We often ignore the process of communication and focus only on the meaning of some of the words being carried.
The process of communication can be simplified thus:
- the speaker formulates his thoughts to himself
- the speaker finds words to describe and encode his thoughts with
- the speaker transfers the words to the listener through air by speaking
- the listener recognizes and decodes the words
- the listener assigns meanings to the words based on past experience
Simple, isn't it? It is important to understand the process of communication, because communication can become distorted and erroneous at any of those steps.
If the process of communication is repeated many times, the probability of errors is reduced - the speaker and the listener can achieve an accord of mutual understanding.
Remember that communication is never complete or infallible, but can only be reliable to a satisfactory degree.
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