1009IBA Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Nonverbal Communication, Paralanguage, Human Communication
4 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
L4. Understanding Communication
Lecture Outline
• How might we explain 'communication'?
o Consideration of relevant theories, components, characteristics and models
• What is the relationship between culture and communication?
o The two cannot be understood separately
• Mutually influence on one another
▪ How does culture influence communication?
▪ How does communication influence culture?
Mr Lau and Mr Clarke
Mr Clarke: "G'day, mate. I'm Robert Clarke. My friends call me Bob. Here's my card."
Mr Lau: "Hello, Mr Clarke. I am William Lau. Very glad to meet you. How was your trip?"
*exchanges business cards*
Mr Clarke: "Call me Bob. Good, thanks." *reading card: 'Lau Wing-Leung'* "Oh, it's Wing
Leung! Nice to meet you. I'll call you tomorrow, Wing-Leung, okay?"
Mr Lau: *smiles* "Yes, I will expect your call."
*both men depart*
• Example of a typical initial meeting
• Contained unforeseen problems, creating tension, leading to intercultural miscommunication
o Crucial Note: Technically there are no rights and wrongs
• Blame should not be attributed to one for their misinterpretation or difference in
communication
o Rules and values of cultures
• Lau prefers formality and politeness
▪ Use of titles
• Seen as a sign of respect for the occasion
▪ Receives message of informality as a lack of seriousness and professionalism
for the occasion
▪ Mr Lau's smile show uncomfortableness and annoyance with the interaction
• Clarke is uncomfortable with formal titles
▪ Tries to show goodwill and friendship through the use of informality and
using first names
▪ Receives a message of formality as a barrier between them
• Repeats "Call me Bob" to initiate friendliness
• It is impossible to understand all the rules of intercultural communication
extensively, so you should
▪ Learn to withhold judgment until these judgements are confirmed explicitly
(through language)
• Investigate your interpretation of their paralanguage through
language
• Only form of clear communication
Challenges of Studying Communication
• What is communication?
o Broadly speaking, imparting of exchanging information by speaking, writing, etc.
o Sharing who we are and what we know
• Regardless of models, we all share our ideas and feelings with others, both
consciously and subconsciously
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
▪ How we do this varies culturally, adding challenges
• The SMCR Communications Model
o Shannon and Weaver, 1949
o Source, message, channel and receiver
• Distinguishes what happens between the source and the receiver
• New communication technologies
o Create new configurations of SMCR
• Potential to increase or enhance communication
o Reinforce the need to examine existing definitions of communication
Priestley's Paradox
• "The more we elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate." (Priestley,
1957)
• Complete opposition to idea that new technological innovations enhance communication
o Increase of quantity may actually diminish quality of communication terrain
• Lazy communication
• Eroding language proficiency
• Superficial relationships
• Driving out face-to-face communication
▪ Avoidance
▪ Inconvenience
• Addictive systems
▪ Emotional dependence
• 'Data-holics'
o New phase of communication
• Idea of acute social withdrawal
▪ Reclusive adolescents and teens
• Withdrawal from social life
• Seek extreme degrees of isolation and confinement
• E.g. Estimate 500,000 - 2,000,000 Japanese male youth (53-80%)
• E.g. Movie: 'Her'
• Man develops a relationship with a more sophisticated
version of Siri on his desktop computer
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
• He begins to withdraw from physical life and builds a
strong relationship with the computer program
• He becomes upset when he realises the computer
program 'sees' lots of other people
• Relation to this theory: The increase of communication
channels decreases tangible physical relationships
Defining Communication
• Liu, et al. (2015)
o Communication is defined as the process by which people use shared verbal or non-
verbal codes, systems and media to exchange information in a particular cultural context
• Human communication is the process through which individuals, in relationships, groups,
organisations and societies, respond to and create messages to adapt to environment and one
another (Ruben and Stewart, 1998)
Rhetorical Theory
• The rhetorical tradition views communication as the practical art of discourse
o A discourse approach to communication holds the possibility that the practice of
communication can be learned, and so improved, through practice
• I.e. Education and research
• Every culture has its own communication rules, characteristics and criteria for judging 'good'
communicators
Components of Human Communication
1. Source
o Origin of information
o Sender of the message
2. Message
o Verbal and/or non-verbal form of the idea
o Thought or feeling one wishes to communicate
3. Channel
o Means by which message is transmitted
• Moves from one person to another
4. Receiver
o Intended target of the message
5. Encoding
o Process by which source uses shared codes to convert concepts, thoughts and feeling
6. Decoding
o The process by which the receiver converts the coded message back into meaning
7. Noise
o All factors that interfere with information transfer
• External
▪ Sight, sounds, etc. that draw ones attention away from the message
• Internal
▪ Thoughts and feelings that interfere with the message
• Semantic
▪ How alternative meanings of the message can be distracting
8. Feedback
o Response of the receiver after receiving the message
• Verbal or non-verbal depending on culture
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
