Human existence is hard to imagine without communication, which performs a huge number of functions in society. The key ones are communication and control. Communicative meaning allows information transmission among groups of individuals. That's what we're talking about today.
What is this and why?
Communicative acts should be studied in the context of communication. It performs many functions, but there are two main ones. The first is regulatory, the essence of which is that in the process of relationships we are able to independently change our vision and influence our partner. The second function is called perceptual. She explains that the connection between people depends on whether they perceive each other. If yes, then communication is effective.
Before examining communicative acts in detail, it is worth understanding the difference between the terms communication and communication. Communication is a kind of connection with the resulting indicator - data exchange. The communicative act includes the mandatory transfer of information. Also under this termrefers to the ability to use symbols, letters and numbers to receive and decode information. To an unprepared person it may seem that the two concepts under discussion are synonymous, but this is not so. The word communication has become very widespread in recent years due to the rapid leap in the field of information technology and communications. But since communication is precisely the exchange of data, it creates some kind of restrictive framework that is too narrow for communication. In the scientific context, in this case, we fix only the actual aspects of the case, while natural communication does not aim at the transmission of data itself. It is modified and formed in the process of itself.
Communication
Communication is a deeper and more elusive phenomenon. It does not mean a dry movement of data from point A to point B, but implies the attention of partners to each other, their interest. In other words, in communication, we take into account not only our desires and goals, but also the priorities of our partner, thanks to which the conversation has many functions. Interestingly, Immanuel Kant believed that in the process of communication, people publicly use their minds. Also interesting is the idea that in order to accomplish the fact of communication, there must be a subjective view. This means that a person must have their own personal point of view, arguments, thoughts and preferences.
The concept of a communicative act
It is already clear that communications are the movement of information. But communication itself is multifaceted and has several levels. On the first one, there is an intersection of the points of view of people starting contact. On thethe second stage is the direct movement of data and the acceptance of the received data. The third and final stage allows the partners to understand each other and check whether their message is conveyed correctly. So the end goal is to get feedback.
This is very important to understand at any stage of the study of this issue, because how correctly you interpret the purpose of the activity depends on the direction in which the movement will be set. The main purpose of any relationship between people is not so much to receive or send information as to make sure there is a response, a reaction. All family, friendship and marital relations are built on this principle. It is of little use in strictly limited and highly specialized areas, but it is widely applicable in all other areas of human life.
Elements
The elements of a communicative act are:
- Addresser - the one who sends the request.
- Address - the one to whom the request is sent. In different institutions, the addressees are individual employees of the organization with their specific subjective sets.
- The message is the content of the communicative act, that is, the main message.
- Code is the shell in which the request is passed. It consists of verbal means, movements, gestures, mathematical signs, etc.
- The goal is the end result for which the request is sent.
- A communication channel is something through which an exchange takes place between the addressee and the addressee. They can acttext, phone, recording, computer screen.
- The result is a measure of whether the request was delivered and understood.
All these components are very closely correlated and influence each other. So, failure to understand the purpose of communication by at least one of the two interlocutors entails a break in this connection, since mutual understanding will be violated. At the same time, if we do not understand the code or interpret it incorrectly, then what kind of effective data exchange can we talk about? Such a situation, in its absurdity and inefficiency, will resemble the attempts of a deaf person to understand the speaker.
Scheme
Having examined the components of a communicative act, let's try to look from a different, more complex side. The movement and understanding of information between the addressee and the addresser is asymmetric. This is because, for the sender of the request, the essence of the message itself precedes the utterance. Whereas initially the person who sends the message lays down a certain meaning for it, and only then encodes it into a certain system of signs. For the addresser, too, the meaning is revealed simultaneously with coding. It is from this example that it is clearly seen how important the joint activity of communicating people is, because the addresser can clothe his thoughts in the wrong words.
Accuracy of understanding
But even if he expressed his thought as clearly as possible, it is not a fact that the recipient of the message will understand him correctly. In other words, without interaction and mutual desire for understanding, it will not be possible to achieve a result. The accuracy of understanding the communicativespeech act becomes clear when there is a change of roles. In other words, the addresser must become the addressee, and in his own words tell how he understood the essence of the message. Here we all resort to the help of dialogue, which does us a great service. It allows you to instantly change roles in a conversation in order to understand the essence of the request as accurately as possible. We can ask, clarify, retell, quote, etc. our interlocutor until we finally understand him.
All this allows us to show our interest. So, when we really need or we really want something, we will achieve this at any cost, clarifying and asking our interlocutor hundreds of times. But when we are not interested, we can abandon the whole idea after the first unsuccessful attempt.
Structure
The structure of the communicative act includes five steps. The first stage is the starting point of the relationship, when the addresser needs to clearly understand what exactly and in what form he wants to broadcast, and what answer and reaction he wants to get. The second stage is data encoding and translation into certain characters. At the third stage, the selection and movement of the request through a certain communication channel takes place. These can be computer networks, e-mail, etc. At the fourth stage, decoding and reception takes place. The recipient receives the signals and decodes them, in other words, he interprets the received information. Note that the more complete the mutual understanding, the more effective the relationship. At the fifth stagea response is received.
It should be understood that at all of the above stages there may be various interferences that distort the original meaning. Feedback provides a reaction opportunity to understand if a signal has been received and recognized. If the model of the communicative act functions correctly, the relationship reaches its destination.
Target
As we know, the communicative act is staged. When passing them all, you need to focus on the final destination. It may lie in the transmission of new information or impact. In real life, the ultimate goal is most often a combination of several goals. The effectiveness of the received message depends precisely on the extent to which the original message was understood.
Conditions
There are several important conditions. The first says that the addressee must have attention. In other words, if the request was received, but the addressee did not hear it, that is, did not pay any attention, then the importance of the relationship drops. The second condition is the ability to understand. If the addressee received the request and carefully studied it, but did not understand it, then it will be more difficult to reach the final goal. The last condition is the willingness to accept the request. That is, even if the request is received carefully and correctly understood, but the person does not want to accept it, considering it incorrect, distorted or incomplete, then the effectiveness of the relationship will be zero. Only in the presence of these three conditions - to listen, understand and accept - the end result of communicationwill be implemented as much as possible.
Varieties
Let's consider the types of communicative acts.
Basically:
- Ordinary.
- Private.
- Scientific.
- Workers.
By contact type:
- Straight.
- Indirect.
Contact:
- Single-sided.
- Double-sided.
By the level of mutual work:
- High.
- Sufficient.
- Insignificant.
- Low.
By final destination:
- Negative when the information has been completely distorted.
- Useless when individuals couldn't get along.
- Positive when understanding has been found.
Theoretical background
Newcomb's Theory of Communicative Acts is a theory developed by American sociologist and psychologist Theodore Newcomb. The main idea is that if two individuals positively actualize each other and form some connections in relation to a third person, then they have a desire to develop similar connections. This thought well explains the principle of the emergence of antipathy and charisma, and shows how cohesion and a sense of the whole in a team are born. At the moment, Newcomb's idea is actively used in the study of mass media. It did not receive both complete acceptance by all researchers, and complete denial. However, in most cases it is really effective. But there is always an element of uncertainty, because it is very difficultevaluate how people have found a common language, and how they will relate to a third party.
Features of the social communicative act
The main difficulty and specificity lies in the fact that people do not always want to show their true attitude to the received message. For the most complete transfer of information, one should resort to simple and understandable means of communication, that is, sign systems. There are a number of them, but they distinguish between verbal and non-verbal communication. The first uses speech, while the second requires non-speech manipulations.
Verbal transmission of data is the most convenient, simple and universal means of communication, because when using it, it is possible to preserve the maximum meaning of the message. But also with the use of speech, information can be encoded and decoded. Naturally, the interchange is carried out not only at the level of data, but also at the level of emotional experiences. Such information is transmitted in exactly the same way, that is, by linguistic non-verbal means.
Additional tools
But special attention is paid to non-verbal means. The quality of the received request varies depending on the intonation, timbre, features and rate of speech. As for non-verbal techniques, they perfectly demonstrate the mood and feelings of the individual. This is the position of the body, movements, facial features and touch. Thus, among non-verbal means, we can distinguish the following main systems: opto-kinetic, paralinguistic extralinguistic, proxemic,visual.
The first of the list is that the body is used to transfer any kind of data. The second and third systems are just additional tools. Paralinguistic consists of the sound of the vocal cords, tone and range. Extralinguistic are tears, laughter, pauses. The proxemic system refers to the spatial factors studied by E. Hall. This is a rather specific industry that evaluates the quality of an act based on spatial indicators. For example, proxemics considers situations when there is a situation of sharp frankness to a stranger. The visual system consists in eye contact, which is one of the ways of intimate communication. Like other non-verbal means, eye contact is another tool for verbal communication.
