We Must Communicate: The Functional Perspective

We communicate from the moment we’re born. A baby’s cry lets everyone within earshot know that something isn’t right: he’s hungry, cold, or has a painful ear infection. Throughout our lives, we spend a huge amount of time communicating with others to ensure that our needs are met—though in more sophisticated ways than we did as infants. We talk, listen, smile, and nod; we write up résumés and go on dates. In these ways, we learn, express ourselves, form relationships, and gain employment. This functional perspective of communication examines how our communication helps (or doesn’t help) us accomplish our goals in personal, group, organizational, public, or technologically mediated situations.

There are usually multiple goals at play in any given situation. For example, you may want to host Thanksgiving this year to illustrate your adult status in the family, but your older sister may insist on keeping the holiday at her home out of tradition. You and she must try to make Thanksgiving happen (one goal) without alienating each other (another goal). These goals may be accomplished in different ways. You might ask your sister to alternate years hosting the holidays; you might drag your mother into it and ask her to advocate for you with your sister. You might even try to bully your sister into letting you host. (Of course, some of these strategies may be more effective than others!) Lastly, goals may change over time. For instance, you might initially have thought you wanted to host Thanksgiving but then realized your small apartment can’t comfortably fit your large family.

BOX 1.1 COMMUNICATION IS NOT JUST COMMON SENSE

Everyone has ideas about what constitutes good communication. But just how correct are those ideas? Do your personal theories of communication match what social science tells us about the way we communicate? Consider the following questions:

  • Does talking equal effective communication? Have you ever sat through a conversation in which a relative kept repeating the same boring stories and you couldn’t get a word in edgewise? Simply talking isn’t always effective on its own. To communicate effectively, you also need to be thoughtful about what you are saying, remain silent at times, and use listening skills and appropriate nonverbal behaviors.
  • Do body movements (often called “body language”) constitute a language? As you will learn in Chapter 4, nonverbal communication is important and useful, but there is no direct translation for what body movements mean. Because nonverbal communication can be interpreted in many different ways, it is not a true language.
  • Is more control necessarily better in communication? Although we admire people who can articulate their point of view, if we think they are trying to trick us or force us, we resist what they are saying. A candidate’s speech may be beautifully crafted with clever slogans, for example, but he still can’t make you vote for him.
  • Are most communication behaviors inborn and entirely natural? No. Although we are certainly born with some ability to communicate, most of the skills we need to be effective communicators must be learned—otherwise, we’d go through life crying whenever we needed something. The best communicators never stop learning.
  • Is speaking well more important than listening? If you talk and nobody listens, has communication taken place? No—because communication is a two-way street (even when you are just talking to yourself!), and listening is a crucial part of the process.

Many of us believe that we can rely on our own common sense to guide us, even though we think that other people’s common sense fails them miserably (Watts, 2011). Don’t fall for the commonsense “trap.” Realize that communication takes work, adaptation, and careful attention to the situation.

A long line of research conducted in a variety of contexts—including work groups, families, and friendships—has found that this goal-oriented communication serves one or more primary functions, such as expressing affiliation, managing relationships, or influencing others (Wiemann & Krueger, 1980). Let’s consider each of these functions, keeping in mind that they are often intertwined.

AND YOU?

Question

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