My Definition of Human Communication
My Definition of Human Communication
To me human communication is the dynamic, ongoing, wide-ranging process that we all, as humans, engage in to share our thoughts, our ideas, our feelings, and our information amongst each other.
When I think about how communication occurs between me and another person, I see it happening as follows. First, I receive a single input, or possibly multiple inputs. For example, some inputs might be in the form of a spoken word, gesture, expression, smell, touch, taste, or a written word, sound, symbol, or picture or a combination of any of these.
Second, based on my experience, knowledge, context, and other factors, like emotions and attitudes, I mentally seek to assign my own personal meaning to these inputs.
Third, if I am able to assign a meaning to these respective inputs and if that meaning sufficiently matches with the meaning that the other person sought to convey, then communication has been successful and a new sequence may or may not then ensue. However, if for some reason I am unable to assign a meaning, then communication has been unsuccessful. At this point I may begin a new sequence to communicate the need for further input from the other person so that I can make another attempt to assign meaning, or I may just choose to end communication. In addition to these possibilities there is also the case where the meaning I assigned to the inputs is incongruent with the one the other person wanted to instill. Again, this means communication was unsuccessful; however, the irony is that I and/or the other person may not be aware of this disparity in meanings at the time. As with the other options, a new sequence can start or communication can be ended. As you have read, I have described human communication in terms of steps or sequences with an end result. Consequently, this is why I choose to refer to communication as a process.
In the course of course of human communication each time we encounter external inputs there is always the chance that they may influence our internal inputs and vice versa. This means that the way we perceive a communication is always changing which to me denotes a dynamic system. Thus, this is why I decided to describe human communication as a dynamic process.
I used “ongoing” as a descriptor because human communication is, in my view, something that everyone is engaged in just about every minute of every day. From the simple conversation you had with your spouse in the morning, to the involved discussion at work, to the TV show you watched in evening, to the to the book you read before bed, and I even wonder if it extends to the conversations in your dreams.
“Wide-ranging” was chosen because of the large variety of things I have observed or experienced that function as inputs for the human communication process. Some inputs can be due to a body movement, a stance, or even a stare. An input can take the form of a spoken word while at other times it is silence. In other instances, the input may be a single written word while in another the input may be a tome containing thousands of printed words and symbols. Sometimes the form may be a simple symbol or instead it may be a complicated and lengthy mathematical formula. Even the smell of hot apple pie fresh from the oven may be an input. I hope these examples illustrate why I say that the ways in which we communicate are indeed wide-ranging.
Why did I use “engage”? When I think of human communication I see this as being more than a mere tool we use to interact with each other. To me each person is an active, key participant who is intricately involved in and entwined with this HUMAN communication process. In my mind the word “engaged” appropriately conveys this concept.
At first, I thought to use transmit which is used in the conventional definition of communicate (1); however, the word “transmit” seems to me to be too sterile, too devoid of the important personal aspect of human communication. Instead, in looking at the definition of communicate I felt that the archaic definition that uses “share” (1) much more appropriately described this facet of human communication.
The phrase “our thoughts, our ideas, our feelings, and our information” was used because I feel that these broadly represent many of the things we want to communicate to others and them to us. Also, I purposely included “our” to again emphasize that human communication is, in every instance, personal.
In conclusion, I hope that after reading this essay that you find that I have communicated to you an understanding of my definition of human communication such that you will be unable to say in those immortal words uttered by Strother Martin in the movie Cool Hand Luke, “What we’ve got here is…..failure to communicate.” (2)
References
1. communicate. (n.d.). Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 11th ed., Merriam-Webster, Inc., Springfield, MA (2007)251.
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_we've_got_here_is_failure_to_communicate