5.2 Introduction

Have you ever thought about what your life would be like without the ability to share your thoughts and feelings with close friends, exchange texts, argue about what you want to have for dinner, discuss your project with colleagues or ask for a pay rise? And have you ever thought of what is involved in order that we might be able to understand each other?

A lot of our communication occurs, in fact, below the level of our consciousness. It “just happens”. However, it is only when we realise that for some reason, we simply cannot understand each other, or when we unwillingly hurt someone’s feelings, for example, that we start to become conscious and ask ourselves what went wrong. In the light of this phenomenon, the aim of this session is to further our awareness of the communication process and enhance our understanding of those elements that influence the mutual construction of meaning such as context, noise and choice of media. In order to clarify our understanding, we will introduce the transactional model of communication, which we will use to analyse the impact of different elements on the communication process and their respective outcomes.

In addition, this session will provide a backdrop for a more detailed discussion of the connection between culture and communication as part of the 6th session.