Characteristics of Communication

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Communication has six defining characteristics: the extent to which the message is symbolic, the extent to which the code is shared, the degree to which the message is culturally bound, the sender’s perceived intentionality, the presence of a channel, and the degree to which the encoding and decoding of messages are transactional. That’s quite a mouthful, so let’s look at each characteristic more closely.

Communication Is Symbolic. Communication relies on the use of symbols—arbitrary constructions (usually language or behaviors) that refer to objects: people, things, and ideas. The stronger the connection between symbol and object, the clearer the intended meaning, and vice versa. For example, in the scenario presented earlier, our customer greeted the street vendor with a smile and a nod—behaviors clearly indicating the idea of “greeting.”

A symbol can take on a new meaning if at least two people agree that it will have that meaning for them. A romantic couple, for example, might use the phrase “I’m sleepy” to indicate interest in lovemaking. Social groups, such as fraternities and sororities or sports teams, might use a handshake, a password, or an article of clothing to set themselves apart from others. We cover verbal and nonverbal symbols more deeply in Chapter 4 and Chapter 5.

Communication Requires a Shared Code. A code is a set of symbols that are joined to create a meaningful message. For communication to take place, the participants must share the code to encode and decode messages. Encoding is the process of mentally constructing a message. Decoding is the process of interpreting and assigning meaning to a message. If the relational partners are using the same code, they are more likely to encode and decode messages accurately and arrive at the shared meaning they want to communicate.

Speaking a common language is the most obvious example of sharing a communication code, though it is certainly not the only one. Baseball teams, for example, develop elaborate codes for various pitches and plays, which players communicate through hand gestures and body movements (for example, by removing a baseball cap, holding up three fingers, and shaking them twice). Similarly, consider the emoticons and texting and chat-room shorthand we use when communicating online—especially when we’re in a hurry.

Communication Is Linked to Culture. If you’ve ever traveled abroad, or even through the different neighborhoods of a large city, you know that communication is linked to culture. Culture refers to the shared beliefs, values, and practices of a group of people. A group’s culture includes the language (or languages) and other symbols used by group members as well as the norms and rules about appropriate behavior.

Most people are members of several co-cultures simultaneously. Co-cultures are smaller groups of people within a larger culture who are distinguished by features such as race, religion, age, generation, political affiliation, gender, sexual orientation, economic status, educational level, occupation, and a host of other factors.

Consider Anna, who identifies with a number of co-cultures: she is an American, an African American, a midwesterner, a married lawyer with two children, a person with an income over $100,000 a year, a Democrat, and a Baptist. Each of these co-cultures carries different meanings for Anna and affects her communication—including the languages she speaks, how she presents herself to others, and how she interprets others’ behavior (Chen & Starosta, 1996). Cultural identities can even form around interests and hobbies. For example, a music critic at Blender magazine might distinguish among rock, soul, and hip-hop and might even break those styles down further, using terms like old-school, freestyle, classic, punk, techno, and R & B. For someone less involved or less interested in the music scene, such distinctions might seem unimportant—it’s all just popular music.

Communication Can Be Unintentional. Some communication is intentional, such as IM-ing a friend to let her know you’ll be away from your computer and using a mutually understood code (BRB!). Other communication is spontaneous and therefore unintentional (Buck, 1988; Motley, 1990). For example, you communicate a message when you blush, even though blushing is an involuntary action. The distinction between the two types of communication can be described as the difference between giving information and giving off information (Goffman, 1967).

The most successful communicators are sensitive to the fact that both intended and unintended messages exert an impact on the people around them.

These distinctions are important: we tend to see involuntary messages as more honest and reliable because the person giving off the information doesn’t have the opportunity to censor it. However, most spontaneous messages are ambiguous: Are you blushing because you’re embarrassed? Because you’re angry? Because you’ve had a hot cup of tea? Because you just ran up six flights of stairs? To interpret information that someone else gives off, we generally attend to other surrounding cues, but even then, our final assessment can be questionable. The most successful communicators are sensitive to the fact that both intended and unintended messages exert an impact on the people around them.

Communication Occurs Through Various Channels. Once, the only means of communication—the only channel—was face-to-face contact. But as society became more sophisticated, other channels emerged. Smoke signals, handwritten correspondence, telegraph, telephone, e-mail, and text messaging are all examples. A channel is simply the method through which communication occurs. We must have a channel to communicate.

Most people in technologically advanced societies use many channels to communicate, though they are not always proficient at adapting communication for the channel being used. Do you have a friend who leaves five-minute voice-mail messages on your cell phone as though speaking directly with you? Or do you have a cousin who shares deeply private information with all six hundred of her Facebook “friends”? We all need to identify the channel that will work best for certain messages, at certain points in our relationships with certain people, and then adapt our messages to that medium.

Communication Is Transactional. You may recall the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards for one reason: rapper Kanye West jumped on stage during Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech for best female music video to declare that Beyoncé had been robbed of that award. West later expressed regrets about his behavior and offered apologies on talk shows like The View and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Yet no amount of apologizing could change what West had done, how Swift had reacted, or how audiences worldwide perceived the incident. That’s because communication is a transactional process: it involves two or more people acting in both sender and receiver roles, and their messages are interdependent—influenced by those of their partner. Once a message has been sent (intentionally or not) and received, it cannot be reversed, nor can it be repeated in precisely the same way. This ongoing process can be immediate (as in a real-time conversation) or delayed (as in the case of a text-message exchange).

As we illustrate throughout this book, whenever you communicate with others, you try to influence them in some way. Equally important, you are influenced by others. Who has the most influence, however, depends on the communication situation. For example, in close friendships or romantic relationships, each party tends to exert influence equally. But during a formal presentation, the speaker is usually seen as attempting to influence the audience.