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1: Introduction to Communication

  • Page ID
    297823
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    Learning Objectives
    • How does the communication process work?
    • What does it take to be a competent communicator? And why is it important in our lives?

    Successful students will be able to:

    • Define communication
    • Recognize components of the interpersonal communication process
    • Recognize how context can affect shared meaning
    • Explain seven principles of interpersonal communication
    • Explain three interrelated types of interpersonal competence
    • Identify three ways to grow interpersonal competence

    About 70% of our days are spent communicating (Alberts, Martin, & Nakayama, 2016), either face-to-face or through mediated platforms, such as email or text message. Yet, we often overestimate how well others understand us and how well we understand others. The purpose of this text is to provide knowledge and skills to help minimize miscommunication in interactions and increase communication competence. Even though we have been communicating our entire life, there are always ways to improve and techniques we can learn to be more effective and accomplish our goals, in both personal and professional contexts. In this chapter, we will begin our journey into communication by becoming familiar with the communication process, addressing contextual considerations, exploring the principles of communication, and discussing communication competence.

    • 1.1: Introduction to Interpersonal Communication
      Communication is fundamental to our lives but much of the time it remains unconscious and unexamined. We communicate because we must. But just because we communicate doesn’t mean we do it effectively. In this first chapter we will define interpersonal communication, examine why communication is so fundamental to our existence, lay out the various models of communication, explore fundamental communication principles, and finally talk about what constitutes ethical communication.
    • 1.2: Communication Principles
      As we develop our understanding of not only communication as a whole, but more specifically interpersonal communication, there are some basic principles of communication that will lay the groundwork for our exploration in the chapters ahead. In this section we will discuss how communication is learned and then we will focus on the continuous, unrepeatable, irreversible, nature of communication.
    • 1.3: Models of Communication
      Communication is not linear, we are simultaneously sending and receiving, encoding and decoding, managing several channels, across contexts, all while we try and block out noise. There are many models of communication and there are many components within these models that will be discussed in detail throughout this chapter.
    • 1.4: Interpersonal Communication Fulfills Our Needs
      Studying communication is important for several different reasons. Improving communication will help us better understand the role that communication serves in our lives. In this section we will talk specifically about physical, instrumental, social, and identity needs.
    • 1.5: Communication Competence

    Contributors and Attributions

    • Interpersonal Communication Abridged Textbook (I.C.A.T.); Central New Mexico Community College; 2019; CC BY NC SA 4.0 except where noted
    • Section 1.3.1: adapted from Communication in the Real World: An Introduction to Communication Studies; University of Minnesota; 2016; CC BY NC SA 4.0

    This page titled 1: Introduction to Communication is shared under a CC BY-SA 3.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Pamela J. Gerber & Heidi Murphy (https://www.cnm.edu/) via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform.