Understanding Communication

• Communication is essential for expressing needs, forming relationships, and navigating daily life.
• Communication is important personally, socially, and professionally.
• Ineffective or unethical communication can have severe consequences.
• Competent communication can resolve conflicts and build trust.

Functions of Communication

• Expressing affiliation demonstrates connectedness with others.
• Managing relationships involves navigating connections between people.
• Influencing others affects attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors.

Characteristics of Communication

• Communication is symbolic and uses symbols like words and gestures.
• Communication necessitates a shared code, such as language, to be understood.
• Communication is linked to culture and reflects and shapes cultural identities.
• Communication can be unintentional and occur even without conscious intent.
• Communication occurs through channels like face-to-face interactions, text, and video.
• Communication is transactional and involves mutual influence between sender and receiver.

Competent Communication

• It is a process-oriented approach that focuses on how communication unfolds.
• Communication is appropriate and effective, meeting situational demands while achieving goals.
• Communication is ethical and demonstrates respect, honesty, and responsibility.
• Communication requires skill involving learning and practicing techniques.
• Adapting to digital communication reflects technological savvy.

Communication Models

• The linear model involves one-way message delivery from sender to receiver.
• The interaction model adds feedback and context, acknowledging the receiver’s response.
• The competent communication model emphasizes ongoing, simultaneous exchange influenced by context, culture, and relational factors.

Verbal Communication

• Language is symbolic with words representing ideas without inherent meaning.
• Grammar constitutes the rules governing language use.
• Denotative meaning is the dictionary definition of a word.
• Connotative meaning involves the emotional or personal associations of a word.
• The abstraction ladder details how language varies in specificity.
• Evasion involves avoiding specifics in communication.
• Equivocation refers to using ambiguous language.
• Euphemisms soften or obscure harsh terms.
• Communication accommodation theory suggests adapting language based on context or audience.
• Code-switching involves moving between different speech styles or "codes".
• Jargon & Slang are technical or group-specific language.
• Gender & Culture can influence language use and interpretation.

Problematic Language

• Hate speech offends or threatens based on identity.
• Hurtful language includes words that are damaging or offensive.
• Labeling reduces people to a single characteristic.
• Biased language implies discrimination or unfair assumptions.
• Profanity is rude speech, whereas civility is respectful speech.

High vs. Low Language

• High language is formal and polite.
• Low language is informal and uses slang.

Nonverbal Communication

• Nonverbal communication conveys messages through behavior rather than words.
• Nonverbal communication can be intentional (e.g., a handshake) or unintentional (e.g., nervous tapping).
• Channel discrepancy occurs when verbal and nonverbal messages conflict.
• People tend to believe the nonverbal message when it conflicts with the verbal.
• Cultural norms and digital environments affect how nonverbal messages are expressed and interpreted.

Functions of Nonverbal Communication

• Nonverbal communication reinforces a message by emphasizing or repeating it.
• Nonverbal communication substitutes words to replace them.
• Nonverbal communication contradicts verbal communication.
• Nonverbal communication regulates the flow of conversation.
• Nonverbal communication creates immediacy to build closeness and involvement.
• Nonverbal communication serves to deceive others.

Nonverbal Codes

• Kinesics involves body movements, including gestures and posture.
• Facial expressions consist of seven universal expressions.
• Eye behavior incorporates eye contact and gaze.
• Paralanguage includes vocal cues, such as tone, pitch, and volume.
• Physical appearance includes clothing, grooming, and body type.
• Touch (Haptics) communicates intimacy, power, etc.
• Space (Proxemics) defines personal distance zones.
• Environment includes surroundings and objects.
• Time (Chronemics) shows how time communicates value and power.

Perceiving the Self and Others

• Perception is the process of interpreting and making sense of the world.
• Schemas are mental structures that organize knowledge.
• Reality is shaped by our interpretations and interactions through social construction.
• Attributions comprise explanations for behavior.
• The fundamental attribution error involves overestimating internal causes in others.
• Self-serving bias attributes personal success to internal factors and failures to external ones.
• Selective perception allows personal biases to influence what we notice.
• Mindfulness refers to being actively aware.
• Mindlessness refers to passive perception.

Cognitions About Self

• Self-concept an overall perception of who you are.
• Self-esteem measures how you feel about your self-concept.
• Self-efficacy indicates belief in your ability to perform in specific situations.
• Social comparison theory involves evaluating ourselves by comparing with others.

Behavior & Identity

• Self-presentation details how we manage impressions we give to others.
• Self-disclosure includes sharing personal information to build intimacy or connection.
• Managing feedback means responding to and interpreting others' perceptions of us.
• Online platforms shape how we control and project our self-image through technology.

Communication and Culture

• Culture constitutes the shared beliefs, values, and practices of a group of people.
• Cocultures are smaller groups within a larger culture, defined by age, race, religion, and profession.
• Intercultural communication is interpersonal communication between different cultural backgrounds.

Cultural Variations

• High-context cultures rely on nonverbal cues and context.
• Low-context cultures rely on direct, explicit communication.
• Individualist cultures emphasize personal achievement and independence.
• Collectivist cultures value group harmony and cooperation.

Power Distance

• High power distance accepts unequal power structures.
• Low power distance favors equality and open dialogue.

Time Orientations

• Monochronic time perceives time as linear, emphasizes schedules.
• Polychronic time perceives time as flexible and prioritizes relationships.
• Emotional expression varies by culture; some encourage open display, others restraint.

Group Dynamics

• Social identity theory states that our sense of who we are is based on group memberships.
• Ingroup vs. outgroup dynamics suggest favoring one's own group can lead to bias or discrimination.

Barriers to Intercultural Communication

• Ethnocentrism is the belief that one’s own culture is superior.
• Anxiety includes fear of the unknown in unfamiliar cultural settings.
• Discrimination includes biased treatment of individuals based on group identity.

Improving Intercultural Competence

• Mindfulness involves being aware of cultural differences and open to new perspectives.
• Accommodation involves adjusting communication style to connect better with others.