CHAPTER 2

Communication theory
 Outcomes
After completing this chapter, students should be able to:
• understand what is meant by the term communication
• understand what is mean by the term communication
theory
• work in pairs to complete an assessment to determine
their own communication skills
• identify the elements common to all forms of
communication
• understand the role of cognition and cognitive faculties in
communication
• identify the key elements that facilitate effective cross-
cultural communication
• understand the role of context in communication
 Outcomes continued…
After completing this chapter, students should be able to:
• understand the importance of models of communication
and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of selected
models
• understand how context affects communication
• differentiate between the different modes of
communication – formal and informal communication,
verbal and non-verbal communication (including written and
oral communication)
• understand the differences between general and business
communication
• understand the importance of the you-viewpoint in
communication
• understand the barriers to communication and how to
overcome them
 What is communication?
The act of transmitting information, ideas, thoughts
and feelings from one person to another.
 The theory of communication
The study of the principles behind effective
communication.
Do you have good communication skills?
• Are you are surprised when people don’t understand what
you say?
• Do you say exactly what you think?
• Do you ask for clarity when you don’t understand something,
or do you work it out for yourself?
• Do you dislike talking over the telephone?
• Do you check your letters or reports before sending?
• Do you agree with the use of text messaging for business
correspondence?
• Do you think communication is overrated?
• Do you consider cultural differences when communicating?
• What can you do to improve your communication skills?
 Communication skills

Good communication skills:

• help people relate more positively to others
• enable people to get their dream jobs
• increase productivity in people
• increase productivity in organisations
 Elements of communication
Message Verbal or non-verbal, or a combination of both

Sender The person who sends / encodes a message

Receiver The person who receives / decodes a message

The medium through which the sender sends

Channel the message to the receiver
The context or setting in which the
Context communication takes place - business,
academic, casual, social, cultural
Any disruption affecting the smooth flow of
Noise the message
For effective communication to take place - the sender
must receive adequate response or feedback from the
 The role of cognition in communication

• Cognition - the mental act or process by which

knowledge is acquired, it might be through thought,
experience, and senses.
• Cognition includes - perception, intuition/instinct, and
reasoning
• Cognitive faculties or abilities - relate to mental
functions and mental processes needed for cognitive
communication
• Cognitive abilities include functions and processes
such as orientation, attention, memory, problem
solving, executive (planning) functions and language.
Cross-cultural communication

Key elements of culture:

• language
• religion and beliefs
• values and attitudes
• politics and law
• social organisation
 Communication context

The environment in which a

communication event takes place is
influenced by:
• historical context
• psychological context
• cultural context
• social context
• physical context
 Models of communication
Lasswell’s model of communication

Advantages Disadvantages
 It is a simple model  It does not take noise and
 It suits most types of feedback into account
communication  It is too linear
 It deals effectively with the
concept of effect
 The transactional model

Disadvantages Advantages
 The model  It gives equal weight to the senders and receivers and
becomes refers to these to these essential elements in the
problematic communication process as communicators, not as
when the senders and receivers
sender and  It takes into account the communicators’
receiver have environments, which includes factors such as physical
nothing in location, personal experiences and cultural
common backgrounds
 Unlike the linear models, it does not only regard noise
 The interactive model

Advantages Disadvantages
 The sender sends the message to the  It involves feedback but
receiver through a channel it is not always
 The receiver then becomes the sender and simultaneous. For
sends the message to the original sender instance, if you send a
(now the receiver) text message, there
 It takes into account the sender and may be a lag in the
receivers’ ‘field of experience’ (cultural feedback process if the
backgrounds, ethnicity, geographic location, receiver does not
extent of travel, and experiences) respond immediately
 Osgood and Schramm’s circular model

Advantages Disadvantages
 It is a dynamic model that shows that  The people interacting
situations can change have to share a
 Participants (senders and receivers) comment set of signs
continually swap roles throughout the and rules
communication process and reciprocate in the  It ignores auto
encoding, decoding and interpreting communication
processes (communication from
 It assumes communication is circular in and to oneself) and
nature interpersonal
 communication
 Business communication
Communication channels

Formal Informal Unofficial

• transmits information • functions • is interpersonal
such as goals, policies alongside the • is also called the ‘grapevine’
and procedures formal along which
• follows a chain of channel messages/rumours circulate
command (from the • does not • establishes a strong bond
senior manager to follow the between peer groups
subordinates and then chain of • keeps employees informed
to the next level of command • can lessen the impact of major
staff) • may be shocks
• creates transparency disruptive, if • reduces emotional outbursts
• encourages motivation not and extreme reactions
• can impede the free monitored • can be divisive, if not
flow of information, adequately monitored
particularly • can be moderated by means
surrounding personal of healthy
General vs business communication
 Non-verbal communication
Non-verbal communication is any communication that takes
place without spoken words and written language. In other
words, it includes all unspoken and unwritten messages, both
intentional and unintentional.

Non-verbal communication includes the following:

• gestures, body language and facial expressions (kinesics)
• touch and forms of greeting (haptics)
• the physical distance between people who are
communicating (proxemics)
• vocal features (paralinguistics)/body language, facial
expression
• eye contact
• posture
 Proxemics

Proxemics is
the study of
space in
interpersonal
relationships.
In business,
space is often
taken as an
indication of
power and
authority.
 Communication barriers
Noise Intrapersonal barriers
• Physical noise • Faulty assumptions
• Psychological noise • Differences in perception
• Physiological noise • Stereotypes
• Semantic noise • Mind-set
• Conflicting backgrounds
• Incorrect inferences
Interpersonal barriers
• Limited vocabulary
• A mismatch between verbal and non-verbal
communication
• Excessive emotion
• Communication selectivity
• Cultural variations
 Seven C’s of communication
Used to eliminate communication barriers and to
make communication effective and efficient.
1. Clarity
2. Conciseness
3. Concreteness
4. Correctness
5. Coherence
6. Completeness
7. Courteousness
 Conclusion
In this chapter, you established that effective communication
is essential, especially in the business environment where
many of our daily dealings and actions involve some form of
communication.
You established that if you are to succeed in business, it is
important to master all aspects of business communication
and to overcome barriers that prevent effective
communication, leading to miscommunication and
communication breakdowns.
You learnt about communication which can be defined as the
act of transmitting information, ideas, thoughts and feelings
from one person to another. You also learnt about the theory
of communication, which is the study of the principles behind
effective communication.