1.3 Communication Principles

It’s probably not difficult to get you, as students in a communication class, to see the relevance of communication to your academic life. At least during this semester, studying communication is important to earn a good grade in the class, right? Beyond the relevance to your grade in this class, I challenge you to try to make explicit connections between this course and courses you have taken before and are currently taking. Then, when you leave this class, I want you to connect the content in future classes back to what you learned here. If you can begin to see these connections now, you can build on the foundational communication skills you learn here to become a more competent communicator, which will undoubtedly also benefit you as a student.

Aside from wanting to earn a good grade in this class, you may also be genuinely interested in becoming a better communicator. If that’s the case, you’re in luck because even people who have poor communication skills can improve a wide range of verbal, nonverbal, and interpersonal communication skills by taking introductory communication courses. Communication skills are also tied to academic success. Poor listening skills were shown to contribute significantly to failure in a person’s first year of college. Also, students who take a communication course report more confidence in their communication abilities, and these students have higher grade point averages and are less likely to drop out of school. 

The National Association of Colleges and Employers has found for years that employers desire good communication skills in the college graduates they may hire. Desired communication skills vary from career to career, but again, this textbook provides a foundation for building communication skills specific to your major or field of study. Research has shown that introductory communication courses provide important skills necessary for functioning in entry-level jobs, including creating concise messages, speaking extemporaneously, adapting to an audience, establishing credibility, managing conflict, and communicating ethically.

Poor listening skills, lack of conciseness, and the inability to give constructive feedback have been identified as potential communication challenges in professional contexts. Employers appreciate good listening skills and the ability to communicate concisely because efficiency and clarity are often directly tied to productivity and success in terms of profit or task/project completion. Despite the well-documented need for communication skills in the professional world, many students still resist taking communication classes. Perhaps people think they already have good communication skills or can improve their skills on their own. While both may be true for some, studying communication can only help. In such a competitive job market, being able to document that you’ve received communication instruction and training from communication professionals (the faculty in your communication department) can give you the edge needed to stand out from other applicants or employees.

You may not spend much time thinking about how communication forms, maintains, and ends your interpersonal relationships, but I’m certain that when we get to the interpersonal communication chapters in this textbook you’ll be intrigued and maybe even excited by the relevance and practicality of the concepts and theories we’ll discuss there. My students often remark that they already know, from experience, much of what’s discussed in the interpersonal unit of the course. While we do learn from experience, unless and until we learn specific vocabulary and develop foundational knowledge of communication concepts and theories, we don’t have the sharp tools needed to make sense of these experiences. Just having a vocabulary to name the communication phenomena in our lives increases our ability to consciously alter our communication to achieve our goals, avoid miscommunication, and analyze and learn from our inevitable mistakes.

The connection between communication and civic life is a little more abstract and challenging for students to understand. Many younger people don’t yet have a conception of a “civic” part of their lives because the academic, professional, and personal parts of their lives have so much more daily relevance. Civic engagementWorking to make a difference in our communities by improving the quality of life of community members; raising awareness about social, cultural, or political issues; or participating in a wide variety of political and nonpolitical processes. refers to working to make a difference in our communities by improving the quality of life of community members; raising awareness about social, cultural, or political issues; or participating in a wide variety of political and nonpolitical processes. The civic part of our lives is developed through engagement with the decision making that goes on in our society at the small group, local, state, regional, national, or international levels. Such involvement ranges from serving on a neighborhood advisory board to sending an email to an elected official. Discussions and decisions that affect our communities happen around us all the time, but it takes time and effort to become a part of that process. Doing so, however, allows us to work for causes that are meaningful to us. This type of civic engagement is crucial to the functioning of a democratic society.

Communication scholars have been aware of the connections between communication and a person’s civic engagement or citizenship for thousands of years. Aristotle, who wrote the first and most influential comprehensive book on communication 2,400 years ago, taught that it’s through our voice, our ability to communicate, that we engage with the world around us, participate in our society, and become a “virtuous citizen.” It’s a well-established and unfortunate fact that younger people, between the ages of eighteen and thirty, are some of the least politically active and engaged members of our democracy. Civic engagement includes political engagement, which involves choosing a political party or advocating for a presidential candidate. Volunteering and community service are also types of civic engagement. The American Association of Colleges and Universities has launched several initiatives to encourage civic engagement in higher education. You should check to see if your school has an office of civic engagement or something similar so you can work to make a difference in your communities. 

The COVID-19 pandemic influenced communication in all spheres of our lives. The unprecedented and rapid transition from traditional face-to-face to distance learning fundamentally changed the way we communicate in the academic sphere. Likewise, the COVID-19 pandemic affected everyone’s professional life in some way. Some people lost jobs temporarily or permanently. Some people’s jobs in the service sector went from mundane and generally under appreciated to risky and essential. Grocery store and pharmacy workers; mail, package, and food deliverers; and health-care workers became visible “front-line” assets. Personally, people had to make significant adjustments as they distanced from loved ones and tried to get used to the “new normal” of limited face-to-face interactions. Civically, we were all called on to help “flatten the curve” by following the guidelines put out by officials and by doing our part to lessen the impacts of the coronavirus.

Physical needsNeeds that keep our bodies and minds functioning. include needs that keep our bodies and minds functioning. At the most basic level, communication can alert others that our physical needs are not being met. Even babies cry when they’re hungry or sick to alert their caregivers of these physical needs. Asking a friend if you can stay at their house because you got evicted or kicked out of your own place will help you meet your physical need for shelter.

There are also strong ties between the social function of communication and our physical and psychological health. Human beings are social creatures, which makes communication important for our survival. In fact, prolonged isolation has been shown to severely damage a human. Aside from surviving, communication skills can also help us thrive. People with good interpersonal communication skills are better able to adapt to stress and have less depression and anxiety. Satisfying physical needs is essential for our functioning and survival. But to socially function and thrive, we must also meet instrumental, relational, and identity needs.

Instrumental needsNeeds that help us get things done in our day-to-day lives and achieve short- and long-term goals. include needs that help us get things done in our day-to-day lives and achieve short- and long-term goals. Fulfilling these goals is an ongoing communicative task, which means we spend much of our time communicating for instrumental needs. Some common instrumental needs include influencing others, getting the information we need, or getting support. 

To meet instrumental needs, we often use communication strategically. Politicians, parents, bosses, and friends use communication to influence others to accomplish goals and meet needs. Some communication scholars focus on compliance-gaining communicationCommunication that's aimed at getting people to do something or act in a particular way., or communication that’s aimed at getting people to do something or act in a particular way. Compliance gaining and communicating for instrumental needs are different from coercion, which forces or manipulates people into doing what you want. Compliance-gaining communication is also different from persuasion, which we’ll discuss in more detail in Chapter 11 “Informative and Persuasive Speaking”. Researchers have identified many tactics that people typically use in compliance-gaining communication. As you read through the following list, I’m sure many of these tactics will be familiar to you.

Common Tactics Used for Compliance Gaining:

Relational needsNeeds that help us maintain social bonds and interpersonal relationships. include needs that help us maintain social bonds and interpersonal relationships. Communication meets our relational needs by giving us a tool through which to develop, maintain, and end relationships. To develop a relationship, we may use nonverbal communication to assess whether someone is interested in talking to us or not, then use verbal communication to strike up a conversation. Then, through the mutual process of self-disclosure, a relationship forms over time. Once formed, we need to maintain a relationship, so we use communication to express our continued liking of someone. We can verbally say things like “You’re such a great friend” or engage in behaviors that communicate our investment in the relationship, like organizing a birthday party.

Although our relationships vary in terms of closeness and intimacy, all individuals have relational needs and all relationships require maintenance. From spending time together, to checking in with relational partners by text, social media, or face-to-face, to celebrating accomplishments, to providing support during difficult times, communication forms the building blocks of our relationships. 

Identity needsNeeds related to the desire to present ourselves to others and be thought of in particular ways. include our need to present ourselves to others and be thought of in particular and desired ways. What adjectives would you use to describe yourself? Are you funny, smart, loyal, or quirky? Your answer isn’t just based on who you think you are, since much of how we think of ourselves is based on our communication with other people. Our identity changes as we progress through life, but communication is the primary means of establishing our identity and fulfilling our identity needs. Communication allows us to present ourselves to others in particular ways. Just as many companies, celebrities, and politicians create a public image, we desire to present different faces in different contexts.

The influential scholar Erving Goffman compared self-presentation to performance and suggested we all perform different roles in different contexts. Indeed, competent communicators can successfully manage how others perceive them by adapting to situations and contexts. A parent may perform the role of stern head of household, supportive shoulder to cry on, or cool and culturally aware friend based on the situation they’re in with their child. A newly hired employee may initially perform the role of motivated and agreeable coworker but later perform more leadership behaviors after being promoted. We’ll learn more about the different faces we present to the world and how we develop our self-concepts through interactions with others in Chapter 2 “Communication and Perception”.

Most people are born with the capacity and ability to communicate, but everyone communicates differently. This is because communication is learned rather than innate. As we’ve already seen, communication patterns are relative to the context and culture in which one is communicating, and cultures have distinct languages that are made up of symbols.

A key aspect of communication is that it’s symbolic. Communication is symbolic in that the words that make up our language systems don’t directly correspond to something in reality. Instead, they stand in for or symbolize something. The fact that communication varies so much among people, contexts, and cultures illustrates that meaning is not inherent in the words we use. For example, let’s say you go to France on vacation and see the word poisson on the menu. Unless you know how to read French, you’ll not know that the symbol (the written word on the menu) is the same as the English symbol fish. Those two words don’t look the same at all, yet they symbolize the same object. If you went by how the word looks alone, you might think that the French word for fish is more like the English word poison and avoid choosing that for your dinner. Putting a picture of a fish on a menu would definitely help a tourist understand what they’re ordering since the picture is an actual representation of the object rather than a symbol for it.

All symbolic communication is learned, negotiated, and dynamic. We know that the letters b-o-o-k refer to a bound object with multiple written pages. We also know that the letters t-r-u-c-k refer to a vehicle with a bed in the back for hauling things. But if we learned in school that the letters t-r-u-c-k referred to a bound object with written pages and b-o-o-k referred to a vehicle with a bed in the back, then that would make just as much sense, because the letters don’t actually refer to the object and the word itself only has the meaning that we assign to it. We will learn more, in Chapter 3 “Verbal Communication”, about how language works, but communication is more than the words we use.

We’re all socialized into different languages, but we also speak different “languages” based on the situation we are in. For example, in some cultures it’s considered inappropriate to talk about family or health issues in public, but it wouldn’t be odd to overhear people in a small-town grocery store in the United States talking about their children or their upcoming surgery. There are some communication patterns shared by very large numbers of people and some that are particular to a dyad—best friends, for example, who have their own inside terminology and expressions that wouldn’t make sense to anyone else. These examples aren’t on the same scale as differing languages, but they still indicate that communication is learned. They also illustrate how rules and norms influence how we communicate.

Earlier we learned about the transaction model of communication and the powerful influence that social context has on our communication. Whether verbal or nonverbal, mediated or interpersonal, our communication is guided by rules and norms.

Phatic communion is an instructive example of how we communicate under the influence of rules and norms. Phatic communionScripted and routine verbal interactions that are intended to establish social bonds rather than actually exchange meaning. refers to scripted and routine verbal interactions that are intended to establish social bonds rather than actually exchange meaning. When you pass your professor in the hall, the exchange may go as follows:

What’s the point of this interaction? It surely isn’t to actually inquire as to each other’s well-being. We have similar phatic interactions when we make comments on the weather or the fact that it’s Monday. We often joke about phatic communion because we sense that it’s pointless, at least on the surface. The student and professor might as well just pass each other in the hall and say the following to each other:

This is an example of communication messages that don’t really require a high level of conscious thought or convey much actual content or generate much meaning. So if phatic communion is so “pointless,” why do we do it?

The term phatic communion derives from the Greek word phatos, which means “spoken,” and the word communion, which means “connection or bond.” As we discussed earlier, communication helps us meet our relational needs. In addition to finding communion through food or religion, we also find communion through our words. But the degree to which and in what circumstances we engage in phatic communion is also influenced by norms and rules. Generally, U.S. Americans find silence in social interactions awkward, which is one sociocultural norm that leads to phatic communion, because we fill the silence with pointless words to meet the social norm. It’s also a norm to greet people when you encounter them, especially if you know them. We all know not to unload our physical and mental burdens on the person who asks, “How are you?” or go through our “to-do” list with the person who asks, “What’s up?” Instead, we conform to social norms through this routine type of verbal exchange.

Phatic communion, like most aspects of communication we’ll learn about, is culturally relative as well. While most cultures engage in phatic communion, the topics of and occasions for phatic communion vary. Scripts for greetings in the United States are common, but scripts for leaving may be more common in another culture. Asking about someone’s well-being may be acceptable phatic communion in one culture, and asking about the health of someone’s family may be more common in another.

Another culturally and situationally relative aspect of communication is the fact that communication has ethical implications. Communication ethicsThe process of negotiating and reflecting on our actions and communication regarding what we believe to be right and wrong. deals with the process of negotiating and reflecting on our actions and communication regarding what we believe to be right and wrong. Aristotle said, “In the arena of human life, the honors and rewards fall to those who show their good qualities in action.” Aristotle focuses on actions, which is an important part of communication ethics. While ethics has been studied as a part of philosophy since the time of Aristotle, only more recently has it become applied. Communication ethics is more concerned with the decisions people make about what is right and wrong than the systems, philosophies, or religions that inform those decisions. Much of ethics is gray area. Although we talk about making decisions in terms of what is right and what is wrong, the choice is rarely that simple. 

When dealing with communication ethics, it’s difficult to state that something is 100 percent ethical or unethical. I tell my students that we all make choices daily that are more ethical or less ethical, and we may confidently make a decision only later to learn that it wasn’t the most ethical option. In such cases, our ethics and goodwill are tested, since in any given situation multiple options may seem appropriate even though we can only choose one. If, in a situation, we make a decision and we reflect on it and realize we could have made a more ethical choice, does that make us bad people? 

Since many of the choices we make when it comes to ethics are situational, contextual, and personal, various professional fields have developed codes of ethics to help guide members through areas that might otherwise be gray or uncertain.