Week 3 Communication of Ideas: Spoken and presentations Skills

A first step in unravelling the complexity of interpersonal communication is to understand the basic process by which communication occurs. Only then can we identify where possible problems can arise and explore skills for enhancing communication and managing such breakdowns. Human beings are not passive, predictable objects who always interpret meanings and react as they are ‘supposed to’. Neither is communication a passive, predictable, one way event. Rather, communication can be viewed as an active process, influenced by all the complexities and ambiguities of human behaviour. It is also fraught with potential points of breakdown. As Clampitt notes, ‘We actively construct meanings within a unique vortex that includes the words used, the context of the utterances, and the people involved.’(2005, p.8) A more accurate way of looking at the process of communication is probably as a dynamic, circuitous process in which elements such as non-verbal behaviour and individual styles of interpreting and ascribing meaning to events have significant influence. Strategies such as constructing a clear, unambiguous message can encourage effective communication, but so too can seeking to understand meanings imposed by the listener via processes such as actively listening to feedback, as we shall see.

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