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Contents Week One—Module One: Understanding Communication: Theory and Professional Practice .......... 1
Professional Communication and Ethics ............................................................................................. 2
Defining Communication .................................................................................................................... 3
The Purpose of Communication ......................................................................................................... 3
Theories of Communication ................................................................................................................ 4
Models of Communication.................................................................................................................. 4
The Transaction Model of Communication ........................................................................................ 6
Words and their Meanings ................................................................................................................. 8
Intrapersonal and Interpersonal Communication .............................................................................. 8
Organisational Communication and Beyond ...................................................................................... 8
Non-verbal Communication ................................................................................................................ 9
Non-verbal Messages .......................................................................................................................... 9
The Differences between Verbal and Non-verbal Communication .................................................. 10
Identify Types of Non-verbal Messages ............................................................................................ 10
Define the Listening Process ............................................................................................................. 14
Understanding why we Listen ........................................................................................................... 15
Listening Challenges .......................................................................................................................... 15
Active Listening ................................................................................................................................. 15
Communication Competence ........................................................................................................... 17
Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 18
References ............................................................................................................................................ 19
Week One—Module One: Understanding Communication: Theory and Professional Practice Communication is any behaviour—verbal, non-verbal or graphic—that is perceived by another. It is communication is that is at the heart of coordinating and sustaining organisations and professional working life. Said another way, communication is the organising element in organisational life. This first week’s Module focuses upon understanding communication and its role as a professional competency. The specific purpose of module 1 is to help you:
• Define professional communication and appreciate the ethics of good communication.
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• Understand the communication process--verbal, nonverbal and listening
• Recognise the importance of communication competence as a life-long learning project.
The following information covers some of the materials presented within the week one module. The learning module consists of the course notes, the information presented within the lecture, the activities, and the assigned readings.
Professional Communication and Ethics Ticehurst and Ross-Smith (1998, p. 3) define professional communication “as intentional communication that has the objective of achieving strategic goals within organisational or professional contexts”. More specifically, professional communication refers to the written, oral, and visual communication that takes place within the workplace. All communication should follow a code of ethics. Archee et al., (2015) lists five ethical guidelines, which will now be discussed. In the first place, good communication is clear. Creating clear communication can be sometimes difficult because individuals often interpret messages (that is assign a particular meaning to a message) differently. In order to reduce the inherent equivocality of messages, it is necessary to focus upon the specificity of the message ensuring that it is suitably descriptive and logically stated. This aspect of communicative interaction is more fully explored in this module when we cover the different theories of communication. Good communication is also honest. This statement means that the communication does not intentionally mislead or leave out necessary information. Third, good communication is democratic. This requires the communication to be inclusive rather than exclusive. This is a part of supportive communication; a topic which we explore in module this module, use facts and judgments as so to appeal to prejudice or ignorance. Next, good communication respects its audience. The audience is ‘key’ to good communication. Messages must be relevant to the interests, knowledge, and goals of the audience. Throughout this semester we will be looking more at the role of the audience within professional communication practices. Lastly, good communication is logical. Persuasion is not inherently neutral. Persuasive messages can be deceptive if information is omitted, distorted, biased, and/or unsubstantiated. We will look at persuasive messages in a later module.
Communication: What could go Wrong?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FfaPhCKZew
Being a Professional Person
What are the qualities of a professional person?
What obligations do professionals in your field have to their profession, their employers, their colleagues, their clients, and society as a whole?
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Defining Communication According to Dance (1970; cited in Littlejohn and Foss, 2011) there are three points of “critical conceptual differentiation” in definitions of communication. The first dimension is level of observation or abstractness. Some definitions are more general and include many parts; while others are quite restrictive. For example, communication is the link that joins people together is very general. In contrast, communication is the process of sending messages within an organisational context is much more specific. Intentionality, the second conceptual difference, addresses how purposeful the communication is. That is--do I mean to send a message? and do I intend to receive a message in order for communication to take place? For example, communication is the transmission of information for the purpose of changing the behaviour of others is an intentional definition. The definition communication takes place when people respond to messages is less focused upon intentionality. The last dimension is normative judgment. The normative judgment factor relates to the degree to which the definition focuses upon the success, accuracy, effectiveness of the communication. Communication is the reciprocal creation of meaning in a context implies a normative judgment (e.g. reciprocal creation). However, communication is the transmission of messages does not. There is not one ‘correct’ definition of communication so it is important to be able to understand the conceptual make of any definition that you come across.
The Purpose of Communication When people communicate they do so for a variety of purposes or goals. Broadly speaking, a goal refers to the desired outcome or aim of the interaction. Goals can be either specific (that is relatively unique to the specific context) or general (that is can be categorised across contexts). There are three primary communication goals. They are identity, social and instrumental goals (Adler, Proctor, and Towne, 2005). Our identity is very much tied up in how we communication, from the clothes we wear to the accent that we speak with to the way we interact with others. In some instances people actively ‘mange’ their identity in others they do not. Think about how you communicate your professional identity. Do you do this deliberately or do you just ‘let it happen’? When we communicate for social purposes we do so in order to create, maintain, and sometimes disrupt our social relationships. As a professional you communicate for social purposes in order to establish, build, and maintain your relationships with peers, superiors, subordinates, and external people such as clients or vendors. In some cases these relationships are relatively week to the extent that you may only interact with a person once or twice; however, these interactions are still significant. With you co-workers your social interaction may be more sustained. These interactions are important because it is through these you can establish bonds that lead to friendship, support and assistance. Lastly, we communicate because we have instrumental goals. When we communicate for instrumental purposes we are trying to get the other person to behave in a specific specified way. For example, asking a colleague to assist you with a document that you are writing
What Does Communication Mean
Communication is any behaviour—verbal, non-verbal or graphic—that is perceived by another (Dwyer, 2006, 3). Discuss this definition in terms of level of observation,
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would necessitate instrumental communication. While you will communicate for all three purposes the majority of you communication in the work place is instrumentally driven.
Theories of Communication We all have theories or ways of understanding phenomenon. Broadly speaking a theory is a way of talking about something. This means that a particular communication theory is a way of talking about communication—communicating about communication. There are four dimensions to any individual theory (Littlejohn and Foss, 2011, pp. 20-26). They are: (1) Philosophical assumptions; (2) Concepts; (3) Explanations; and (4) Principles. Philosophical assumptions are the basic beliefs, which focus upon answering questions of knowledge, questions of existence, and questions of value. The concepts are the building blocks of theory: the terms and definitions that highlight what is important. Explanations are the theoretical glue that creates the relationships among the concepts. There are two primary types of explanations—causal and practical. Causal explanations suggest that one variable is an outcome or result of the other. Practical explanations focus upon achieving a goal or future state. Lastly, a principle is a guideline that enables you to identify an event or situation, apply a set of norms or values, and decide how to act in that situation or consequence.
You may want to think about theory metaphorically. So, for example, you have identified you want to run a marathon (event), rigorous training prior to the event is beneficial (value), you should try to train every day for two months prior to the date of the marathon (actions). While at CQU you will be taught a number of theories and the information described above will help you to understand more fully these different theories. In subsequent weeks we will build your knowledge of communication theory as these theories will help you with your assessments for this course.
Models of Communication The transmission model of communication is an early linear model of communication developed, most famously, by Shannon and Weaver in 1949. Within this model there is a sender and a receiver. The sender transmits a message to a receiver. The message has content and structure—the ideas or information and the way the information or ideas are ordered. The message also contains a code or codes, which can take the form of language, visuals, nonverbal communication cues, or music. For example, later in the term, we will talk about an argument as a message that contains ideas that are
Glossary: Theories of Communication
Media Richness Theory (Daft and Lengel) Hypodermic Needle Theory Toulmin’s Practical Argumentation Muted Group Theory Bitzer’s Rhetorical Situation Social Information Processing Face-negotiation Theory (Stella Ting-Toomy) Social Judgment Theory Non-verbal Immediacy Speech Codes Theory Politeness Theory (Brown and Levininson) Relational Dialectics Berlo’s SMCR Model of Communication Uncertainty Reduction Theory Communication Accommodation Theory Coordinated Management of Meaning Speech Act Theory Symbolic Interactionism Non-verbal Communication (Mehrabian) Identity Management Theory Discourse of Suspicion Burke’s Dramatistic Pentad
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structured as a claim statement supported by evidence and linked together by an inference scheme. Your argument would be coded in language and nonverbal communication. Channels are the means by which the message is sent. Feedback is the response to the message. Noise is an important part of this model because it can account for ‘failed messages’. There are three types of noise. Mechanical noise (sometimes called environmental or external noise) comes from the physical environment. For example, you are in your office and people are talking around you making it difficult for you to hear while talking to another person on the telephone. In this instance you are experiencing mechanical noise. Psychological noise (internal noise) comes from peoples’ feelings, beliefs, values, attitudes, biases, or prejudice about either the source or the message itself. For example, if you are listening to a politician who you do not like then you may ‘tune’ out irrespective of what he/she is saying. Lastly, semantic noise relates to words and the meaning that is ascribed to these words. Unusual words or technical jargon could create semantic noise if the receiver does not know what they mean. Figure 1.1 is a representation of the transmission model of communication.
Figure 1.1
Building upon the Shannon and Weaver model, Schramm introduced the ideas of encoding and decoding. Encoding refers to the translation of an idea into a form for communication, while decoding addresses the interpretation of the message. For example, if I wanted to encode a message of a sensitive nature I may lower my voice. The person with whom I am communicating interprets the lowering of the voice as a cue that the information is sensitive. This is an important advance in the model of communication because it demonstrates that much of our communication is symbolic. Think about a traffic light. We do not walk when the light is red but walk while the light is green. There is nothing inherently meaningful about the colours red and green they are only symbolically meaningful. Furthermore, unlike the linear Shannon and Weaver model, this model of communication is circular and continuous. There is no designated sender or receiver, instead there
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is a circular process taking place between two or more individuals both of whom encode and decode information.
Figure 1.2
While there are many criticisms of these models the most important critique is that they both rely on the conduit metaphor of communication. This suggests that speakers insert ideas (objects) into containers (words) and send them along a conduit to a hearer to takes the idea out of the words. To use another metaphor think about putting objects into a bucket. The objects (a red block, a green block, and a yellow block) are the ideas and the bucket is language. You pass the bucket to a friend who takes the bucket and pulls out the objects and interprets them as a red block, a green block and a yellow block. These models assume that as long as there is no noise then the message sent is the message received. They do not allow for the idea that meaning is constructed (that is created by people communicating). The following model of communication does make this distinction.
The Transaction Model of Communication Unlike the transmission models described above, the transaction model of communication starts from the belief that communication does not flow back and forth between senders/encodes and receivers/decoders. Rather individuals respond to a situation, phenomenon or environment based upon their own set of interpretations. As such, they must negotiate the meaning in order to create some level of understanding. As a simple example think about a conversation in which you said to a person, “I’m going out to grab an ice-cream, would you like one?” In response, the other person screws up his/her face and shakes his/her head indicating ‘no’. You are surprised because from your perspective ice-cream is wonderful—everybody loves ice-cream!!!! In response to your surprise, the other person tells you that he is lactose intolerant. At this point you both have reached some mutual understanding about how each person is interpreting the message.
Communication does not occur in a vacuum it occurs within a context. The transaction model acknowledges the importance of context. Contexts are the settings or backgrounds in which the
Message
Decoder Interpreter Encoder
Message
Encoder Interpreter Decoder
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communication takes place. The context provides the interpretive frameworks that bring meaning to communicative interaction. In the first place there is the individual context made up of a person’s subjective qualities and characteristics such as personality, emotions and experiences. For example, imagine that your last job-review was not as positive as you had hoped it to be. You have just had another job review, which while very positive did identify two areas of improvement. Based upon your previous experiences you focus upon the two small areas of improvement and when telling a friend about the interview you characterise it as a ‘disaster’ even though it had many more positive elements. In giving this episode a negative meaning you are constructing a particular view of reality based upon your individual context or framework. This is a personal construction of reality.
In addition to the individual context we also live within a social context. The social context is ‘governed’ by social roles and norms and relational expectations. For example, if the person working at your local café was verbally abusive to you when you were trying to order a coffee, then this would be a violation of social roles (service provides communicate positively) and social norms (verbal abuse is negatively sanctioned).
Culture also provides a context for understanding communication. Cultures have different values, beliefs, attitudes, symbols, rules and norms generally; and all cultures have specific values, beliefs, symbols, rules and norms about communication and communicating (Philipsen, 1992). Culture is not always linked to a specific nation. Cultures can exist within cultures. Think for example about ‘youth culture’. The youth cultures of the 1960’s are very different from the youth cultures of today. Much of this difference can be seen in the words and slang, clothing, dance and music--all of which are forms of communicative expression. Organisations have their own culture. How would you characterise the culture at the organisation that you work in? This noted, more often than not, cultures are associated with specific countries. Intercultural communication is very important in the globalised world we live in today. We will cover intercultural communication later in this course.
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Figure 1.3
Words and their Meanings
Intrapersonal and Interpersonal Communication Intrapersonal communication refers to your thoughts, feelings, emotions and internal conversations. For example, you know that you have a lot to do today, so as you are sitting on the bus waiting to get to work in your mind you go through exactly what you are going to do and when. Another example of intrapersonal communication would be if someone has said something to you that you really disagree with. In this instance you may feel anger, frustration and the need to nonverbally and verbally respond.
In some cases it may be fine to respond there and then. However, in other cases, it may be a wiser course of action to listen to your intrapersonal communication and wait and think about how you want to respond. The point here is to realise that your intrapersonal communication is an important process that, in addition to other activities, enables you to organize your day-to-day activities, be they at home or at work, and provides you important cues that you should identify when communicating with others.
Interpersonal communication on a very basic level refers to communication between two people. This is why interpersonal communication is often referred to as dyadic communication. There are six types of interpersonal relationships: impersonal, professional, workplace, family, friendship, and intimate (McClean, 2005). These relationship types are characterised by different types of communication.
Impersonal communication takes place with a person whom you do not know. For example, you would probably have an impersonal relationship with a person who works at a fast food outlet. Professional communication takes place on an institutional level. So, for example, if you are an accountant and you are attending an annual meeting of accountants then you will engage in professional interpersonal communication. Workplace communication, as the label suggests, refers to communication within the workplace. The interpersonal communication that takes place with your family, friends and intimate partners, is important, but it is not usually applicable within the professional work context.
Organisational Communication and Beyond Organisational communication controls, coordinates and maintains all organisational activities. Without this type of communication it would not be possible for organisational members to come
Communication: Types of Models, Principles & Misconceptions Patricia Jenkinson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkwAJmnS0Oo&ebc=ANyPxKopp_Z1mVBPTMbXwLFDFWOCMT HMhMoUfHxqSXb5PFYqe8un0MEUnK5fmoCfBUPMfeobgBO4rhNNnDXHggerRh0Du59zhQ
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together and perform coordinated activities. Internal organisational communication performs three broad functions (Myer and Myer, 1982). The first of these functions is the production function. Any communication that regulates and coordinates the activities required to produce system outputs, such as products or services, is performing a production function. Furthermore, communication relating to the expectations about how a person should act in order to undertake a particular work task or activity or role is also serving a production function. Socialisation is the second function performed by internal organisational communication. Socialisation is a process by which organisational members come to understand and recognise the norms, rules, regulations, values and standards that operate within a particular organisational context. Socialisation can be both formal and informal. For example, socialisation is formal when organisations actively orientate and indoctrinate new employees. Socialisation is informal because new employees also learn about the rules or norms operating within an organisation by communicating with others in the workplace. The last function of internal organisational communication is that of innovation. Communication relating to innovation is concerned with change and improvement within the organisation. For example, any communication relating to how to improve upon current practices or activities in order to better serve customers or clients would serve an innovation function. When a organization communicates to a large group of people, either internally within the organization or externally to those outside of the communication, this is referred to as public communication. Lastly, mass communication is that communication is addressed to the ‘public’. For example, when a commercials promoting products or annual reports are examples of public communication. Public organizational communication, while important, is not a subject covered in this course.
Non-verbal Communication The remaining part of this module addresses non-verbal communication and listening. The textbook defines non¬verbal communication as communication sent by any means other than words or graphics. Albert Merabian (1971) has suggested that the majority of the meaning of the message is conveyed though non-verbal sources. This underscores the importance of non-verbal communication. Listening, on the other hand, is “the voluntary act involving our higher mental processes to make meaning from sound and refers to the complex psychological procedure involving interpreting and understanding the significance of the sensory experience” (Archee et al., 2013, p. 190). Most of your time you spend in the work place you are listening and not speaking. Effective listening and non-verbal communication are fundamental professional communication competencies.
Non-verbal Messages Non-verbal communication conveys three general types of messages. Firstly, non-verbal communication sends messages about who we are. These are identity messages. For example, artefacts such as jewellery and clothing convey a particular identity. If you have, or have had, a job where you had to wear a uniform, this uniform communicates a particular organisational identity. Gaze is another way we communicate aspects of our identity. In Australia, not holding a person’s
Mr Bean
This video illustrates how much information can be derived from non-verbal communication. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VW1tjCI4w7E
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gaze or speaking very quietly can be interpreted as signs of shyness. The point here is that other people make attributions and interpretations about you based upon your non-verbal communication. In addition, non-verbal communications helps ‘define’ or signal the kind of relationship that we have with others. Again, in an Australian context you generally do not meet strangers and kiss them on the cheek. When you meet a person for the first time, especially in a business context, it is more appropriate to shake his or her hand. Likewise, in Australia, with those with whom you have a romantic relationship it is totally acceptable to greet them by kissing them on the lips. Again, you send messages about your relationships with others though your non-verbal communication. Lastly, non-verbal communication conveys emotions. There are many emotions such a happiness, sadness, anger and fear and in most cases we do not use verbal messages to communicate these emotions, we use non-verbal communication. The degree to which emotions are communicated is very much tied to culture. So, for example, in England emotional displays are discouraged as in the verbal phrase ‘Stiff upper lip’, which means do not publically display your emotions. However, in other countries, such as in South America emotional non-verbal communication is normatively sanctioned.
The Differences between Verbal and Non-verbal Communication Non-verbal and verbal communication are different from one another. This section discusses these differences. Firstly, verbal communication is a single-channel medium. You can only say one word t a time. Non-verbal communication, on the other hand, is a multiple-channelled means of communication. This means that you can communicate using multiple sources or channels of communication. For example, if you are angry with someone you can use your eyes, your face and your body simultaneously to communicate this emotion. Another way they are different is that verbal messages are discrete (a single unit), while non-verbal messages are continuous. Think, for one moment about a telephone conversation. You call the other person and introduce yourself. You and the other person have a conversation. You say goodbye and you hang up. This communication event has a clear beginning and a clear ending. In contrast, non-verbal communication is continuous. You do not begin to non-verbally communicate and end non-verbally communicating. A third difference is that spoken communication tends to be more conscious than non-verbal communication. Imagine you have been asked to present a training session to your employees. You think about what you want to say, you write out an outline, and practice what you want to say. In this case you are very consciously thinking about your message. Non-verbal communication is unconscious because, generally speaking, you do not think about what you are going to non-verbally communicate. Go back to presenting a training session, in your outline you do not write down what your non-verbal gestures are going to be. Lastly, verbal communication tends to be clearer than nonverbal communication. The question ‘do you want to have a coffee?’ has only a few logical interpretations. However, if you wave your arm this action could mean that: you are trying to get another person’s attention; you are waving goodbye; or you are saying ‘goodbye and do not come back’. It is because non-verbal messages can be logically interpreted in multiple ways that the medium is considered more ambiguous than verbal communication.
Identify Types of Non-verbal Messages There are three sources of non-verbal messages. While these sources are described individually, it important
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that you remember that they function alongside one another. The first source of non-verbal communication is proxemics. Proxemics relate to the way people interpret and use space as a means of communication. The following information relates to territory and conversational space. There are four types of territory (Altman, 1975; Lyman and Scott, 1967). Body territory is the immediate space around the body, which we are keenly aware of. For example, if strangers move to close, then there is a tendency to move back in order to maintain the body territory space. Think about how people move around in an elevator in order to try to preserve their body territory. Primary territory refers to the space that belongs to a person or a group of people. Your apartment or house is an example of a primary territory. A secondary territory refers to a temporarily occupied semi-public space. For example, you have reserved a picnic table at the park for a birthday party. For the two hours that you have reserved this space it is your secondary territory. Lastly, public territories are open to everyone. The parks, the beaches and shopping malls are examples of public territories. In public territories there is an expectation that all people have the same access to and within. In addition to the concept of territory, Hall (1963, 1966, 1968) identified the distances characteristic of specific kinds of conversations. For example, intimate conversations between close friends and family members fall between 0-46 cm, while people engaged in personal conversations (co-workers) will stand between 4.6-3.0 meters apart. Social conversations are described by Hall as more formal and instrumental. So when you are at the supermarket you stand between 1.2-3.0 meters away from the person who is working at the cash register. Public communication takes place between people who do not know one another. So when the Prime Minister is presenting a message to members of the community he would be standing over 3 meters away from his audience. It is important to note that Hall’s conversational distances are only applicable to people from North America and Western Europe as proxemics are culturally constructed.
Kinesics refers to non-verbal communication through body movement. That is the hands, arms, body and facial movements. Body orientation is a form of kinesics behaviour and relates to how a person positions his or her body, head and feet. There are four general types of human posture: standing, lying down, sitting or squatting. There are variations within each of these. For example, when you are standing with your elbows pointing out this may be seen as a sign of dominance because it prevents another person from easily getting past you. Eye behaviours, also known as oculesics, are another type of kinesic non-verbal communication. Messages that people send with their eyes are determined by direction, duration and frequency of the gaze and are significant in regulating interpersonal involvements between individuals (Knapp, 2008). Think about how you use your eyes when you have a conversation with a friend. When you meet a friend you would initiate your interaction by making eye contact. As you converse you maintain that eye contact. The interaction is ended when you break eye contact. Generally speaking, oculesics indicates degree of attentiveness,
Non-verbal Expectancy Violation Theory
Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pc38aW0Rcco
Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHDsyLz7Xww
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interest and arousal; influence attitude change and persuasion; communicate emotions; and define power and status in relationships (Archee et al., 2006).
Touch is another type of kinesic behaviour. There are many different types of touch, which are again associated with the different types of relationships that you have with others. Touch can be functional (a dentist or doctor). It can be social (a handshake). Touch can be more interpersonal (a hug) or intimate (caress). Lastly, touch can be aggressive (hitting or pushing).
Ekman and Friesen (1968) identified five categories of gesture, another type of kinesic non-verbal behaviour. They are emblems, illustrators, adaptors, regulators and affect displays. Emblems are culturally specific gestures. For example, in Australia holding your thumb up is seen as a sign of approval. Emblems are also used as a means of communicating negative affect in an often obscene way. Illustrators clarify the message. So for example, if someone asks you where the nearest bank is, you tell them and point your finger (horizontal to the ground) in the general direction of the bank. Adaptors are generally unconscious non-verbal responses to the environment. For example, if you are hot you may pull at your t-shirt. Adaptors tend to be used in situation when a person is bored, nervous or physically uncomfortable. There are three types of adaptors (Guerrero, 2008): Selfadaptors (playing with your hair, picking your nails), object-adapters (playing with your pen during a boring meeting) and other-adaptors (wiping your child’s runny nose, straightening your partner’s shirt). Again, the appropriateness of the adaptors depends upon the relationship you have with others. Logically speaking, you would only engage in other-adaptors with those with whom you had a highly interpersonal/intimate relationship. Regulators are gestures that help organise interaction. These forms of non-verbal communication help you initiate, maintain and terminate interaction. For example, you may shake hands as way of initiating and terminating interaction. Lastly, affect displays are non-verbal expression of emotion. If you are angry with someone you may hold your hand in front of you palm outwards toward the other person as a way of communicating: ‘Stop, I do not want to talk to you now’.
The final form of kinesic behaviour relate to facial expressions. Smiling is a positive type of universal kinesic behaviour. While there is a sense that you can ‘read’ someone by looking at their facial expression, it is important to remember that people learn to ‘control’ their facial expressions often disguising what they are thinking/feeling.
Vocalics or paralanguage refers to non-verbal vocal messages such as frequency, timing, intensity, fluency and vocal quality. Paralanguage influences how something is said. Frequency relates to the pitch of the sound, time focusing upon the duration and the speed of speech. This is how long someone speaks for and how fast or slow they speak. Intensity describes the relative loudness of speech, while fluency addresses the flow of speech. If your speech contains interjections, interruptions and pauses then the fluency of your speech is affected. Vocal quality is determined by such qualities as articulation and rhythm. Lastly, tone relates to the emotions or attitudes conveyed with the voice such as sarcasm, enthusiasm or anger. Figure X.X summaries the different types of non-verbal communication.
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Non-verbal Proxemics Communication through the use of space and distance Body territory Primary territory Secondary territory Public territory Intimate conversational distance Personal conversational distance Social conversational distance Public conversational distance Kinesics Communication through the use of movement Body orientation Posture Facial expressions (forehead and mouth— opening, closing widening, pursing) Eye behaviour (opening, closing and rolling Touch (functional, interpersonal intimate, and aggressive) Gestures (emblems, illustrators, adaptors, regulators and affect displays) Paralanguage Communication through the use of the voice without using words Frequency Intensity Vocal quality Timing Intonation—pitch and volume Prosody Gasps Sighs
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Define the Listening Process The listening process on the surface seems simple, but in actuality it is an involved physiological and psychological process. Kelly (2006) has identified six parts to the listening process.
They are:
1. Receiving—physiologically sensing information from the environment. 2. Attending—actively paying attention to a specific sound coming from the environment. 3. Interpreting—Assigning meaning to the specific sound coming from the environment. 4. Evaluating—Making a value judgment about the specific sound coming from the environment. 5. Responding—Making or displaying a message in response to the sound coming from the environment. 6. Remembering—Storing, processing and remembering the message coming from the environment.
Communicating Nonverbally
Break into pairs and come up with a 5-8 line dialogue. For example:
Person 1: How are you today?
Person 2: My friends and I went camping. We saw a huge snake and it really scared the heck out of u.
Person 1: I really do not like snakes. My dog found a small snake in the garden and brought it inside and dropped it in the kitchen.
Person 2: What did you do?
Person 1: Well, I wanted to hit it with a saucepan, but instead I put on some gloves and covered it in a pillow case and took it outside.
Person 2: I would not have touched it.
Your task is to familiarise yourself with the dialogue and then act it out JUST using non-verbal cues. The other members of the class are going to make a ‘guess’ about what the dialogue is about.
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Understanding why we Listen The majority of the behaviours that you engage in at work are listening oriented. Understanding why we listen is helpful because it enables you to thinking about what type of information you need to receive. There are a number of general purposes for listening (Adler et al, 2005; Archee et al, 2014). They are:
Listening for information and comprehension—this type of listening relates to gaining and understanding information.
1. Listening to evaluate—this type of listening focuses upon making a judgment about what is heard. 2. Listening to help—this type of listening relates to assisting, aiding, reassuring or comforting another person. 3. Listening for relaxation and entertainment—this listening focuses information that is pleasurable, amusing, relaxing, entertaining and/or interesting.
Listening Challenges Listening is not always an easy skill to execute well. Often time it is easier to ‘tune out’. Think about a time when somebody said something to you and you found yourself asking them to repeat themselves. What were you doing that prevented you from listening to what was said? Kelly (2006) identifies six common barriers to listening, which are worth reflecting about as a means of improving your listening. They are:
1. Fast thinking—too much time and too fast thinking. 2. Overload—too much information and too little time. 3. Not entertaining—shutting out information that is not interesting. 4. Familiarity—assuming that you know what you are listening to. 5. Preoccupation—your mind is someplace else. 6. Egocentrism—you think that your own ideas and thoughts are better than the information that you are listening to.
Active Listening Active listening requires effort. When listening to another person it is important to be mentally prepared to listen. In the first place you need to be in the right state of mind. Fatigue, anxiety, and anger are among some emotions that that will diminish your ability to listen. Likewise, being too busy or too rushed also prevents you from activity listening. If you do not have time or are not mentally or emotionally ready to listen, then take a ‘time out’. Unless the situation warrants immediate attention, then schedule a time to talk when you are better prepared. In addition, you must have an open mind. This means suspending judgment until you have listened to what the person is saying to you. As Archee et al note: “good listening, however, does not imply that we need to agree to or accept what is communicated. It means that we need to try to understand ideas, even
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if they are alien to us”(p. 192). The last part of preparing to listen is empathy. This means as the person is speaking to you, you should try to think about the other person’s point of view. Listening, like all communication skills, can be developed. Bolton (1987) describes three primary skills, which if followed will facilitate your ability to actively listen.
Attending skills—the non-verbal communication that conveys that you are listening to another person. The first of the attending skills relates to posture. Posture, in part, relates to the angle at which you face another person. You need to think about how best to place yourself so as to communicate that you are involved in the interaction. A posture of involvement requires you to face the other person while at the same time leaning in towards that person slightly. This maximizes your ability to hear and see what the other person is communicating. A second attending skill is body motion or in this case lack of body motion. This does not mean that you sit totally still. Keep you gestures to a minimum and when you do move do so in a non-distracting way and if possible use this motion to signal that you are listening. For example, you could use gestures to communicate ‘keep talking’. Likewise, head nodding can (in an Australian context) communicate that you are following what is being said. Eye contact is possibly the most important attending skill. Not looking, looking away, or looking at your email communicates that you are not interested in what the other person is saying and you are not listening. Lastly, it important that you listen in environment that is as free as possible of distractions. While it is not always practical to create the perfect listening environment, minimising the noise around you is important. In some instances confidentiality is important and you will have to find a private place to talk.
The next set of active listing skills are following skills and these relate to regulating and maintaining the conversation. Sometime people may not know how to ask to have a conversation with you, but you know that they want to talk. In this case you can use what Bolton has called door-opening communication prompts. Door openers are non-coercive ways of inviting people to start talking. This may be as simple as saying ‘do you want to talk?’ or ‘You look confused, can I help you’ or ‘Are you OK?’. You can also use minimal encouragers. These are responses that encourage the speaker to keep talking in a way that communicates that you are interested in what they say. Nodding your head, saying ‘Ah huh’, ‘alright’, ‘tell me more’ all communicate that you want the person to keep talking to you. Asking questions relating to what you have heard also convey that you are listening and what the other person to say more. Lastly, you can use silence to communicate that you are happy to wait until the person has found the ‘right words’ to say.
The final set of skills is reflective responding skills. These demonstrate that you have listened to what the other person has said. You can repeat what you have heard both in terms of the conceptual content (what has been said) and the emotional content. Repeating the emotional content of the message shows empathy and demonstrates your emotional intelligence. You can use a paraphrase, which is a concise restatement of what you have heard in your own words. Lastly, you can use a summative response that is a summation of your conversation. These skills are important because you both demonstrate that you have been listening and you can make sure that you have heard the other person correctly. Using active listening will increase your communication competence at work.
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Communication Competence Interpersonal communication competence is the “ability to demonstrate the appropriate communication in a given context” (Spitzburg and Cupach, 1984). There are two elements to interpersonal communication competence. First, it is necessary to know what communication is appropriate in the given context. Appropriate communication follows the rules, norms and expectations for the particular context. In familiar contexts if is often quite easy to understand what is appropriate. You know that when ordering a meal at a restaurant you pick a meal listed on a menu. If you are at a vegetarian restaurant, you do not ask for steak!!! However, in less familiar contexts knowing the appropriate communication is more challenging. If you have never attended a formal meeting before it could be difficult understanding the rules (e.g. on speaking, voting and/or amending). The first part of increasing your communication competence is recognising what to communicate and when. In order to increase your knowledge, you could see what you can find in the library or online, you could ask another person or you could take a class in Professional Communications. The second part of communication competence is behavioural repertoire and performance. Behavioural repertoire refers to the communication skills you possess. Think of it as a metaphoric communication tool box that you carry around with you. Depending upon the situation you are able to pull out the right tool for the job. Clearly the more tools you have, the better able you are to attend to the task at hand. The performance is another aspect of the second part of interpersonal communication competence. Performance relates to your ability to enact the communication effectively. Again, let’s return to our toolbox metaphor. It is one thing to know that you need a specific tool; it is quite another to actually have the skill to use that tool. To illustrate this point further, think about public speaking. While you may know how to speak to an audience, the anxiety you experience with this type of communication seriously diminishes your performance. So to be a competent speaker you should know: when to give a speech, how to give a speech, and to sophistically present the speech. Communicatively competent managers are able to give feedback, advice, instruct, motivate, persuade, express themselves clearly and control their communication anxiety (Jablin, 1994; Reinsch and Shelby, 1996, 1997).
This section concludes with some general comments about communication competence (Adler et al., 2005). It is vitally important that if you wish to be a competent communicator you need to be motivated. This refers to how much the person wishes to make a good impression by communicating effectively (Spitzburg, 2008). If you just don’t care about communicating and how
Everybody Loves Raymond – Active Listening
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VOubVB4CTU&ebc=ANyPxKrGAOf3C3uMGVS7e6Dq9t42LRfdPABcfOOCcQsH2t1g6wT5chb0BdrclPB7n-6pVGnztE8Ml1s-BRhZ-Vmpfng9OkIgQ
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others view you, then you are not going to be seen as a competent communicator. Also people are neither competent nor incompetent communicators, most of us are somewhere in the middle.
Some communication skills we excel at; others, not so much. In addition, a person’s competence will change. While it would be nice to think that as we get older we get better at communicating-and for some that is the case as we also fall into patterns of not-so-competent behaviors. Lastly, competence is not a universal concept: it changes across cultures. What is competent communication in an Australian context is not the same in other national contexts. We will talk about intercultural communication competence later in the term.
Conclusion This module has endeavoured to demonstrate the importance of communication in the context of your professional life. At the beginning of this module is a definition of professional communication and a discussion the ethics of good communication. This information is significant because it establishes the parameters for the content of this course and sets the standards for professional communication. In addition, this module discusses the parts of a theory of communication. Theories of communication are important because they are means by which we can understand communicative phenomena. There are a number of models of communication covered in both this document and the textbook. These models provide a vocabulary that you can draw upon when thinking and writing about communication within the workplace. In addition to focusing upon the communication process, this module has covered listening and non-verbal communication. Listening and non-verbal communication are vital components of the communication process. This information identifies how vital non-verbal communication is in terms of interpreting the verbal message. In addition you should now understand the role of the different types of non-verbal cues in conveying information. In terms of listening, you should now have an appreciation for the parts of the listening process, the reasons for listening and active listening. Active listening is an especially important competence in terms of maintaining productive professional interpersonal relationships. Lastly, this module has discussed communication competence. The primary goal of this course is to
Communication Competence
Please visit these websites, print and fill out the measures. Be prepared to discuss you scores in terms of do you feel these measures have captured your interpersonal communication competence? If not why? What areas of communication do you feel you are competent/less competent? http://www.austincc.edu/colangelo/1318/interpersonalcommunicationcompetence.htm
http://www.austincc.edu/colangelo/1318/interpersonalcommunicationcompetence.htm
Communication Competence at Work
Can you think of a person who you would characterise as ‘less than competent’? Without using names, what does this person do that makes you think this?
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introduce you to the concept of communication competence and to help you improve your communication in both the short term and the long term over the course of your career.
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encyclopedia of communication. Blackwell Reference Online: Blackwell Publishing. Myers, M.T., & Myers, G.E. (1982). Managing by communication: An organizational approach. McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York. Philipsen, G. (1982). Speaking culturally: Explorations in social communication. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Reinsch, N. L. Jr., & Shelby, A. N. (1996). Communication challenges and needs: Perceptions of MBA students. Business Communication Quarterly 59(1), 36-53. Reinsch, N. L. Jr., & Shelby, A. N. (1997). What communication abilities do practitioners need? Evidence from MBA students. Business Communication Quarterly 60(4), 7-29. Spitzberg, B. H. (2008). A model of intercultural communication competence. In L.A. Samovar, R.E. Porter, & E. R. McDaniels (Eds.), Cengage Learning. Spitzberg, B. H., & Cupach, W. R. (1984). Interpersonal communication competence. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Ticehurst, G. W., & Ross-Smith, A. 1998. Professional communication, organisations, and management: Reclaiming the functions of the executive. Australian Journal of Communication, 25 (2), 1-12.