Verbal communication include sounds, words, language, and speech. Speaking is an effective way of communicating and helps in expressing our emotions in words. This form of communication is further classified into four types, which are:

1. Intrapersonal Communication

This form of communication is extremely private and restricted to ourselves. It includes the silent conversations we have with ourselves, wherein we juggle roles between the sender and receiver who are processing our thoughts and actions. This process of communication when analyzed can either be conveyed verbally to someone or stay confined as thoughts.

2. Interpersonal Communication

This form of communication takes place between two individuals and is thus a one-on-one conversation. Here, the two individuals involved will swap their roles of sender and receiver in order to communicate in a clearer manner.

HUMAN COMMUNICATION SEMESTER - I, ACADEMIC YEAR 2025

 Eye contact: Making and maintaining eye contact with an audience when you’re verbally communicating or listening communicates to the other party that you’re interested and engaged in the conversation. Good eye contact often conveys the trait of honesty to the other party.  Appearance: Your clothing, hair, and jewelry are also a part of nonverbal communication. Similarly, the quality and condition of your clothing, how it fits, if it’s appropriate for the season—all of these things speak nonverbally about you as a communicator.

Verbal Communication Nonverbal Communication

Oral Spoken Language Laughing, Crying, Coughing, etc.

Non Oral

Written Language/Sign Language Gestures,^ Body^ Language,^ etc.

7 Cs of Effective Communication:

1. Clear

When writing or speaking to someone, be clear about your goal or message. What is your purpose in communicating with this person? If you’re not sure, then your audience won’t be sure either. To be clear, try to minimize the number of ideas in each sentence. Make sure that it’s easy for your reader to understand your meaning. People shouldn’t have to “read between the lines” and make assumptions on their own to understand what you’re trying to say. Information and actions required, must be clear so the reader has the information they need to take action.

2. Concise

When you’re concise in your communication, you stick to the point and keep it brief. Your audience doesn’t want to read six sentences when you could communicate your message in three.

 Are there any adjectives or “filler words” that you can delete? You can often eliminate words like “for instance,” “you see,” “definitely,” “kind of,” “literally,” “basically,” or “I mean.”

 Are there any unnecessary sentences?

 Have you repeated the point several times, in different ways?

HUMAN COMMUNICATION SEMESTER - I, ACADEMIC YEAR 2025

3. Concrete

When your message is concrete, then your audience has a clear picture of what you’re telling them. There are details (but not too many!) and vivid facts, and there’s laser-like focus. Your message is solid.

4. Correct

When your communication is correct, it fits your audience. And correct communication is also error-free communication.

 Do the technical terms you use fit your audience’s level of education or knowledge?

 Have you checked your writing for grammatical errors? Remember, spell checkers won’t catch everything.

 Are all names and titles spelled correctly?

5. Coherent

When your communication is coherent, it’s logical. All points are connected and relevant to the main topic, and the tone and flow of the text is consistent.

6. Complete

In a complete message, the audience has everything they need to be informed and, if applicable, take action.

 Does your message include a “call to action,” so that your audience clearly knows what you want them to do?  Have you included all relevant information – contact names, dates, times, locations, and so on?

7. Courteous

Courteous communication is friendly, open, and honest. There are no hidden insults or passive- aggressive tones. You keep your reader’s viewpoint in mind, and you’re empathetic to their needs.

HUMAN COMMUNICATION SEMESTER - I, ACADEMIC YEAR 2025

• Macionis, J.J:“ Socialization refers to the lifelong social experience by which people develop their human potential and learn culture”

SIGNIFICANACE OF SOCIALIZATION

• Socialization is significant to individuals and society
• it is essential for the individual’s survival and for human development. The many people who met the early material and social needs of each of us were central to our establishing our own identity.
• Socialization is also important for the survival and stability of society. Members of a society must be socialized to support and maintain the existing social structure.
• Socialization enables a society to “reproduce” itself by passing on its culture from one generation to the next.

Agents and Agencies of Socialization

• Agents and agencies of socialization are the persons, groups, or institutions that teach us what we need to know in order to participate in society.
• In general, Agents are people involved in our socialization while Agencies represent the organizations involved in our socialization.
• Institutions pass on expectations about appropriate social behavior:
  1. Family

2. Media
3. Peers
4. Religion 1. The Family

• Families introduce children to the expectations of society. The kind of human being that we become depends greatly on the particular society and social groups that surround us at birth and during early childhood.
• How parents define and treat a child is crucial to the development of the child’s sense of self.
• Through close interaction with parents and small number of others, child:

➢ Learns to think and speak

➢ Internalizes norms, beliefs, and values

HUMAN COMMUNICATION SEMESTER - I, ACADEMIC YEAR 2025

➢ Learns gender roles

➢ Develops capacity for intimate and personal relationships

➢ Begins to develop a self image…*

• Studies show that families socialize their children somewhat differently based on race, ethnicity, and class (Kohn, 1977; Kohn et al., 1990; Harrison et al., 1990).
• Social class (as measured by parental occupation) is one of the strongest influences on what and how parents teach their children.
• Working-class parents, typically emphasize to their children the importance of obedience and conformity. On the other hand, parents from the middle and professional classes , socialize their children in a way to make their own decisions and to be creative.

GENDER SOCIALIZATION:

• Parents raise their daughters and sons quite differently as they interact with them from birth.
• Parents help their girls learn how to act and think “like girls,” and they help their boys learn how to act and think “like boys.” That is, they help their daughters and sons learn their gender (Wood, 2009).

For example,

• they are gentler with their daughters and rougher with their sons.
• They give their girls dolls to play with, and their son’s guns.
• Girls may be made of “sugar and spice and everything nice” and boys something quite different, but their parents help them greatly, for better or worse, to turn out that way.

Socialization is not a unitary process Different categories of people will participate in socialization in different ways: One of the most important of those differences is gender Most differences between sexes are cultural, not biological.

2. THE SCHOOL

• Structured - the emphasis is on acquiring skills that enable the students to fit into a larger society
• Most socialization is deliberate: schools teach specific knowledge and skills, they also have a profound effect on children’s self-image, beliefs, and values. As children enter school for the first time, they are evaluated and systematically compared with one another by the teacher.
• Schools socialize children by teaching them their formal curriculum but also a hidden curriculum.