Importance and use of verbal communication
INTRODUCTION
The process of communication takes place when there is an exchange of information between a sender and a receiver. In simple words, verbal communication is an act of delivering ideas, messages, views or feelings through the use of mouth. This is the primary way of a direct face to face communication between two or more people. Although all animals communicate, human communication stands apart from the others, as the language through which communication takes place is bestowed with unique qualities such as clarity, emotions and effectiveness.
WHAT IS VERBAL COMMUNICATION?
Language is one of the most crucial aspects of verbal communication, and there are many ways in which the language functions as a medium for communication. There are four paradigms (Krauss & Fussell, 1996) that define this process. Let us have a detailed look at these paradigms.
ENCODING AND DECODING THE MESSAGE
Language is basically a combination of code that utilizes words, sentences and phrases to express any meaning. By the process of encoding and decoding, the speaker encodes his message with the help of his words and sentences, while the listener decodes the transmitted message in order to grasp the intended message or an idea. This process of encoding and decoding of messages is indeed helpful for conveying the meaning of the message, but this process alone does not ensure that the verbal communication between the sender and receiver is successful and effective.
COMMUNICATION INTENTIONS
When a message passes from the speaker to the listener, it is up to the listener to grasp that message in the way he understands and interprets it. Because of the fact that a single word or a sentence can have two or more meanings, even a simple message can create confusion. This is where the effectiveness of verbal communication comes into play; the sharing of information between two people involves other aspects such as emotional cues and style, in order to convey the appropriate message. Communication is a complex kind of intention that is achieved or satisfied just by being recognized (Levinson, 1983).
This shows that people have a sense of understanding the intentions behind verbal communications, most of the times. It is, however, surprising that how they do it. Identifying another person’s communicative intentions is not very easy.
PERSPECTIVE
In order to accommodate differences in perspectives, the communicators must take each other’s point of views in mind before they decide to communicate with each other. This is the reason why small children are not very good communicators (Krauss & Glucksberg, 1977), because they are not able to understand other people’s perspective. They live in their own world and think others to be part of the same world. This is one of the limitations of verbal communications.
DIALOGUES
In order to ensure that the message is construed in a proper way, the sender must select words and sentences that will convey the intended meaning in an effective manner. The receiver, on the other hand, must process these dialogues and identify the intended meaning. It is also essential that the receiver has effective learning skills, which enables him to grasp the message in its totality.
USE OF VERBAL COMMUNICATIONS
As seen from the above, people use verbal communications to express their views, empathize with others and express their feelings. Depending on the intentions of the speaker and the final outcome, there are several uses of verbal communications.
- Translation of the intended message: One has to remember that verbal communication is a two way process where someone is always listening at the other side. Most of the misunderstandings occur when the speaker is not able to convey his message properly. The translation of the message in proper language enables the communication process to happen successfully. For example, an interpreter is used between two people of different nationalities, speaking different languages. The interpreter, through translation, enables the process of verbal communication to take place smoothly.
- Choice of words for creating the message: This is one of the crucial aspects of verbal communication. Words that are not common between the sender and the receiver will be misunderstood and misinterpreted. It is very important to know the audience and who is being addressed. With the help of verbal communication, the speaker can decide the choice of words that would constitute his message and would translate through appropriate word choices and proper grammar (Golf, 2014).
- Expression of emotions and non verbal cues: Only by verbal communication can humans effectively express and share their emotions with others. Moreover, verbal communication involves feelings that cannot be understood by non verbal cues such as eye contact and body language. For example, saying yes to a child for going out to play with a smile will be more effective than saying yes with a big frown!
- Courtesy and way of speaking: One of the biggest advantages of verbal communication is that people can speak in a way that can please and delight the listener. For example, people give more importance and respect to those who speak politely with them than those who are rude and impolite.
IMPORTANCE OF VERBAL COMMUNICATIONS
In today’s times, the importance of verbal communication remains unparalleled. Right from our day to day activities and business dealings, the contribution of verbal communication is immense. Actually, we tend to ignore the importance of verbal communication and what it means for us. Let us carefully analyse some of the key areas which describe its importance:
- Personal life: If we talk in simple words, it is extremely important for us to express ourselves, get things done, show our affection towards others and try and achieve all that we can. In order to do all these things, the most important aspect is the basic message that we would communicate to others. This message can describe our needs, wants, thoughts, happiness, anger, attitudes and emotions. If we do not communicate verbally with people around us, it would be extremely difficult to express our views and feelings towards all that is happening around us. We will not be able to maintain and establish any basic relationships in our lives. After all, human beings are emotional and possess cognitive abilities that other species do not have.
- Professional life: In our professional lives, we need to make several verbal communications with our seniors, colleagues, supervisors, juniors, friends, clients, customers and other external stakeholders. In order to excel in our jobs, it is extremely important that people maintain good and cordial relation with these stakeholders. And, to maintain good cordial relations, it is important to have an effective verbal communication. By this, we can express our feelings, views and talent to these stakeholders.
- Leadership: If you look at most of the great leaders that world has ever produced, right from Martin Luther King to Steve Jobs, you would notice that all these people had excellent oratory skills. They were excellent speakers and were able to communicate their thoughts and feelings to millions of people around the world. What was it that made these people special? If you look closely at them, you fill find that their speeches are studied and referred by millions of people even today. If we get down to the basics, we can say that they possessed excellent verbal communication skills. They were successful in effectively sending their message across the audience and could express their emotions and feelings through it. This is the power of verbal communication, it brings people closer and creates an emotional connect between them.
CONCLUSION
Verbal communication is so important to humans that our survival depends upon our ability to communicate effectively. The quality of our social and professional lives depends upon how well we communicate with people who are around and away from us. If we take out verbal communications from our day to day activities, our lives would be pretty different and hard to imagine!
Sources Cited
Krauss, R.M., & Fussell, S.R. Social psychological models of interpersonal communications. Social psychology, a handbook of basic principles (pp. 655-701). New York. Guilford, 1996. Print.
Levinson, S.C. Pragmatics. Cambridge university press, 1983. Print.
Krauss, R.M. & Glucksberg, S. Social and non-social speech. Scientific American.pp100-105, 1977. Print.
Golf, S. Effective use of verbal communication. www.ehow.com n.d.Web 05.April. 2014
