Lesson 2: Principles of Communication

Lesson 2: Principles of Communication

ILOs:

·         elucidates the principles of communication. ·         writes a commentary on the message extracted from the given text or a video on communication. ·         illustrate examples to actualize some key communication principles. OVERVIEW                 Communication having a utilitarian purpose is a ‘weapon for all seasons’ in all of our day to day transactions with others, the society, the community, the country and the world. The process of communication takes place as the network of communication elements starts to operate systemically and systematically. As a system, all these ingredients or elements work interdependently to achieve a functional network of communication or for effective communication process to take place. Otherwise, if one element in the system does not work, then communication process becomes a failure. Systematically, communication as a process is to be understood. Such system is presented or formulated, if not operated as a coherent body of ideas or principles. The activities that you will have to accomplish later will usher you to embrace the concepts and rudiments, or the communication requisites for us to get the meaning across the interlocutors. Principles of Communication      Communication is the heart of human interaction. Success of communication depends on our ability to interact with others. We need to communicate in order to gain knowledge, to create relationship and to express our feelings with others. Meaning, we communicate for a purpose. However, we sometimes fail to communicate clearly and thus, miscommunication would occur. To attain effective communication we must need to know and apply the basic principles of communication.         Some principles are needed for us to discover and apply the art and skill of communication toward understanding achieving effective communication. These principles, as highlighted on this text, provide some practical situations to help us raise our abilities to proficiently and effectively communicate with others.  The following principles are stated below.          Communication is purposeful. Basically, people communicate for a reason and that reason has a purpose. As mentioned earlier, we use communication in order to share information, ask question, share information, express feeling, engage others to act on something positive and a variety of purposes. According to Josephine Baba (wecommunication.blogspot.com), when we speak or write, we are trying to send some messages and trying to accomplish some goals.                 Five general purposes seem relatively common to all forms of communication:                 to learn: to acquire knowledge of others, the world, and ourselves;                 to relate: to form relationships with others;                 to interact with others as individuals;                 to help: to assist others by listening, offering solutions;                 to influence: to strengthen or change the attitudes or behaviors of others and                 to entertain: to enjoy the experience of the moment. Hence, we can say that humans cannot live without the existence of communication and thus, we can say that communication is certainly purposive.                             Communication is adaptive. In our oral communication classes, especially in Senior-High School we have been talking about verbal and non- verbal communication. Most of us are using verbal communication: written or spoken complemented with non-verbal communication to interact with others.  However, not all of us are gifted who can communicate using verbal communication symbols. There are also a lot of people who possess disabilities or impairments in their communication system like the most common impairment that is deafness. People who are capable to communicate normally need to divert or to adjust himself/herself in communicating with others who are disabled. Hence, adaptive communication may come into the picture purposively. Adaptive communication is a form of communication which is tailored to someone's needs and abilities. It is designed to provide people with the ability to communicate with others even if they cannot engage in spoken communication (http://www.wisegeekhealth.com) One of the forms of adaptive communication is sign language. This is used by people who are deaf, unable to speak and those people who experience stroke.  Sign language is important especially to those with disabilities. This is the only thing they can express themselves toward others. In order to achieve effective communication, one has to adapt or strategize some techniques to overcome some barriers and make communication to successfully take place.