Concept of Communication

Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary defines communication as "The activity or process of expressing ideas and feelings or of giving people information."

According to Newman & Summer "communication is an exchange of facts, ideas, opinions by two or more persons."

Characteristics of Communication:

(a) Process of transmitting and receiving ideas accurately, involves two people- sender and receiver.

(b) Two way process- Information flow from top to bottom and vice versa.

(c) It may be in written or oral form

(d) The longer the chain of communication, greater are chances for interpretation and misunderstandings.

Participants in Communication:

• Communication can be written, verbal, non-verbal and audio-visual.

• Involves two direct or indirect participants.

Direct participants: currently taking part in communication process. Example : someone writes a letter and someone else reads it, someone makes a gesture to another person.

Indirect participants: viewers of film, readers of a book.

• Sender- Speaker/ Writer/ Gesticulator- performer

• Receiver- Reader/ Listener/ Interpreter- audience

• Direct and everyday communication is dynamic exchange between sender and receiver

• Receiver’s understanding, feeling and response should be taken into consideration

• Five stages of message in process of communication

[Image source: www.mindtools.com]

Fig. Five stages of communication 1. Source 2. Encoding 3. Channel 4. Decoding 5. Receiver

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#communication #skill #verbal #process