ENG 301_ MIDTERM SHORT QUESTIONS

 

ENG 301_ MIDTERM   SHORT QUESTIONS  

CONTEXT

Every message, whether oral or written, begins with context. Context is a broad field that includes country,

culture, organization and external and internal stimuli. Every country, every culture and every company or

organization has its own conventions for processing and communicating information.

 

SENDER-ENCODER

Sender is the person who communicates the idea, information, material, etc. He acts in the capacity of speaker,

writer, or encoder.

The message he intends to send

The message he actually sends

The message the other person receives or understands.

The other person interpretation of the message

The other person response

 

MESSAGE

The message may be in the form of order, opinion, advice, suggestion, instruction, question answer or material.

It is necessary and important that idea or message received be identical to the idea or message sent. It is possible

only when both communicator’s sender and receiver are skillful in communication and its language.

 

MEDIUM

Medium of communication includes letters report telegrams fax mailgrams cables tealeaf postal telephones

charts pictures or any other mechanical device. Medium may be a person as a postman. It may be a device as a

telephone. It may also be an organization as a post office or news agency.

 

RECEIVER-DECODER

The receiver is the decoder. He when receives decodes or interprets the message. Since perfect communication

is not possible, there is deviation between the idea sent and the idea received or interpreted. If the receiver is

skillful in communication then the deviation will be small.

 

FEEDBACK

Feedback can be an oral or a written message, an action or simply silence.People in the world are not exactly alike. Cultures or countries are not the same. These differences, however,

can cause problems in conveying your meanings. Each person’s mind is different from others. As a result, message sender’s meanings and the receiver’s responses are affected by many factors.

 

Semantic barriers

A basic principle of communication is that the symbols the sender uses to communicate messages must have the same meaning in both the sender’s and receiver’s minds. You can never be sure that the message in your mind  will be clearly sent to your receiver. The world is full with errors, as a result of differences in semantic  (meaning) understanding.

 

Denotation

A denotation is usually the dictionary definition of a word. Denotative meanings name objects, people or events

without indicating positive or negative qualities. Such words as car, desk, book, house, and water convey  denotative meanings. The receiver has a similar understanding of the thing in which the word is used.

 

Connotation

A connotation is an implication of a word or a suggestion separate from the usual definition. Some words have  connotative meanings, that is, qualitative judgments and personal reactions. The word man is denotative, father,  prophet, brother are connotative. Some words have positive connotations in some contexts and negative  meanings in others. For example, slim girl and slim chances.

 

Physical Barriers

Communication does not consist of words alone. Another set of barriers is caused by your own physical  appearance, your audience or the context of the document or the presentation. Your ideas, however good and  however skillfully imparted, are at the mercy of various potential physical barriers.

 

Psychological Barriers

Because of the changing world, everyone has his own concept of reality. Our sensory perceptions – touch, sight,  hearing, smell and taste are limited and each person’s mental filter is unique. In our daily interaction with  others, we make various abstractions, inferences and evaluations of the world around us.   

 

Emotional Barriers

One possible psychological block is emotional, you may be  emotionally block is you are announcing a new  policy you may become popular or unpopular

 

Abstracting

Selecting some details and omitting others is a process called abstracting.  Differences in abstracting take place not only when persons describe events but also when they describe people

and objects

 

Inferring

Conclusions made by reasoning from evidence are called inferences. We make assumptions and draw

conclusions even though we are not able to immediately verify the evidence. Some inferences are both

necessary and desirable; others are risky, even dangerous.

 

Barriers Involving Values, Attitudes

Occasionally people react according to their attitudes toward a situation rather than to the facts  Other factors effecting attitudes, opinions and responses  Environmental stresses Personal  problems  Sensitivity

 

Nonverbal communication

consists of that part of a message that is not encoded in words. The nonverbal part  of the message tends to be less conscious and often reveals the sender’s feelings and preferences more

spontaneously and honestly than the verbal part. If the verbal message does not match the nonverbal  communication, people tend to believe the nonverbal message.  Four types of nonverbal messages

Personal Nonverbal communication involves kinds of nonverbal behavior that are unique to a person. The

meaning is also unique to the person sending the message.