Concept of communication. Communication functions. Role, tasks, essence of communication

Updated July 23, 2022 622 Author: Dmitry Petrov
Hello, dear readers of the KtoNaNovenkogo.ru blog. I won’t open America to you if I start with the fact that man is a biosocial being. People cannot live both without nature and without society.

A person is born, raised in a family, goes to kindergarten, then to school, to university, to work, etc. Everywhere he is surrounded by the same people with whom, whether you like it or not, he is forced to come into contact .

Sometimes a lot depends on the quality of these contacts, and first of all, the comfort of the emotional background.

In modern society, it is extremely important to be able to communicate at an appropriate level.

The ability to attract people, to obtain from them what would be conducive to the promotion of one’s (or someone else’s) interests, the skills of proper communication are not only an urgent need, but also something that is always and everywhere highly valued.

So it is not in vain that such a significant place is given to the topic of communications

Well, for you and me - those who are directly affected by this - it would be very useful to learn what communication is, and to understand at least a little about the conditions under which communication can be called effective and what significance this effectiveness has in our lives.

Communication is not just communication...

The roots of the basic concept go back to the Latin word “communication”, which appeared thanks to another word – “communicare”. The first means “ communication, connection ,” and the second means “to communicate, connect, make common.”

The general meaning, it would seem, is clear, but this initial meaning inevitably changed over the course of time and the development of social interaction. It has changed and acquired a slightly different color, which served as the basis for additional interpretations.

So, in particular, based on the definition of “communicare” (to report, connect), communication implies the process of transmitting messages and other signals, and in the modern understanding - the transfer of information or the exchange of knowledge and information between objects of any nature (both natural and artificial) .

On the other hand, there is the etymology of “communication”, which goes back to the concepts of community and association, which occupy a special place in the system of socio-philosophical theories and humanitarian discourses (how is that?). In this perspective, associations, societies and communities are seen either as a goal or as a condition for successful communication.

As for philosophy, issues of communication become particularly relevant only at the beginning of the 20th century. This “belated, but subsequent” reaction of society to this topic is explained by the sharp aggravation of social problems and the need to solve them. And it is precisely during this period that the meaning of the term in question is concretized.

The bottom line is that we get a simple and understandable thesis:

communication is a constructive process of interaction between people or their groups for the purpose of transmitting information or exchanging information.

This definition most accurately reflects the essence of communication and is considered official, however, taking into account different angles, there are other formulations, of which only two are the most common.

In the first, communication is interpreted as the main mechanism that allows creating social connections and improving social culture, and in the second - as the laws of interpersonal interaction that govern people’s relationships.

Encoder

An encoding device, or encoding, is a type of information transformation by a communicator. There is written and oral coding.

Oral means that the transmission of information is carried out through verbal or non-verbal methods (tone, facial expressions, and gestures often acquire much greater importance than ordinary words). An example of oral encoding is the translation of a message for deaf people. In this case, ordinary words are encoded with special signs that are transmitted to the addressee in a non-verbal way.

Written encoding is of the following types:

• electronic, when letters are converted into symbols (0 and 1);
• special when letters are converted into sounds (for example, Morse code).

Basic communication model

The specifics of information exchange traditionally depend on the characteristics of society, which determines the content of a wide range of sociocultural meanings in this concept. But in any case, the term “communication” is characterized by the presence of five components necessary for a successful interaction process:

1. source (one who wants to convey his thought to another person) - essentially this is the addresser, acting as a generator of a message for transmission;
2. a conductor or converter (that which converts information into signals) - that is, a regular transmitter sending messages through any communication channel;
3. direct communication channel (means, path for transmitting information);
4. receiver (that which adapts and deciphers the source signal) is the same as the decoder, which translates the signals into a “digestible” message;
5. recipient (the one to whom the information should have reached) - the final addressee for whom the message was intended.

According to this model of a communication act, the addresser generates and encodes certain information using sign means used in the sign system of the corresponding communication channel.

The recipient, in order to assimilate the information received, does the same thing, only in reverse order (the result of his efforts is decoding).

The holistic process of communication (adequate transfer of information) usually has a multi-layered structure, consisting of many sequential acts.

In this case, the main unit of communication can only be a message (signal, message) that performs one or several functions , such as:

1. information and communication (information exchange);
2. interactive (communication);
3. epistemological (cognition);
4. axiological (exchange of spiritual and cultural values);
5. normative (consolidation or transfer of norms);
6. socio-practical (transfer of knowledge, skills, abilities).

The content of communication and its direction mainly depend on these functions, which at the same time serves as prerequisites for the process of mutual exchange of information.

At the same time, the necessary conditions for successful communication are met, starting with the presence of transmission channels and perception mechanisms and ending with a minimum of structural components , which certainly includes:

1. participants in a communication act;
2. a situation or incident that requires discussion;
3. message content (text, signal);
4. motives and goals to convey something to the interlocutor through a message;
5. material transfer of information.

To carry out any communication, sign systems adequate to the goals are needed (they are different in each culture).

Most often, such a system is language , which is used both in the form of oral speech and in written form.

Communication process and its role

The communication process is an exchange of information carried out between two or more individuals. Its purpose is to ensure the understanding and transmission of information that is the subject of exchange.

We transmit and receive information in order to:

• inform other people about something (for example, a press release or teletext);
• warn others (shouting or road signs);
• explain something (textbook);
• entertain (feature film or joke);
• convince someone (a poster calling for something);
• describe something (oral story or documentary).

These are the goals of communication. Most often, there are several of them within one process. For example, a film can inform, entertain, warn, describe, and explain.

Types of communication

The first thing that is important to note here is that communication and communication are not the same thing. At the very least, these concepts cannot be identical and should not be used as synonyms.

If communication is a shallow, easy and most often everyday interaction, then communication is a professional, interactive interaction, with conscious goals and pre-prepared scripts.

Absolutely any interlocutors can become participants in communication, and participants in communication can only be those who set themselves the task of influencing their partner, those who realize that their interlocutor faces exactly the same task.

Unlike communication, communications are absolutely not characterized by either feelings or emotions (what are they?), and if such appear, it is certainly with a pragmatic purpose - that is, with the understanding that now it is necessary to solve this or that situational problem .

There are a variety of classifications regarding types of communication. Let's present just a few of them:

1. cognitive – pursues the goal of expanding the circle of knowledge of the partner, his information fund. The expected result is the mastery of newly acquired information and the subsequent application of new knowledge in one’s practical activities;
2. persuasive , the main goal of which is to evoke in the interlocutor certain feelings necessary for the formation of value orientations and attitudes necessary for the initiator. The expected result is to make the interlocutor a like-minded person, attract him to your position, change his personal guidelines and then use his intellectual capabilities;
3. expressive - pursues the goal of forming a special psycho-emotional mood in the interlocutor, in order to then encourage him to perform the action you need. The expected result is a change in the emotional background of the partner, his involvement in specific actions and actions beneficial to the initiator.

Thus, each of the participants in communication is a kind of manipulator who has the ability to influence partners for a specific purpose or has such a task in front of him.

Channel and decoder

It is also necessary to consider such a concept as a channel. It is a means of transmitting information (meetings, written communications, oral communications, telephone conversations, reports, memos, computer networks, email, etc.).

A decoder (decoding) is a type of message transformation by the recipient. These are the same tools and methods that are used in encoding, only in this case they are used in the opposite direction.

Concept of effective communication

Just as with the definition of communication, it is important to understand one fundamental thesis: successful communication and effective communication are different things.

Simply put, successful is a completed communication (regardless of how the communication ended), and effective is a completed communication act, when certain goals are achieved as a result of interaction.

A specialized set of effective communication skills is essential for effective communication. And we are talking not only about the ease of establishing contact and the ability to maintain any conversation, no matter what slums it leads to - here we need specific abilities, which are usually classified as syntonic communication skills .

Syntons are psychologically positive elements of communication, a kind of emotional stroking that helps establish contact and promote mutual understanding.

From this point of view, effective communication is the highest level of communication, during which dry facts are not conveyed. Here, the feelings and emotions of a person are mainly involved in order to achieve the expected result from him. The communicator is required not only to be able to understand the goals and motives of the interlocutor, but also to be able to play on his worries.

There is also such a thing as ineffective communication - this is extremely unpleasant communication that brings misunderstanding, confrontation and disagreement, which can lead not only to ordinary quarrels, but also to deep (irreconcilable) conflicts with uncompensated consequences.

Satisfying human needs in the communication process

The main reason we all need communication is the social needs of the individual or group. A person enters into the process of communication in order to satisfy his immediate needs. Therefore, the above objectives of communication serve to satisfy basic human needs. Among them the following stand out:

• survival;
• personal needs;
• collaboration with others;
• maintaining relationships;
• persuading someone to think or act in a certain way;
• unification of organizations and societies into a single whole;
• exercising power over people (in particular, propaganda);
• manifestation of imagination and creative nature;
• awareness of the world around us and our experience in it (what we think about ourselves, what we believe, how we treat others, what is true).

Effective Communication Techniques

The methods for achieving effective communication directly depend on the type of communication in which they are used. For example, in interpersonal communication, in order to achieve the effectiveness of the communication process, it is very important for interlocutors to achieve a certain level of perception of each other.

There are many ways to achieve a high level of effectiveness in verbal communication. First, you need to format your messages in such a way that they are understandable to the other person. Here you should pay attention to the content of the message (based on the knowledge and qualifications of the interlocutor), diction, intonation and other elements of communication. Given that the most effective form of communication is dialogue, communicators must also develop listening skills.

Nonverbal communication occurs simultaneously with verbal communication. We look at our interlocutor, study his appearance, gestures, facial expressions. When listening, we pay attention to elements such as intonation, voice timbre and other signs that the addressee sends consciously or not.

However, nonverbal signs can act as a means of supplementing speech, as well as the only way of communication.

The most common methods for achieving effective communication that involve the paralinguistic components of nonverbal communication include:

• Changing the volume of the voice (for example, those phrases whose meaning the addressee wants to pay special attention to are pronounced louder)
• Arrangement of intonation accents
• Pausing (to give the interlocutor the right to speak, to reinforce certain words and phrases, etc.)

Psychologists identify several methods of nonverbal communication. The most famous of them is the method of mirroring the poses and gestures of the interlocutor. The purpose of this method is to develop a sense of interaction with partners.

There are also methods of nonverbal communication that influence elements of a person’s facial expressions and gestures. One of these methods is the method of focusing the gaze on a particular listener during a public speech. As practice shows, this technique greatly helps to interest the public.

Non-verbal means are also widely used in mass communication. For example, advertising broadcast on television, radio and other electronic channels uses all kinds of visual, auditory effects, graphic symbols, etc.

There are many methods for achieving the effectiveness of the communication process, proposed by representatives of different scientific fields (psychologists, political scientists, sociologists, etc.). Knowledge of basic methods and rules will allow you to participate in communication processes comfortably and with high efficiency.

Functions of communication according to Jacobson

According to Jacobson's model, the following six functions can be distinguished:

• expressive (emotive), associated with the addresser, expressing his attitude to the content of his speech;
• conative, reflecting orientation towards the addressee, expressing the impact on the interlocutor;
• referential (cognitive, denotative), context-oriented and a reference to the semantic object presented in the message;
• poetic (rhetorical), aimed mainly at communication, making a person’s everyday speech an example of verbal art;
• metalinguistic, which is associated with the code of the transmitted message, its understanding by the interlocutor, and correct interpretation;
• phatic, which is aimed at contact, at the continuous maintenance of this contact, and not at the novelty of the message or at its transmission.

The transfer of information affects a person’s actions and actions, his behavior, the state of his inner world and his organization. This is also indicated by some communication functions. The specificity of the process that interests us is that with its help the mental worlds of people interact with each other.

However, are only people capable of engaging in this process? As we noted above, the concept of communication can be viewed in several senses. Its functions described above are inherent in human communication. However, this does not mean that communication can only take place in the human world. We invite you to get acquainted with its diversity.

Types and techniques of listening

In the process of verbal interaction, information is transferred from one partner to another, which can be expressed by the following scheme: Transfer of information - (the speaker encodes information in words) - (the listener decodes words, extracts information) Understanding information.

The listener's reaction and listening technique are as follows:

• Deafening silence (there seems to be no answer).
• Nodding (“uh-huh”, “uh-huh”, “yes-yes”, “okay”, nod of the chin).
• “Echo response” is a repetition of the last word of the interlocutor.
• “Mirror reflection” is a repetition of the interlocutor’s last sentence with a change in word order.
• “Paraphrasing” is reproducing the content of the interlocutor’s statement in other words.
• Urge (“So...What now?”).
• Clarifying questions (“What do you mean?”).
• Leading questions (What? Where? When? Why? Why? Why?).
• Ratings, advice.
• Continuation (when the listener gets involved in the speech and tries to finish the sentence, suggests words).
• Emotions (“wow”, “ah”, “great”, laughter, sad face).
• Irrelevant statements (not relevant or having only formal meaning).
• Drawing logical conclusions from a partner’s statements, for example, an assumption about the cause of an event.
• “Ridiculous answers” ​​(“nonsense”, “it’s all nonsense!”).
• Questioning (asking question after question without explaining the purpose).

Neglect of the partner (not paying attention to what the partner says, not listening, ignoring the partner, his words). There are generally three listening tactics: Support - Clarification - Comment.

The following types of listening can be distinguished: passive listening, active listening, empathic listening.

Active listening is a type of listening that focuses on reflecting information. Active listening is indispensable in business negotiations, in situations where your partner is equal to or stronger than you, as well as in conflict situations when the interlocutor behaves aggressively or demonstrates his superiority.

All main categories of means of communication are formed in a person’s life in the process of real contacts with people around him. Each category of means has its own specific capabilities that determine its function and role in interaction.

When communicating with others, a person uses means of all categories in total, giving preference to one or another depending on the task that needs to be solved at the moment and his individual characteristics.

Byron Lewis, building on the work of Virginia Satir and Bandler and Grinder, created a model of four basic categories of communication. This model is organized around four preferred representational systems. These are the visual system, the kinesthetic system, the auditory system and the logical system.

The researcher identified certain patterns of behavior that corresponded to each of the categories of communication, especially in stressful situations. A visual person pays more attention to the visual aspects of interaction. This includes facial expressions and gestures, as well as a person’s internal visual imagination. In order to correctly relate to the interlocutor, it is important for the visual person to position himself so that he can clearly see the surrounding environment. For this reason, visual people tend to keep their distance from others.

People operating in the kinesthetic category of communication rely heavily on their senses to understand what is happening around them. Most likely, they will inevitably, if possible, occupy a space that will allow them to literally touch their interlocutors.

Means of communication

The most common type of communication between people is verbal communication.

As you know, the means of verbal communication is language, which is a system of signs and is realized through speech. Human speech is a universal way of transmitting information.

When communicating through speech, distortions of information can be caused by linguistic, extralinguistic and acoustic reasons for pronunciation or the graphic design of a message in written speech.

Linguistic distortions are associated with insufficient sharpness of the phrase, excessive complexity of the message, incorrect syntactic format, etc. Extra-linguistic interference arises due to knowledge of the recipient of the message.

In turn, nonverbal communication is the exchange of information without words. Means of non-verbal communication are gestures, facial expressions, intonation accents of the voice and others.

Psychologists believe that reading nonverbal cues is essential for effective communication. Firstly, this is due to the fact that approximately 70% of information people perceive through the visual channel. Secondly, correctly deciphering the interlocutor’s non-verbal signals helps to better understand his emotions and thoughts, and, as a result, the messages he sends. Nonverbal cues are especially valuable because they are most often spontaneous and unconscious, and therefore sincere.

As mentioned above, the main means of nonverbal communication are intonation, gestures and facial expressions.

Intonation refers to paralinguistic nonverbal communication such as volume, tempo, rhythm, and pitch. In addition to paralinguistic ones, there are extralinguistic components. These include atypical individual pronunciation features - pauses in speech, laughter, coughing, sighs, crying, stuttering and others.

Facial expressions and gaze are also means of non-verbal communication. Mimicry is coordinated movements of facial muscles that reflect state, feelings, and emotions. Facial expression includes all changes that can be observed on a person's face, including psychosomatic processes such as redness or pallor.

Speaking about the accuracy of facial expression perception, it should be noted that individual facial zones of the forehead, eyes, mouth, left and right half of the face act as links in one chain, as a result of which it makes sense to consider not only their features, but also holistic facial activity.

When communicating, nonverbal means of communication contribute to better perception of information, help express emotions and regulate the communication process.

Factors that reduce the effectiveness of communication

There are a number of factors that reduce the effectiveness of communication. These factors are usually called communication barriers.

There are several such obstacles.

• Barrier of perception.
• Semantic barrier
• Nonverbal barriers
• Barrier to Bad Listening
• Logical barrier
• Emotional barrier

The concept of a barrier of perception is associated with the fact that a person reacts not to events occurring directly, but to how these events are perceived. Here there is selectivity of information sources, selective attention, distortion, memorization. Perception barriers include concepts such as first impressions, prejudice, stereotypes, projection effects, and order effects.

It is worth explaining the projection effect and the order effect here. The first involves endowing the interlocutor with negative or positive qualities characteristic of the communicant. This effect occurs when one of the participants in the communicative process endows the opponent with his own qualities.

The order effect is that when communicating with strangers, they trust and remember information that comes first more, and when communicating with friends, information that comes last.

A semantic barrier arises in the verbal form of communication.

Semantic variations are often a source of misunderstanding. The meaning of symbols used in communication is learned through experience and varies depending on the context. This applies to both individual words (especially those of foreign origin or those characterizing a person, for example, decency) and phrases (as soon as possible, as soon as the opportunity arises).

Nonverbal communication barriers include visual barriers, acoustic barriers, olfactory barriers, and tactile sensitivity.

Visual barriers manifest themselves in body features, gait, hand movements, skin reactions, psychological distance, etc.

Tactile sensitivity depends on each person's ability to perceive touch (handshaking, patting, kissing, etc.).

We must not forget that a nonverbal form of communication is communication in the language provided to humans by nature, which means that nonverbal communication in most cases has an unconscious basis and indicates the real emotions of the participants in communication. She is difficult to manipulate and difficult to hide in any interpersonal communication.

A logical barrier occurs when the logic of reasoning proposed by the communicator seems incorrect to his communication partner, contradicts his inherent manner of proof, or is too complex for him.

An emotional barrier is manifested in the fact that words have a strong emotional charge and create associations that cause an emotional reaction.

The problem of overcoming communication barriers is usually personal in nature. However, the ability to avoid and overcome them contributes to the establishment of successful and effective communication.

Indicators and factors of communication effectiveness

As already mentioned, effective or successful should be considered a communication process that led to the achievement of the goal, which is why this communication process was launched. If the purpose of the message was realized, this means that the information was correctly deciphered and understood by the recipient.

However, the success of communication is determined by a number of indicators, the most important of which are pragmatic and socio-psychological aspects. In the first case, the effectiveness of communication is determined by the achievement of the set goal and the success of overcoming obstacles that arose in the process of achieving it. From a socio-psychological point of view, the most important thing is satisfaction from the communication process itself. This avoids difficulties such as tension, stiffness and rigidity. In other words, it is a subjective feeling associated with a feeling of completeness and stability of interpersonal relationships in the absence of fears, suspicion and feelings of loneliness.

In verbal communication, indicators of effective communication are: how much the communication participants understood each other, how they responded to the words and behavior of the interlocutor, what actions confirmed the correctness of perception in feedback.

For example, the effectiveness of a business conversation depends not only on the professional competence of the participants, but also on their manner of behavior, speech culture and listening skills.

In general, the main indicators of the effectiveness of interpersonal communication include the achievement by communicants of a certain level of interpersonal perception.

An important indicator of the success of intercultural communication is an understanding of the culture, worldview and value system of the interlocutor. In the case where representatives of different cultures are also native speakers of different languages, it must be remembered that the language barrier will encourage interlocutors to pay more attention to non-verbal signs. It is important to remember that the meaning of some of them may differ from culture to culture.

In the case of mass communications, a universal characteristic of the effectiveness of this type of communication is the size of the audience that is covered by the information impact. Also, to assess the effectiveness of mass communications, the following indicators are used: delivering information messages to the audience in the context compiled by the communicators; coverage of events from a special point of view, representing primarily the position of the communicator; creation of a special moral and psychological state in certain social groups or among the entire audience; formation of psychological readiness of social groups for action, etc.