Effective Technical Communication

CHAPTER-1

DYNAMICS OF COMMUNICATION

INTRODUCTION

Our knowledge about when and how communication developed is widely uncertain. However the influence of communication on human history has always been remarkable. The story of communication in human history developed with the evolution of human. It began with simple signs and grunts of our ancestors and as the time passed we developed sophisticated communication. We painted the wall of the caves, lettered the stones and rocks, pressed signs and letters on clay tablet, inscribed on metal sheet, wrote on the bark of trees and today we write on paper. In all these techniques information was saved for a long period of time so that other people can use information to make their life better. Communication not only passes information to other people but also across the generations.

Today whatever knowledge or information we possess is actually we have received through communication in our life. Human communication, compare to animals, is so sophisticated that it can easily share abstract concepts and ideas among people. This remarkable ability of humans has always been shaping our life and gives meaning to it. in today`s world our life is replete with information, knowledge, ideas, concepts and from day to night we all share them with one another through various means of communication. In this way sharing of information (Communication) has always been a significant chapter of human history.

The following video nicely illustrates the evolutionary journey of Communication.

CONCEPT OF COMMUNICATION

Communication is basically a process of sending and receiving information between two or more people. It is a systematic effort/ attempt to share human experiences, thoughts, ideas, information and knowledge with other people. It includes activities such as listening, reading, writing, understanding, chatting, reporting, narrating, telling etc. The term “communication” is derived from the Latin word “communis” which means “common”. In this way communication refers to “make something common” or “share information and knowledge”.

DEFINITION OF COMMUNICATION

“Communication can be defined as the exchange of information, ideas and knowledge between sender and receiver through an accepted code of language.”

"Communication is the activity or process of expressing ideas and feeling or giving people information.

"Communication is a two-way process wherein the message in the form of ideas, thoughts, feelings, opinions is transmitted between two or more persons with the intent of creating a shared understanding.

PROCESS OF COMMUNICATION

These definitions of communications mainly reveals following characteristics of communication process.

Communication takes place between sender and receiver.
There is an exchange of information between them through medium.
This exchange is only possible through accepted codes of language.
Communication is a two way process.

The following figure shows how communication takes place between sender and receiver.

Sender: Sender is considered as the origin of communication. The sender has ideas, knowledge, information and thoughts to share with the receiver. These ideas are in abstract form in the minds of the sender. In order to share these ideas the sender has to give a physical or concrete shape in the form of commonly accepted codes i.e language.

Encoding: Sender, before sending the message, convert the message (ideas) into commonly accepted language. This conversion is called encoding. Through this process sender gives a concrete shape to his/her abstract ideas. This encoded idea is called message.

Message Sending: Once sender`s idea is encoded, it is ready to move toward the receiver. In order to transmit the message the sender select an appropriate way.

Medium/Channel: In communication process Medium/Channel is like a bridge between sender and receiver. Through the medium message is transmitted and reaches to the receiver. The medium varies in different communication environment e.g. in telephonic conversation electronic network is medium, in oral communication air is a medium, in whatsapp chatting internet is a medium. The process of communication is largely affected when the medium is disturbed by external factors such as noise.

Medium/Channel: Sender In communication process selects an appropriate medium or channel in order to transmit the message. The medium can be anything that carries message. The process of communication is largely affected when the medium or channel is disturbed by several factors like noise and barrier

Receiver: The recipient of the message is called Receiver. When message is sent using an appropriate medium, it is received by the receiver. Receiving of the message involves sensory and cognitive process which finally leads to understanding.

Decoding: Decoding plays a significant role in the process of communication. In this stage the message gets its original form i.e. ideas. Our human mind holds only abstract thoughts and ideas that is why encoded message is converted again into ideas. This process also involve cognitive aspect which finally leads to the understanding of the Sender`s message.

Feedback: Feedback is the last stage in which the receiver responds to the Sender`s message. This response by the receiver makes the whole process complete. Through feedback the Sender can judge whether the receiver has understood the message correctly. In the absence of feedback communication eventually withers.

Thus, for successful communication all these components are very essential and should work in coordination. Any defect or disturbance (Noise) in these components may result in miscommunication.

The following video explains the process of communication

VERBAL & NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION

Communication is a systematic exchange of information between sender and receiver. Basically, there are two types of communication that we use in our day-to-day life namely; Verbal and Non Verbal Communication. Both types of communication serve the same purpose i.e. exchanging information through communication process. Let’s see what is verbal and non verbal communication and how do they differ from each other.

Verbal Communication:

In Verbal communication we exchange information with the help of words. In our life we use words of specific language to communicate. These words might be either in oral form or written form. In oral form we use spoken words for example talking with our friends, giving speech in function, scolding someone, delivering a lecture, instructing someone etc. In all these instances we use words to convey our message to others. In written communication we use words in written form for instance writing a letter to someone, sending a job application, writing a paragraph, writing a report, notice, memo, email, proposal etc. Since Verbal communication (oral and written) uses words, it becomes very specific and to the point. In verbal communication it is very essential that both the sender and the receiver must have knowledge of the language that they use as a medium. Mainly verbal communication is very helpful in exchanging abstract and complex ideas and giving information in detail. It is said that humans learn from their past and they have tendency to record the past or history in both oral and written which is very useful to us. Through verbal communication it becomes very easy to pass on important information to the next generation. In this way verbal communication plays a significant role in our life.

NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION:

Contrary to verbal communication Non Verbal communication does not use words. Instead of words we use the language which has no words such as sign language, body language and posture, Paralinguistic, facial expression, gesture, eye contact, personal appearance etc. Since Non Verbal communication is wordless it is considered as ‘Unspoken Communication’. In fact non verbal communication is auxiliary to verbal communication. Surprisingly scientific studies say that Non Verbal communication carries 65 % of the social meaning of the situation, while 35% is carried on Verbal Communication.

Normally non Verbal Communication normally fails in exchanging technical, specific and detailed information. It is mostly used in face to face communication. Up to some extent Non Verbal communication is universal and so the sender and the receiver from the different cultures and countries can easily communicate with each other. For example nodding one’s head has a positive (yes) meaning which can be understood by any person in this world. Since it depends on physical movements, it is ephemeral and this is why it fails in passing information to the next generation.

TYPES/COMPONENTS OF NON VERBAL COMMUNICATION

Non verbal communication does not use speech or words. Instead it simply uses the language which has no speech and words. This is why it is considered as ‘Unspoken Communication’. In day-to-day communication human body plays a vital role. Through our body we express our thoughts without using word. This way of communication is known as Non-verbal communication. There are several types of Non-verbal communication which are as under.

Kinesics
Paralanguage
Proxemics
Chronemics
Haptics (Touch)

Kinesics:

Kinesics is the study of the body movements. In other words it can be said that it is the way human body communicate without words. Kinesics includes following body movements

1. Personal Appearance:

Personal appearance plays a key role in non-verbal communication. We can express many things through our appearance or outlook. Appearance includes clothes, hair style, jewelry, cosmetics, and so on. For example a person wearing an earring, heavy chains and torn jeans will create bad impression among people. This is because his appearance communicates the people and tells everything about the person.

2. Posture:

Posture generally refers to the way we hold ourselves when we stand, sit and walk. A person`s posture tells many things. For example: slumped posture indicates low spirit while erect or straight posture indicates high spirit, energy and confidence.

Study the following picture and find out which posture is good and which posture we should avoid.

3. Gesture:

Gesture includes the movements of hands, arms, shoulder, head, torso and fingers. Our gesture clarifies our ideas. During communication a person’s gesture tells what is going on in his /her mind. We should avoid irritating gesture like playing with a ring, twisting keychain, clasping hands tightly and cracking knuckles etc at the time of communication.

In our day-to-day life we use gestures to reinforce verbal communication. Sometimes people use gestures when verbal communication is not possible e.g. in cricket umpire declares his decisions through hand gesture because on the ground it is impossible to give decision verbally due to lots of noise.

The following video shows how fighter pilots are guided by the Shooters using gestures on aircraft carrier.

4. Facial Expression:

Facial expression: Human face is considered as the best communicator. It is the most expressive part of human body. Facial expression includes raised eyebrows, forehead lines, smiles, movements of eye lid etc. for example smile stands for friendliness while a frown for discontent, lines on forehead for question, doubt etc.

5. Eye Contact:

In our day-to-day life we express our emotions and feeling through our eyes. Our eyes reflect our sincerity, integrity, love and comfort when communicating with another person. It determines how we present ourselves and communicate with others When we are confident we firmly maintain eye contact but when we have to hide something we cannot look into person`s eyes. Our parents can easily learn through eye contact whether we lie to them. Two lovers can express many things just through eye contact. Thus practicing good eye contact is a skill for effective communication.

Paralanguage:

Paralanguage refers to the pitch, volume, rate, quality, tone, intonation which conveys different meanings in persons` speech. Paralanguage always runs along with words and it refers to how words are spoken. For example when a person shouts a name of a person we can assume that the person is angry. Here person`s intensity of voice conveys the meaning that he/she is angry.

1. Voice:

Voice is the most important element of Para language. Voice tells us about the speaker’s gender, age, background, education, temperament etc. Voice conveys the message in a more effective way. For example we can easily figure out whether the person is sick, unhappy or angry just studying his/her voice. Usually angry person speaks louder and and his/her anger is clearly reflected in his/her voice. A sick person speaks very slowly and his/her voice is very low. Thus, how the person speaks tells a lot about that person.

2. Stress on Words:

When we speak we use stress to emphasize specific words in sentences. Stress on words usually refers to the way speaker stretches words to indicate their importance. For example when a teacher instructs that 75% attendance is MUST. Here the teacher has put stress on a word 'MUST' which indicates that it it mandatory. The following sentences are made up of same words but their meanings are different. Here stress on different words changes meaning of the same sentences.

You should NOT go there.
YOU should not go there.
You should not GO there
You should not go THERE.

3. Speed:

We all speak language at different speed rate. Usally men speak faster than women. Different speed rate indicates different meaning. For example in critical situation such as at the road accident people normally speak fast. Where message accuracy is very important people speak very slowly. For example while instructing someone people usually speak slowly. Rate or speed of the word also sometimes determines messages` seriousness and humor. For example in movie or drama character speaks very slowly which indicates the seriousness of the message. While comic characters usually speak fast to create humour among audience.

4. Volume:

Research indicates that confidence, assertiveness, and boldness are reflected in louder speech. This doesn’t mean that you go around speaking loudly but if you need to "raise the stakes" or occur more assertive, raising your vocal volume will help you to do this. For example at public speaking it is expected that the speaker should be louder and clear. Here speaker`s clear and loud voice reflects the person`s confidence. On the other end a person having low voice reflects lack of confidence and trust.

5. Pause:

Pause refers to a break in speech either between words or sentences. It seems that pause is a moment of nothing but it has its own importance. The use of pause in language gives an artistic touch especially in narration, story telling and reciting a poem. It is used as a tool to build intellectual and emotional connection with the audience. Pause allows the listener to think over before the next sentence is spoken. For example late Atal Bihari Vajpayee was well known for his pauses in speech and this made his speches memorable and worth listening.

Proxemics:

Proxemics is the study of physical space that people maintain to communicate Non Verbally. When we communicate with others we maintain physical space. This distance influences our behavior and also tells many things about us to other people. For example people maintain wide space, tells us that they would be stranger or the people maintain little distance suggest their intimacy. In our communication environment we use types of zones to communicate non verbally.

Intimate Zone (From 6 to 18 inches): This is the zone a person guards as individual property. Only romantic partner, close friends and relative are allowed to enter in this zone.

Personal Zone (From 18 to 48 inches): This is the distance we keep from others during friendly interactions, social gatherings or parties.

Social Zone (From 4 to 12 feet): This is the distance we keep from strangers or persons with little acquaintance.

Public Zone (Above 12 feet):This is the comfortable distance we maintain while interacting or addressing to large group of people.

Chronemics:

Chronemics refers to the study of how time affects communication. We all use time to manage different activities but the manner in which we use time differs from person to person. Some people gets up early and get ready on time while some people always runs behind the time. Usually the way we use time in doing daily activity communicates a lot about ourselves and also shapes our personality. By observing someone`s routine we can easily assume person's characteristics such as laziness, punctuality, trustfulness, accurate, distrust, irresponsible. For example a person who always comes late communicates his/her laziness, irresponsibility, distrust, tardy and sluggish. Thus, we also learn many things about the person`s personality by observing his/her way of using time.

Haptics:

Haptics is a form of non-verbal communication which refers to the way we touch other people. In our day-today life we touch other persons and this touch communicates different messages. For example handshaking communicates healthy and friendly relationships, hugging a baby by a mother expresses love, back-patting communicates congratulating and complimenting, putting hands on someone`s shoulder is a sign of affection. In our Indian culture our parents and elderly persons put their hands on our head to express their love and affection. In almost all the culture haptics (touch) is an important part of communication.

Inter-personal Communication

Interpersonal communication is all about the exchange of ideas, information and knowledge between people. It includes both verbal and non verbal communication which help us to shape our personality. Interpersonal communication and skills are very essential at the workplace. In organization people need to get across their ideas and thoughts and here they need effective interpersonal communication. At the workplace effective interpersonal communication helps us in becoming extrovert, frank, open, active, confident and energetic. On the other hand people who are poor in communication are shy, introvert and lonely. In order to improve our communication we need to identify the barriers in interpersonal communication.

Barriers in Interpersonal Communication:

Barrier refers to anything that disturbs the communication process. Here barrier does not mean any physical sounds but any factor that causes a break in communication process. In interpersonal communication either sender or receiver or both can be responsible for barriers. Interpersonal barriers in communication are categorized as 1. Semantic Barriers, 2. Psychological Barriers and 3. Organizational Barriers. For any effective communication we need to identfy and overcome these barriers.

1. Semantic Barrier:

Semantic barrier refers to any misunderstanding that is caused by words and their meaning. Semantic barriers include words with different meaning, faulty translation, unclarified assumption, denotation and connotation, technical jargons and bad expression. In verbal commmunication we use words with same pronuciaion but different meanings such as: by; bye; buy, principle;principal, right; wright, weak; weak etc, Use of such words may change the meaning of the message if it is not properly clearified. Sometimes literal and poor translation also distorts the message in communication. Connotative meanings are good in literary language but in technical communication connotative language can mislead the whole communication. For technical communication the use of denotative language and technical jargons makes communicaion clear and unambiguous. Sometime we use wrong words to convey our message which badly express our message and creates confusions in communication process.

2. Psychological Barriers:

Psychological barriers are the barriers which arises due to person`s psychological state. Our psychological state forms our opinion, consciouness, attitude and our emotions which directly influence our communication. Lack of attention is a psychological state which does not allow us to grasp information. For an effective communication we should attentively receive information. Many people have a habit to form an immediate judgments without considering all the aspects of information. This is generally done by the people who are impatient and resort to a selective listening. This premature evaluation of the information acts as a barrier to the effective communication and lowers the morale of the sender. Poor Retention is a psychological barrier which refers to the capacity of a brain to retain or store things in the memory. The brain does not store all the information came across but in fact, retain only those which deems to be helpful in the future. Therefore, much of the information gets lost during the retention process, and this acts as a barrier to the effective communication. While communication some imformation is lost during transmission. It is most observed in oral communication that message gets distorted when it is transmitted from person to person. This loss by transmission acts as a hinderence in communication process. To have an effective communication, it is must that both the communicators (sender and receiver) trust each other.

In case there is a lack of trust between both the parties, then they will tend to derive negative meaning out of the message and often ignore what has been communicated. If the receiver has no trust, then he will not listen to whatever is being said by the sender and this will result in a meaningless communication. The communication is greatly influenced by the emotions of a person. If a person is not in a good temperament, then he would not listen properly to whatever is said and might say things offending the sender. Several other emotions such as anger, nervousness, confusion, restlessness, etc. affects the communication process.

Thus, every human being has a unique mind which is composed of varied emotions, beliefs, perceptions, opinions, and thoughts that facilitate different forms of communication.

3. Organizational Barriers:

Organizational communication simply refers to communication that takes place in business environments. Organizational communication encompasses everything from individual to mass communication, it is an extensive field. In any organization the positions of the people are fixed in certain hierarchichal structure. In an organization people communicate at various levels and because of this there are greater chances of message being distorted. As there many levels of communication in an organization, message has to be sent using an appropriate channels or links. But these channels or links should be limited because in using too many links, there is a threat of message being distorted. In an organization we find that because of the fear superior, the employees are not able to communicate properly or articulate their problems. And due to this the functioning of an organization is affected. An open or friendly environment is required for better communication among the people in an organization.

In organization people have their different attitudes or tendencies as they are coming from different social backgrounds. Their nature, beliefs and opinions are different and because of this there are conflicts among the people in the group. This occurs because of negative tendencies of the people. People have the negative tendency of unnecessarily opposing the views of the other people. This can create a big communication gap among the people in an organization. Use of inappropriate media to send the message also affects communication. The media which we choose for communication in an organization has to be according to the demands of the time, cost, type of message and intended audience. In an organization communication is done with the help of some effective media such as charts, telephone, graphs, e-mail, slides, computer presentations etc. In the present time one of the major problems that the organizations are facing is that of information overload. The availability of the information is so much that the receiver is not able to handle it effectively. This can create disinterest, fatigue and boredom which makes further communication impossible. Due to this, vital information gets mixed up with irrelevant one. Here one should remember the fact that the quality of the information is more important than its quantity.

Intercultural Communication:

Intercultural communication refers to communication between people from different cultural and social backgrounds. It is also known as cross-cultural communication. In the present era of globalization, people work in different multinational companies where they come across people from different countries. In such environment, people usually have to deal with others who have different social and cultural believes. People who are stubborn and conservatives about their cultures often find difficulties in maintaining relationship with their colleagues. And such attitude ultimately affects their communication at the workplace. In order to establish a good relationship with their colleagues, people have to learn some basics of intercultural communication.

NOISE IN COMMUNICATION PROCES

We know that effective communication is the soul of all the business activities of any organization. Communication takes place basically between two terminals: the sender and the receiver. However, the process of communication largely depends on the feedback of the receiver. When receiver fails in sending a desired response to the sender, it is assumed that the communication process might have been affected by ‘Noise’.

‘Noise’ is any interference or disturbance that is responsible for interrupting the process of communication. Here ‘Noise’ does not mean a physical sounds but any factor that causes a break in the communication process. Almost all the parts of communication are vulnerable to ‘Noise’. For instance, in the classroom when someone turns up late and asks permission to enter, his or her words ‘May I come in?’ would stop the communication between the sir and students for awhile. Here latecomer can be called ‘Noise’.

Since the information that flows between the sender and the receiver is very important, it is very essential that ‘Noise’ should not affect the communication process. If the communication process is affected by ‘Noise’ there are several remedies which can rectify the communication process.

Following these five steps will set the affected communication back on the right path.

Identify the problem

Find the cause

Work on alternative solutions

Opt for the best solutions

Follow up rigorously

In this way, as virus attacks human body by destroying the organic system, ‘Noise’ affects the communication body and creates various barriers to effective communication. This is why for successful communication ‘Noise’ should be harnessed.