The Definition of Human Communication
The whole might not always be the sum of its parts, but the understanding of the parts certainly does no disservice to the understanding of the whole. Hence, we shall define “human” and “communication” before defining “human communication.” The definition of “human” often becomes a source of great controversy. For example, some think that unborn fetuses are not human, some think that “inferior races” are not human, and others think that poor people are not human. However, in order for this discussion to be as inclusive as possible, the definition of human shall be of all living things that are of the species Homo sapiens. For this discussion, the possibility of dead Homo sapiens communicating with the living or with each other will be omitted. Having defined the more difficult term, “communication” shall simply be defined as the transmission and reception of information.
Putting the two together, “human communication” naturally means communication by humans which is the transmission and reception of information between Homo sapiens. Biologically, humans are able to detect signals from their environment via five ways: tasting, smelling, touching, seeing, and hearing. Hence, any information communicated will have to be through these channels.
To illustrate the use of the various channels, we will use the example of communicating love. Once could express love for another by cooking or baking something edible and palatable to the other’s sense of taste. One could also express love by wearing sweet smelling perfume that appeals to the other’s sense of smell. Love is often conveyed through pleasurable touches between humans such as hugging or kissing. Communicating love through sight could take the form of dressing up for a meeting and through sound could simply be saying “I love you.” Thus, all five channels can be used to communicate love and can also be used for other pieces of information as well.
Although the example mentioned above was about communication from one human to another, human communication is not restricted to just that. It also includes communication from a human to himself/herself, a single human to a group of humans, a group of humans to a single human, or between different groups of humans.
Therefore, human communication is the transmission of information between Homo sapiens through the five senses available to them which is not exclusive to one-to-one interactions but can be between groups of various sizes as well.