31. The definition and dimensions of communication

Communication as an academic discipline relates to all the ways we communicate, so it embraces a large body of study and knowledge. The communication discipline induces both verbal and non-verbal messages. Communication happens at many levels in many different ways. Definitions of C. Range widely some recognizing that animals can communicate with each other as well as human beings and some are more narrow only including human being into communication process.

There is much discussion in the academic world as to what actually constitutes C.process. Many definitions of C. Emphasize the process by which people navigate and assign meanings. C.is also understood as the exchange of understanding. Additionally there is a biocommunication theory investigating c-tive processes among non-humans, such as bacteria, animals, fungi and plants.

C. consists of transmitting information from one person to another. Scholars of c-tion try to investigate: ‘who says what to how in what channel with what effect’.

C-tion is deeply rooted in human behaviour and the structure of the society.

Theory of C. Is connected with: - philosophy

-psychology ,culture studies,biology

-technical studies,linguistics,politology ,sociology

C. is a process whereby information is imparted by a sender to a receiver through the media. C. Requires that all parties have a area of communicative commonality. They are: 1. Auditory means (speaking, tone of the voice)

2. non-verbal means (body language, touch, eye-contact). C. Is defined as the process by which we assign and convey meaning in the attempt to create shared understanding. This process requires skills in interpersonal processing, listening, observing, speaking, questioning, analysing and evaluating. C. Is a learned skill. Most babies are born with physical ability to make sounds but they mut learn to speak and communicate effectively.

Speaking, listening and our ability to understand verbal and non-verbal meaning are skills we develop in various ways. We learn basic c-tion skills by observing other people and modelling our behaviour based on what we see. We are also taught some c-tion skills through our education.

C. is usually described along 4 dimensions. 1. Content (what types of thing are communicated) 2. Sender/encoder \emiser\source (by whom c-tion is started) 3. Receiver\destination\decoder\target (to whom c-tion was directed) 4. Form and channel.

Between parties c-tion includes acts that confer knowledge and experience, give advice and commands, ask questions etc.

In a simple model, content is sent in some form(as spoken language) from a sender to a receiver. A sender and a receiver are linked reciplically. Such particular example of c-tion is called a speech act.

There are 3 major parts in any c-tion: 1.body l-ge 2 voice tonality 3 .words. According to the research 55% of impact of c-tion is determined by body l-ge, 38% by the tone of the voice. 7 % by the content of the words.