The Essentials of Human
Communication
Chapter 1
What does communication mean
to you?
What do you expect to get out of
this class?
How is the study of
communication important to
your life and career?
What experiences do you have with
communication?
Skills of Human
Communication
• Self-Presentation Skills: presenting
yourself to others as confident, credible,
likeable and approachable.
• Relationship Skills: knowing how to
initiate, maintain, repair, or dissolve
relationships.
• Interviewing Skills: being able to
gather and share information in a
variety of situations.
• Group Interaction and Leadership
Skills: participating as an effective
group member in relationship and task
groups.
• Presentation Skills: speaking to small
and large audiences to inform or
persuade.
• Media Literacy Skills: being a critical
user of mass media encountered on a
daily basis.
What are some popularly held
myths about human
communication?
The more you communicate, the better
your communication will be.
Research finds that if you practice poor
communication habits, you grow less
effective as a communicator.
When two people are in a close
relationship, neither person should have
to explicitly communicate needs and
wants.
People are not mind readers. To assume
otherwise inhibits open and honest
communication.
Interpersonal or group conflict is a
reliable sign that the relationship or
group is in trouble.
Research suggests that interpersonal or
group conflict is inevitable and can be
beneficial to the relationship or group.
Fear of public speaking is detrimental and
must be avoided.
Most speakers are nervous; learning to
manage anxiety effectively can enhance
your public speaking skills.
Like good communicators, leaders are
born, not made.
Communication is a skill, not a talent.
Anyone can learn to be an effective
communicator.
Levels of Communication
Intrapersonal Communication
Talking with oneself to
better learn and
judge yourself.
When do you engage
in intrapersonal
communication?
Interpersonal Communication
• Interactions
between two or
more people.
• Maintain, build,
repair, or terminate
relationships.
Interviewing
• Communication that
proceeds by
question and
answer.
• Method of selflearning, gaining
counsel, and
achieving goals.
Group Communication
• In small groups (510), you work with
others to solve
problems, develop
new ideas, and
share knowledge
and experiences.
Public Communication
• Speaking to large or
small groups, public
speakers inform or
persuade others to act,
buy, or think.
What are some public
speaking situations you
have been in, or may be
in in the future?
Mediated Communication
• Messages sent by
electronic means
(asynchronous and
synchronous).
Examples?
What are the similarities
and differences
between F2F and CMC?
Mass Communication
• One source (sender)
delivers the same
message to a large,
unseen audience
(receivers).
Communication Models and
Concepts
• Linear View: the speaker speaks and
the listener listens.
• Interactional View: speaker and listener
exchange turns at speaking and
listening.
• Transactional View: each person serves
simultaneously as speaker and listener.
Seven Elements of Human
Communication
• Speaker:
• Credibility, knowledge of subject,
preparation, manner of speaking,
sensitivity to audience and setting.
• Speakers encode meaning into their
messages.
• Message:
• Signal or combination of signals sent to a
receiver (listener).
• Goal is for the intended message to be the
one that is actually communicated.
• Channel:
• The means of communicating a message.
• Face to face, email, commercial, telephone,
etc.
• Vocal channel, visual channel, tactile
channel.
• Listener:
• Receiver of message.
• Message is filtered through their frame of
reference. What does this mean for you as
a sender/speaker?
• Listener must decode message.
• Feedback:
• Tells speaker what effect they are having
on listeners.
• What are some examples of positive or
negative feedback you may receive?
• How can you adjust your communication
based on feedback received?
• Noise:
• Anything that interferes with a message
being received or communicated.
• Physical noise, physiological noise,
psychological noise, semantic noise.
• Situation:
• Time and place when communication
occurs.
• How can this effect the communication
experience?
Source-Receivers
Each person involved in communication is
both a source (speaker) and receiver
(listener).
Speaker - encodes messages
Listener - decodes messages
Communication Contexts
All communication exists in a context what does this mean?
Physical
Cultural
Social-psychological
Temporal (time)
Messages
• Messages: conveyed with words and
nonverbal elements
•
•
•
•
Feedback messages
Feedforward messages
Metamessages
Message Overload
Competent Communicating
Knowledge of how communication works
and the ability to use communication
effectively.
-
think critically and mindfully
Be culturally sensitive
Be ethical
Be an effective listener
Principles of Communication
-
Communication is a process of adjustment.
Communication accommodation
Communication is ambiguous
Communication involves content and
relationship dimensions.
- Content: literal meaning of message
- Relationship: how interactants feel about the
message or each other
Content vs. Relationship
Messages
What is the content and relational messages of
each statement?
You’re wearing that?
He’s calling you?
Did you say you’re applying to medical school?
You’re in love?
You paid $100 for that?
And that’s all you did?
- Communication has a power dimension.
- Communication is punctuated.
- Communication is purposeful. (learn,
relate, help, influence, play)
- Communication is inevitable,
irreversible, unrepeatable)
Culture and Communication
• What is the importance of cultural
understanding in communication?
• What is ethnocentrism, and how does it
influence communication?
Dimensions of Culture
• Uncertainty avoidance (risk-taking vs.
predictability)
• Masculinity/Femininity (traditional gender
roles)
• Power distance (difference between those in
authority and common people)
• Individualism/Collectivism (emphasis on
individual or group)
• High and low context (extent to which
explanation of information is needed)