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Verbal communication is the basic form of interpersonal communication. It is mainly on it that our good relations with family members, co-workers and other people around us depend. non-verbal communication, i.e. body language can become a source of confusion. Read what verbal communication is.
Verbal communicationis part of interpersonal communication, which consists of one more important factor - non-verbal communication, i.e. body language, eye contact, facial expressions and gestures.
It turns out thatverbal communicationdoes not constitute the majority of our messages, because as many as 65% of them are non-verbal. The conclusion is that verbal communication, which is simply spoken language (but it also includes listening, reading, writing - any communication based on a word), is quite poor and incomplete and is sometimes completely insufficient in everyday life.
For example a sentence that conveys a seemingly simple piece of information; "You have to refuel the car", depending on how it is spoken and what body language is supplemented with, it will have a completely different meaning.
What is verbal communication?
For verbal communication to take place at all, there must be:
- sender of the message, i.e. speaking;
- recipient, addressee of the message, i.e. the listener - listening, in the context of verbal communication, is as important as speaking. The ability to listen actively (as opposed to passive listening) means that the transmitted information has a chance to be processed;
- language, i.e. the code used by the speakers and listeners, understandable to both of them.
Verbal communication in a rudimentary version also occurs in some animals, e.g. chimpanzees.
An important role in verbal communication is played by:
- The content of the statement- is related to the vocabulary of both the sender and the recipient of the message. For example, we use different words when addressing a small child, and different words - for a supervisor at work. In order to convey a message, it is necessary to take care of the linguistic correctness and precision of the message.
- Fluency of speech- the reception of the message is affected by the fluency of speech, e.g. any interludes may weaken the message.
- Paraphrasing- changing the words of the heard message in order to make sure that it has been understood correctly by us.
- Modulating and accent- that is, as mentioned above, the way the message is emphasized may be more important to the recipient than the content of the speech itself.
- Iloczas- the process of reducing or lengthening the time of spoken words.
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The role of listening in verbal communication
It is not about hearing, i.e. the activity that occurs thanks to the receptors of hearing. The recipient of the message may have very good hearing and hear that someone is talking to him, without processing the information at all. If that is the case, communication just doesn't take place. So listening, so true, is decoding what is heard. We distinguish between passive listening and active listening.
Passive listening- you can say that it is merely hearing. We deal with passive listening when the motivation of the listener is at a very low level, literally speaking - the listener does not care about the information (or even the speaker), or his thoughts are occupied with something else and he cannot focus his attention sufficiently on the message.
Active listening- in this case the mind of the listener is focused and used to a much greater extent. The listener not only processes the information heard, but is also able to get acquainted with the views, attitude or feelings of the speaker at the same time. He's following her line of thought. And at this point, he receives and also uses non-verbal communication.
Understands facial expressions and gestures of the speaker, and paraphrases himself to emphasize his cooperation / understanding with the speaker. All this leads not only to the transmission and proper reception of a verbal message, but also communication on the level of emotions and feelings. Talking about feelings is not easy.
Often when asked "What do you feel?" we cannot answer. It is difficult to express one's views and opinions as well as the state of mind at the same time. Therefore, verbal communication must be supplemented with non-verbal communication so that communication between people is complete.
Communication barriers
Sometimes it happens that the transmission of information is disturbed. Barriers that appear onthrough the transmission of the message, i.e. communication noise, may be physical or psychological, e.g.
- Cultural differences- they consist in the fact that each person is brought up in a different environment, different political situation, in a different culture, and moreover is burdened with his own baggage of experiences. Therefore, the same message may be perceived completely differently by different people. For example, in Bulgaria "nodding" means negative, etc.
- Perceptual difficulties- the message may be disturbed by the fact that the interlocutor speaks too quickly, indistinctly, uses mental abbreviations that are incomprehensible to us.
- Stereotypes- for example, we listen more willingly and carefully to someone who is, in a sense, an authority for us than to someone we don't care about too much. It seems to us that the former may provide noteworthy information, while the latter "doesn't know".
- Well-being- our own form, both physical and mental, can influence the level of our concentration, motivation, kindness, etc.
- Selectivity of attention- we only catch the details that interest us from the given message. Concentrating on certain threads can seriously distort the information conveyed.
- Inability to decentrate- in other words, lack of empathy. Someone who focuses all his consciousness on himself is incapable of adopting a point of view other than his own. It is possible to fully understand the interlocutor by adopting his / her perspective.