A communication barrier is any
factor that interferes with the success of the communication process.
Communication is successful only when the receiver understand the message as
intended by the sender. Communication barriers exist between individuals and within
organization.
The loss of meaning, which may
break communication, is often called noise. Noise often hinders the process of
communication is often called noise. Noise often hinders the process of
communication and prevents or alters the reception of the intended message.
Throughout your career, you will
find that perfectly effective messages can fail for a variety of reasons. Your
attempts to transmit and receive messages can be disrupted distorted, even
blocked by communication barriers such as these.
Communication Barriers in Writing Business English
Communication Barriers
- · How Perceptual differences effect Communication Process.
- · Poor Listening as barriers of Business communication.
- · Emotional Interference as barriers of Communication Process
- · Cultural differences and communication barriers
- · Word Choice can also treated as communication barrier.
- · Communication problems in conventions of meaning.
- · Denotative versus connotative as communication barrier
- · Inappropriate implications and inferences
- · Appearance of message and Communication barriers
- · Environmental factors can also affect Communication process
- · Receiver’s capability as a part of Communication barrier
- · Grammar, spelling, Punctuation and sentence structure
- · Information Overload also treated as communication barrier
- · Incorrect filtering and communication barrier.
How Perceptual differences effect communication Process?
Perception is
people’s individual interpretation of the sensory world around them. One
perceptual problem is that people perceive and interpret things differently.
Even when the two people have experienced the same event, their mental images
of that event will not be identical. Because your perceptions are unique, the
ideas you want to express differ from other people’s ideas.
As a business
example of this perceptual problem, imagine everyone in a company receiving a
copy of the annual report. An accountant may concentrate only on one footnote
in the financial statement. A sale person may look at nothing but marketing
charts. A public relations officer may respond only to the quality of brochure
itself. Each reader received the same data, each reader perceived them
differently.
Poor Listening
Poor listening
is a common barrier to successful oral communication. Although most of us think
that we are good listener but in reality we are poor listeners. We all let our
minds wander now and then. We gradually start to sleep when information is
difficult to understand and when it has little direct bearing on our own lives.
The various
distractions that hinder listening may be emotional disturbances, in difference
aggressiveness, and wandering attention. Sometimes, the receivers are so
engrossed in their own thoughts and worries that they are unable to concentrate
on listening.
Senders can use
several methods to overcome listening the extent of their comprehension. One of
the effective ways to remove poor listening as a barrier to communication is to
improve the quality of the message and the way in which it conveyed.
Emotional interference
Excessive
emotional involvement may be obstacle in communication. You cannot communicate
effectively when you are upset, hostile or fearful. Your emotions often get in
the way of being objective. For Example, you might be emotionally blocked if
you are announcing new policy you know will be unpopular, given the major
presentation on your job. The people with whom you are communication are also
subject to emotional block. They may feel indifferent or hostile toward you or
your subject, or be biased against you.
Likewise,
prejudice, serotyping and boredom all hinder effective communication.
Cultural differences.
Communication
someone from another country is probably the most extreme example of how
different backgrounds and cultures may impede communication. Infect, it may be
one of the hardest communication barriers to overcome, especially when your
receiver’s age, education social status, religion, power, nationality, culture
and life experiences differs substantially from yours.
Word Choice
Choosing words
that are too difficult or too technical can be a communication barrier. If
words are too difficult or too technical, the receiver may not understand them.
As you will recall analyzing the receiver will lead to determining the
vocabulary level of the message. Therefore, senders must be careful to choose
the correct words for their messages.
Word choice is
also a consideration when communication with receivers from whom English is not
the primary language. These receivers may not be familiar with colloquial
English - the casual or informal way in which language may be used.
Communication problems in conventions of meaning
Miscommunication
occurs because he same word has different meanings. On the contrary, different
words have the same meanings. Many English and foreign words have several dictionary
definitions. In one abridged dictionary, the word run has 71 meanings as a verb
another 35 as a noun, and four more as an adjective. Similarly the word
bimonthly means both “twice a month” the word tenement means “a large building
divided into flats/apartments’ but in the law it means only a holding of land”
the more a word is prone to multiple meaning the greater are the chance of its
being misunderstood.
Denotative versus connotative meaning.
A receiver and
sender may attach different meanings to the words used in a message. The
denotative meaning is the literal or dictionary meaning. The connotative
meaning includes associations and feeling evoked the word. The connotative
meaning can also be the result of slang or sarcasm.
Sender should
analyze their receivers as thoroughly as possible. In addition, senders should
be careful to avoid words with negative connotations.
Consider dirt,
a word that has many connotation. A disapproving parent remarks, just look at
you; you are covered in dirt. An investigative report tells the editor, “ I
have uncovered some interesting dirt on the official” The term house is a
denotative. Mansion, villa, home, cottage, and shake – though they all denote a
place of residence also have connotative meanings. The word student is
denotative; bookworm and dropout and connotative.
To communicate
effectively you must have aware of the connotative meaning of your words,
choose words that have fewer connotations ( to reduce the chance of
misinterpretations) and no negative connotations ( to reduce the chance of
offending your audience)
Inappropriate implications and inferences.
An implication
is a meaning given through connotation rather than through specific details. An
inference is a conclusion drawn from connotation rather than from specific
details. A person who implies something can cause a receiver to infer a meaning
different from what was intended.
Implications
may be made and inferences may be drawn from actions as well as words. For
examples suppose two employees laugh as their supervisor passes. The supervisor
may infer that the employees are making fun of him or her. The worker, however
may have wanted to signal that their morale is high, or more likely, to signal
nothing at all.
When presenting
any inference in the course of your work, you could use qualifiers such as “
evidence suggests” or in my opinion” to remind yourself and the receiver that
this is not established as fact. Furthermore, implying rather than directly
stating bad news can soften its impact on the receiver. Always get the facts
before taking action.
Appearance of the message.
The appearance
of a message affects its readability and influences a receiver’s acceptance of
its content. Smudges, sloppy corrections, light print, wrinkled paper, poor
handwriting may distort the reader and become barriers to effective
communication. Sender should examine every document before it is sent to ensure
that is appearance does not interfere with its potential for success.
Environmental factors.
The environment
in which communication occurs can interfere with the success of a message. One
such example of distracting factor is a noisy machine in an area where a
supervisor is trying to speak with an employee. Other examples of environmental
factors that serve as barriers to effective communication include poor
acoustics, disturbance in telephone lines, distance and uncomfortable meeting
rooms.
Receiver’s capability.
If the receiver
has a physical or mental disability that causes a communication barrier the
sender should recognize this in choosing message type and channel. The receiver
may have a hearing impairment or a learning disability. The sender can remove
or compensate for such barriers in the communication process by carefully
selecting the form of the message and by providing for appropriate feedback
mechanism. When a visual impairment threatens the success of a written message,
the print can be enlarged or the message can be given orally.
Grammar, spelling, Punctuation and sentence structure.
Incorrect
grammar and poor sentence structure could hinder the reader’s understanding of
a spoken or written message. Punctuation or spelling error may create barrier
to understand written message and may cause the sender to lose credibility. The
errors suggest that the person who sent the message either does not know the
basic of language or was too careless to correct the problems.
Information overload.
Too many
messages can result in information overload which makes it difficult to
discriminate between useful and useless information. It is difficult for
today’s executives to cope with the daily glut of faxes, memos, reports,
e-mails and other messages they receive. They will ignore the ones they deem
unimportant, delay responding to them or answer them incompletely or
inaccurately.
Incorrect Filtering.
Filtering is
the process of screaming out or abbreviating information before it is passed on
to someone. In business the filters between you and your receivers are many: secretaries,
assistants, answering machines, and voice males. Worse yet, information theory
tells us that every relay doubles the noise and cuts the message in half.
That means your
message may be distilled and probably distorted before it is passed on to intended
receiver.
Key word
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