Communication

From Encyclopædia

[[Image:COMMUNICATION.jpg|thumb|communication]]COMMUNICATION is a variety of behaviors, processes, and technologies by which meaning is transmitted or derived from information. The term is used to describe diverse activities: conversation; data exchange between computers; courting behavior of birds (see animal communication); the emotional impact of a work of art; the course of a rumor through a school; and the network of nervous and metabolic subsystems that make up the body's immune system. Given such varied uses of the term, no sharply defined boundaries delimit the field, no clear-cut domains are within it, and no widely accepted universal model of COMMUNICATION exists.This article focuses on human COMMUNICATION, which includes interpersonal COMMUNICATION, language and verbal behavior, and the anthropological aspects of COMMUNICATION in society. Information on other fields of COMMUNICATION can be found under CYBERNETICS; information theory; language AND literature; linguistics; psycholinguistics; [[radio and television broadcasting|radio and television broadcasting]]; and telecommunications.HISTORYUntil the 20th century, theories of COMMUNICATION were the province of writers on philosophy, language, and rhetoric (see rhetoric and oratory). Aristotle taught that rhetoric was a search for all the available means of persuasion and that one had to examine the speaker, the message, and the audience in order to understand the effect of rhetoric and how that effect was achieved. That concept endured, without significant modification, to the present century. Descartes and Leibniz recognized mathematics as a universal language for the description of physical systems and phenomena, and they speculated about the development of artificial languages (see languages, ARTIFICIAL) to improve the precision of COMMUNICATION, an orientation that continues to this day in some aspects of mathematical logic. Psychologists studying behavior and its antecedents in various stimuli explored some aspects of COMMUNICATION behavior in the first half of the 20th century, but it was not until the publication of two enormously influential works in 1948 that there was anything like a comprehensive theory of COMMUNICATION. In that year, both Claude SHANNON's monograph The Mathematical Theory of COMMUNICATION and Norbert Weiner's Cybernetics: or Control and COMMUNICATION in the Animal and the Machine were published to wide acclaim. Since that time dozens of models have appeared, most of which are merely variations of these two works.COMMUNICATION MODELSShannon's model included six elements: an information source (usually a person), a transmitter, a COMMUNICATION channel, a noise source, a receiver, and a destination (usually another person). Shannon, a mathematician working for the bell Telephone Laboratory, collaborated with Warren weaver to write The Mathematical Theory of COMMUNICATION (1948), in which the original theory was modified somewhat and explained to nonmathematicians. The revised model includes a source (the speaker); an encoder (the vocal system); a message (language and visual cues); a channel (sound waves in the air); a decoder (the listener's ears); and a receiver (the listener). The noise source (static on a radio; background noise in face-to-face COMMUNICATION) in later formulations came to be known as entropy, subsequently a subject of intensive experimentation itself. One of weaver's contributions to this model began with his explanation that all COMMUNICATION was concerned with three problems: how accurately the symbols of COMMUNICATION could be transmitted, how precisely the symbols carried the intended meaning, and how effectively the received meaning affected conduct in the desired way. weaver recognized that Shannon's mathematical formulation could provide a theoretical construct within which to examine all three problems.Norbert Weiner, also a mathematician, did not develop a general theory of COMMUNICATION, but he did introduce the concept of FEEDBACK, a construct he deduced from observations about interactions between humans, animals, and the physical environment. Weiner described the many ways in which organisms modify their own behavior to correct for adverse reactions to some other aspect of their behavior. In COMMUNICATION, feedback is a verbal or visual cue that indicates whether the message has been received and correctly interpreted; it may be a nod of the head, a slap in the face, or a question. Weiner used the term HOMEOSTASIS to describe the ability to detect a deviation from a desired state and a feedback mechanism by which the discrepancy is noted and fed back for the purpose of modifying behavior. Such a system more closely approximates actual interpersonal COMMUNICATION, and few theoretical models today fail to incorporate the feedback concept.Later models do not offer a single theory of human COMMUNICATION but present a range of specific theories that pertain to various COMMUNICATION situations. In the social sciences, these theories have modified the Shannon-weaver and cybernetic models to include greater emphasis on the nature of the next interaction, the response to the message, and the context within which the interaction occurs. As an extreme example of model development, Marshall MCLUHAN holds that the COMMUNICATION medium--the channel--exerts so strong an influence on the COMMUNICATION process that it virtually Controls what is communicated.Noam CHOMSKY, in his book Syntactic Structures (1957), rejected some of the mathematical assumptions of Shannon and weaver as inadequate for describing the ways in which people use English grammar, for example; this in turn influenced psychologist George A. Miller to do experimental work on human responses to language and meaning. Social psychology and anthropology have also developed elaborate models, which treat such factors as predispositional personality variables, the credibility of the source, states of cognitive consistency of the receiver, the nature and role of attitudes, and selected message variables. Given the diversity of uses of the term COMMUNICATION, it is unlikely that there will be a widely accepted universal model suitable for all disciplines.INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATIONTwo basic approaches have been used to define interpersonal COMMUNICATION; one approach includes all the ways in which people influence each other, even unintentionally. Anthropologist Edward T. Hall's popular book, The Silent language (1959), described the ways in which such NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION as the physical proximity of two people talking to each other communicated much about their cultural background or ?ersonal relationship. This approach defines COMMUNICATION by referring to the response of the receiver and therefore includes the total environment of social behavior rather than just specific acts or utterances.Other scholars operate under different assumptions: in their view, COMMUNICATION should be limited to only those intentional interactions that occur by means of symbols. This view assumes that although the attempt to communicate with another may fail in the sense that the speaker may not evoke the desired response, nevertheless intention defines the COMMUNICATION act. This orientation has produced much valuable research, including conclusions about persuasibility factors of personality; the importance of the order of presentation of arguments; and the role of selective perception, source credibility, and pressures to conform to group norms.Both approaches to COMMUNICATION cause some problems: the former because it appears that everything is COMMUNICATION and the latter because it depends upon the intention, or state of mind, of the speaker, thus leaving a large area of COMMUNICATION (most of the nonverbal, for example) unaccounted for. One attempt to transcend these difficulties defines COMMUNICATION as any event to which persons attribute significance to message-related behavior.Interpersonal COMMUNICATION is often categorized on the basis of its function; a simple classification comprises the cognitive and expressive functions mentioned by Charles Ogden and I. A. Richards. A far more elaborate system is that of linguist Roman Jakobson, who described six functions: referential, emotive, conative, poetic, phatic, and metalingual.language AND VERBAL BEHAVIORA second major area of human COMMUNICATION focuses on language and verbal behavior. Although classical rhetoric, philosophy, linguistics, and literary criticism contributed their theories, today the field is dominated by linguistics, anthropology, and psychology. The common concern is the potential of language to transmit meaning. language is not, of course, the only system of COMMUNICATION. Others are gestures, representational arts, and other symbol systems such as traffic signs; but language has much greater communicative power.