Barriers of Communication

Unit I

MISCOMMUNICATION

Miscommunication can originate at three levels

At the level of the transmitter At the level of the medium At the level of the receiver

Noise or Barrier

BARRIERS TO COMMUNICATION
1. 2. 3.

4.
5.

Wrong choice of medium Physical barriers Semantic barriers Different comprehension of reality Socio-psychological barriers

1. WRONG CHOICE OF MEDIUM

Each communication must be transmitted through an appropriate medium An unsuitable medium is one of the greatest barriers to communication
Sales Report Employees regret Compliment an employee

2. PHYSICAL BARRIERS
Noise
Noise in a factory External disturbances in telecom facilities, poor writing, bad photo-copies

Time and distance

If telecom and network facilities are not available; People working in different shifts Faulty seating arrangement in the hall

3. SEMANTIC BARRIERS
Semantic Barriers may occur if Interpretation of words- variety of meanings Bypassed instructions- The transmitter and receiver assign different meanings to the same word or use different words for the same meaning Denotations (Literal meaning) and connotations ( Qualitative judgements & personal reactions) To minimise semantic barriers, we should Use familiar words Use words with positive connotations

4. DIFFERENT COMPREHENSION OF REALITY

Barriers caused by different comprehensions of reality are

Abstracting which means picking a few details and leaving out others Slanting, which means giving a particular bias or slant to the reality. Similar to allness
Be objective in your observations and assessments

Inferring, which means drawing inference from observation.

Base your inference on verifiable facts

5. SOCIO-PSYCHOLOGICAL BARRIERS

Attitudes & options: We react favourably or are hostile according as the information is to our personal advantage or not Emotions: We can neither transmit nor receive anything correctly if our mind is agitated Closed mind: We hold our mind so rigidly that we just refuse to listen

SOCIO-PSYCHOLOGICAL BARRIERS (Contd.,)

Source of communication: We react according to the trust we repose in the source from which the communication originates Inattentiveness: Unconsciously we become inattentive if the communication contains a new idea and our mind refuses to respond to it Faulty transmission: Part of the message is lost in transmission

SOCIO-PSYCHOLOGICAL BARRIERS (Contd.,)

Poor retention: Oral messages in particular are lost due to poor human retention Unsolicited communication: We are unresponsive if the communication is unsolicited Status-consciousness: We are over-conscious of our lower or higher rank and do not express ourselves candidly

ACTIVITY

Look at the conversation below - what do you think are the elements of the communication that is going on in the conversation? What can you conclude about the aims and objectives of the two parties in the conversation? Try to look for the subtle as well as the obvious communication that may be going on in this extract.