Today, language is one of the most prized possessions of man. It acts as a repository of wisdom, a propeller for the advancement of knowledge and a telescope to view the vision of the future. Ever since the dawn of civilization man has been trying to exploit the flexibility and dynamism of language for the conduct of his day-to-day affairs. But in this attempt he has been only partially successful. Though human society has progressed with remarkable speed, the use of language for communication is still not free from ignorance, prejudice and superstition.
1.1 LINGUISTIC COMMUNICATION
Here we are concerned with linguistic communication. Let us now briefly discuss what it is and how it takes place. The word 'communication' is derived from the Latin term 'communicare' or 'communico', both of which mean 'to share'. But communication is not merely transmission of meaning from one person to another through symbols. It implies that the system of communication is commonly owned, accepted and
recognized by the members of a community. It enables them to acquire, exchange, store, retrieve and process information. Communication is thus essentially a
social affair.Looked at more closely, what is essential for communication to occur is the cooperation between two parties, one active or at the giving end and the other passive or at the receiving end.
The sender selects appropriate symbols to suit the situation and realizes the meaning through speech or writing depending upon the socially regulated requirements or self-perceived needs. At the receiving end the symbols are identified and identification obviously implies recognition and realization of meaning through the interpretive process.
Both these processes may be summarized as follows:
Communication is thus a network of interactions and naturally the sender and the receiver keep on changing their roles.
Another aspect of communication is the deployment of a code consisting of arbitrarily evolved symbols and the determination of the appropriateness of their use in given situations, leading to the emergence of diverse communication patterns. A number of factors come into play in shaping these patterns. Some of these are tangible (e.g. physical setting) and others intangible such as intellectual, emotional and psychological. Communication cannot therefore always be regarded as a momentary event. In fact, it often is a momentary intensification of a continuing, cumulative process that starts before the actual communicative event takes place and continues after it has occurred. The communicator therefore must acquire a true perspective of not only the present requirements of the situation but also its relationship with the past and its impact on the future.
A clear understanding of the various components and their interrelationship is shown in the below diagram indicating the process of communication.
1.2 BARRIERS TO COMMUNICATION
There are a number of barriers which produce noise and prevent the achievement of the desired result. Some of these are: absence of a common frame of reference, badly encoded messages, disturbance in the transmission channel, poor retention (especially in face-to-face communication), inattention by the receiver, premature evaluation of the message, different perceptions of reality, semantic difficulties, vagueness about the objectives to be achieved, misinterpretation of the message, clash of attitudinal nuances of the sender and the receiver, psycho-physical factors, and selection of a wrong variety of language.Most of the barriers mentioned above are self-explanatory; a few however need clarification. The common frame of reference implies the social context in which communication takes place. Both the sender and the receiver would be able to focus their mind meaningfully on the message if the context is well-defined. The semantic difficulties arise when the sender uses ambiguous expressions or highly specialist vocabulary inappropriate to the situation. Every sender superimposes his attitudes on what he communicates. A message is therefore not just organised language but a verbal means of realisation of an intention. Sometimes the attitude of the sender is at variance with that of the receiver and when this attitudinal clash occurs, communication suffers. Sometimes one is unable to communicate effectively because of mental or physical fatigue or when psychologically one is out of tune with oneself. Some persons, because of previous unpleasant experience in similar situations, may find it difficult to communicate effectively. In oral communication situations some persons may be releuctant to speak because they are afraid of being evaluated by their peers, superiors, etc. All such factors are termed as psycho-physical factors. Each language has a number of varieties determined on the basis of the place a person belongs to, the social status he enjoys, the profession he is engaged in or the activity he is performing. If an inappropriate variety is used, communication suffers. For example, a lawyer's use of legal language to explain to his family a case he argued in a court of law would certainly be a barrier to communication. We must remember that, contrary to the popular belief, redundancy, the repetition of the elements of a message, may prove to be an aid to communication in certain situations.
1.3 IMPORTANCE OF COMMUNICATION
Social advancement has to be
matched with the development of efficient techniques of communication to sustain the tempo of growth. In modern professional
organizations a great deal of importance is therefore attached to devising and maintaining an efficient system of communication. It enables the gathering and marshalling of data which is necessary for decision making. Researches in this area have shown that 70% to 80% of the total working time of a professional is spent on communication. In India where other languages are also used for this purpose, out of the total time spent on communication, 64.14% is on communicating in English as against 27.22% in Hindi and 8.64% in regional languages. Thus the role of English in the professional world is still dominant and we have therefore
focused our attention on the conventions of communication in English followed in India.
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Harmeet