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HEROLD LILLYWHITE-Associate Professor of Speech Iowa State Teachers College Cedar Falls.
This speech was delivered at the NSSC National Convkntion held in Chicago last D&ember.
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Philosophy of Commzinication
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Both men went on to explain that they were talking about human relationships, the psychological factors in listening. Rogers suggests that the
problem is in the very human tendency to evaluate what is said from ones
own point of view only, the inability to postpone an evaluation for the sake
of communication in the particular situation. This immediate evaluation
sets up a chain reaction that colors ones response to a speaker and therefore runs the risk of making for personality conflict and communication
breakdown.
I realize that we must continue to be concerned about the development of the so-called skills of communication, but not as processes apart
from the ultimate purpose of communication. We might well give more
attention to the ways in which we can teach the skills of communication
in terms of the complicated psychological forces that motivate an individual
or a group, not only in expressive attempts at communication, but more
subtly, and often more disastrously, in receptive attempts.
This kind of thinking complicates and makes the task of developing
a philosophy of communication infinitely more difficult. It focuses our
attention upon the lack of reliable research data concerning the nature of
communication in human relationships. We are making a splendid beginning with our research in the skills of reading, writing, speaking, and
listening, and this research certainly should be developed rapidly, but there
are many other more elusive problems that we need to tackle immediately.
These center around a study of the individual as a communicator, rather
than communication as a process more or less divorced from the human
forces in which it operates.
It has long been recognized that the successful speech therapist must
be more concerned with the kind of person who has the speech difference
than with the difference itself. It does little good to attempt to repair
the broken communication of the speech defective without knowing what
conditions, within and around this particu1,ar individual, caused the breakdown and how this particular individual must be re-oriented, with respect
to himself and his environment, if adequate communication is to be reestablished. Whether the individual is in, a speech clinic, on the stage,
before a forum audience, or a member of a committee in a group situation
it seems to me that the effectiveness of his communication, or the consequence of its breakdown, is only a matter of degree. The problem is
essentially the same. If we are to help him to communicate more effectively
we must help him gain the necessary inisight, understanding, and skills
within the framework of his relationships with others and in terms of his
attitudes, his motives, and his basic needs, as much as in terms of his
platform manner, his fluency with tongue or pen, his diction or his grammar.
The research I would recommend would continue to explore the
relationships between reading, writing, speaking, and listening, but would
also include such aspects as the relationships between maturity of the
individual personality and the communication processes, and maturity of
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