Functions and types of human communication.
PURPOSES OF HUMAN COMMUNICATION
The purposes of human communication may be conscious or unconscious, recognizable or unrecognizable. Five general purposes of communication can be identified: To discover, to relate, to help, to persuade, and to play.
To Discover
One of the major purposes of communication concerns personal discovery. When you communicate with another person, you learn about yourself as well as about the other person. In fact, your self-perceptions result largely from what you've learned about yourself from others during communications, especially your interpersonal encounters.
To Relate
One of our strongest motivations is to establish and maintain close relationships with others. The vast majority of people want to feel loved and liked, and in turn want to love and like others.
Of course, you may also use communication to distance yourself from others, to argue and fight with friends or romantic partners, and even to dissolve relationships.
To Help
Therapists, counselors, teachers, parents, and friends are just a few categories of those who often – though not always – communicate in order to help. As is the case with therapists and counselors, entire professions are built around this communication function. But there are few professions that don't make at least some significant use of this helping function.
To Persuade
People spend a great deal of their time in persuasion, both as sources and as receivers. In your everyday interpersonal and group encounters, you try to change the attitudes and behaviors of others. You try to get them to vote a particular way, try a new diet, buy a particular item, see a movie, read a book, take a specific course, believe that something is true or false, value or devalue some idea, and so on. Some researchers, in fact, would argue that all communication is persuasive and that all our communications seek some persuasive goal. Some examples:
Relationship goals: You communicate to form the relationships that will meet your needs.
Instrumental goals: You communicate to get others to do something for you.
To Play
You probably also spend a great deal of your communication behavior on play. Communication as play includes motives of pleasure, escape, and relaxation. For example, you often listen to comedians – as well as friends – largely because it's fun, enjoyable, and exciting. You tell jokes, say clever things, and relate interesting stories largely for the pleasure it gives to you and your listeners. Similarly, you may communicate because it relaxes you, allowing you to get away from pressures and responsibilities.
Types of human communication
Human communication is a vast field and ranges from talking to yourself, to talking with one person or a small group, to speaking in public to an audience of hundreds, to mass communication in which you talk to millions. In intrapersonal communication you talk with yourself. You learn about and evaluate yourself, persuade yourself of this or that, reason about possible decisions to make, and rehearse messages you intend to send to others.
Through interpersonal communication you interact with others, learn about them and about yourself, and reveal yourself to others. Whether with new acquaintances, old friends, lovers, or family members, it's through interpersonal communication that you establish, maintain, and sometimes destroy (and sometimes repair) your personal relationships.
In small group communication you interact with others, solving problems, developing new ideas, and sharing knowledge and experiences. From the employment interview to the executive board meeting, from the informal social group having coffee to the formal meeting discussing issues of international concern, your work life and social life are lived largely in small groups.
Through public communication others inform and persuade you. And you in turn inform and persuade others – to do, to buy, or to think in a particular way, or to change an attitude, opinion, or value.
Through mass communication you are entertained, informed, and persuaded by the media– movies, television, radio, newspapers, and books. Also, through your viewing habits and buying patterns, you in turn influence the media's form and content.
All forms of communication except intrapersonal communication may be intercultural communication, in which you communicate with members of other cultures; that is, people who follow different customs, roles, and rules. Through intercultural communication you come to understand new ways of thinking and new ways of behaving and begin to see the tremendous variety in human thought and experience.
Among the skills you'll learn are:
■ Self-presentation skills to enable you to present yourself as a confident, likable, approachable, and credible person. Incidentally, it is also largely through self-presentation that you display negative qualities as well.
Relationship skills to help you build friendships, enter into love relationships, work with colleagues, and family members.
Interviewing skills to enable you to interact to gain information, to present yourself successfully to get the job you want, and to engage effectively in a wide variety of other interview situations.
Group interaction and leadership skills to help you participate effectively in relationship and task groups – informative, problem-solving, and brainstorming groups, at home or at work – as a member and as a leader.
Presentation skills to enable you to communicate information to and influence the attitudes and behaviors of small and large audiences.