Concept of communication. Communication functions. Role, tasks, essence of communication

Communication in the broadest sense of the word is communication, communication of information from one person to another. The same concept is considered in the organizational context as a process (communication is the communication of people: the exchange of thoughts, ideas, information, feelings, intentions) and the object (it is a collection of technical means that ensure the transfer of information).

Communication functions are information-communicative, emotionally-communicative and regulatory-communicative. However, researchers define them in different ways. After reading this article, you will learn what the essence, tasks and role of communication are. Also we will talk about the functions of this process.

The communication process and its role

A communication process is an exchange of information between two or more individuals. Its purpose is to ensure the understanding and transmission of information that is the subject of exchange.

We transmit and receive information in order to:

• Inform other people about something (for example, press release or teletext);
• Warn others (scream or traffic signs);
• Explain something (textbook);
• Entertain (feature film or anecdote);
• Convince someone (calling for anything a poster);
• Describe something (oral story or documentary).

This is the purpose of communication. Within the framework of one process, more often than not, there are several of them. For example, a film can both inform and entertain, and warn, and describe, and explain.

Meeting human needs in the communication process

The main reason why we all need communication is the social needs of the individual or group. A person enters into a process of communication in order to meet his immediate needs. Consequently, the above purposes of communication serve to satisfy basic human needs. Among them are the following:

• survival;
• Personal needs;
• Cooperation with others;
• Maintaining relations;
• Persuading someone to think or act in a certain way;
• The unification of organizations and societies into a single whole;
• The exercise of power over people (in particular, propaganda);
• Manifestation of imagination and creative nature;
• Awareness of the world around us and of our experience in it (what we think about ourselves, what we believe, how we treat others, what is true).

Groups of human needs

Human needs are divided into the following groups:

• Social;
• Personal;
• Economic;
• Creative.

In order to understand and interpret the theory of communication, which is a scientific knowledge of the various laws of interaction, we are primarily interested in the social and personal needs of the individual.

Components of communication

If mutual understanding is not achieved, it can be said that communication has not taken place. It follows that both sides play an active role in this process. The communication process is the interaction of the totality of a number of components. Let's briefly review the main ones.

Communicator

A communicator, or sender, is a person who generates an idea, or collects information and then transfers it. The sender is not just a source of information. It also acts as an encoder for the messages that it transmits, and the decoder of the information it received through the feedback channels. In addition, the communicator is the person responsible for forming the target audience and creating or selecting a key message.

Encoder

Coding device, or encoding is a kind of information transformation by the communicator. There is a written and verbal coding.

Oral is that the transfer of information is carried out through verbal or non-verbal methods (a much greater importance is often acquired by tone, facial expressions, gestures, rather than ordinary words). As an example of oral coding, a translation of the message for deaf people can be cited. In this case, ordinary words are coded with special signs that are transmitted to the addressee in a non-verbal way.

Written encoding is of the following types:

• Electronic, when the letters are transformed into symbols (0 and 1);
• Special, when the letters are converted into sounds (for example, Morse code).

Channel and decoder

It is necessary to consider such a notion as a channel. This means of information transfer (meetings, written transfer, oral transmission, telephone talks, reports, memos, computer networks, e-mail, etc.).

A decoding device (decoding) is a type of message conversion by the recipient. These are the same tools and methods that are used for encoding, only in this case they are used in the opposite direction.

Barriers and interferences

Transmission of information can interfere with barriers and interference. There are the following types: age, social, terminological, racial, linguistic, economic, political, the ability of the addressee to perceive information, noise, stereotypes, technical failures, etc.

Addressee, the result of communication, feedback

The destination (receiver) is the person to whom the message is intended, which interprets it. The result of communication is the receipt and interpretation of this message. And, finally, feedback is the recipient's response to the message.

Communication Functions

Since the time of Aristotle, thinkers have noted that the process of communication can manifest itself in different ways. From the internal and external environmental conditions, the declared and true goals of the parties, the number of participants, strategies and means of execution, etc., depends on its essence. The functions of communication should be determined, taking into account the influence of numerous factors on it. In a real message transfer process, even in one communicative act, several functions are sometimes combined. In this case, one or two of them are decisive, basic. You can also talk about the functions of this communication as a whole, that is, about its role in the life and work of society and man.

As a rule, communication functions are allocated only for the purposes of scientific and applied research or research analysis. For example, this is necessary for consulting activities. The model of interaction can be constructed by determining which of the functions is the main one and which ones are secondary.

Communication Models

To date, a lot of communication models have accumulated in the educational and special literature . Most of them are described by researchers in the 20th century. However, Aristotle proposed the first model known to us. Based on it, you can define the tasks, the functions of communication and its meaning. In his works "Rhetoric" and "Poetics" the thinker presented the following model: "speaker-speech-listener". He pointed out that this classical model is universal, since it fully reflects the act of communication in both written and oral forms.

Nevertheless, in the first half of the 20th century, when media such as cinema, radio, television, and the classical model began to develop, it was somewhat modified. In the 21st century, in connection with the development of computer technology, economic integration and political globalization, this model requires an even deeper interpretation. Again, researchers are faced with the task of determining the basic functions of mass communication.

The Jacobson model

According to R.O. Jakobson, in the functional model of a speech event or communication, the addressee and the addressee take part. The message is sent from the first to the second. This message is written using the code. In the Jacobson model, the context is related to the content of the message with the information it conveys. The concept of contact refers to the regulatory aspect of communication.

Communication functions for Jacobson

According to the Jacobson model, the following six functions can be distinguished:

• Expressive (emotive), associated with the addressee, expressing his attitude to the content of his speech;
• Conative, reflecting the orientation of the addressee, expressing the impact on the interlocutor;
• Referential (cognitive, denotative), focused on the context and being a reference to the semantic object that is presented in the message;
• Poetic (rhetorical), directed mainly at communication, making the everyday speech of man a model of verbal art;
• Metalanguage, which is associated with the code of the transmitted message, its understanding of the interlocutor, the correct interpretation;
• Fatichesky, which is directed to contact, for the continuous maintenance of this contact, and not for the novelty of the message or for its transmission.

The transmission of information affects the actions and actions of a person, his behavior, the state of his inner world and his organization. This is also indicated by some functions of communication. Specificity of the process we are interested in is that with its help the psychic worlds of people interact with each other.

But are people only able to enter this process? As we noted above, in a few senses one can consider the concept of communication. Its functions, described above, are inherent in human communication. However, this does not mean that communication can only take place in the world of people. We suggest you get acquainted with its diversity.

Variety of communication

So, this process is marked not only in human society. Communication is also characteristic for animals (the language of bees, wood grouse, marital dances of birds) and for mechanisms, that is, objects created by man (sewerage, pipelines, telephone and telegraph signals, transport). Communication of a special kind can be observed even in inanimate nature. For example, it is carried out between some plants.

In particular, the African acacia, throwing out special enzymatic compounds in the surrounding space, tells other acacias about the invasion of the giraffe, which eats tree shoots. The leaves of trees that receive this information quickly acquire qualities, from the animal's point of view, characteristic of inedible food. The above described process is characterized by the basic functions of communication and its features. This means that it can be characterized by the term of interest to us.

The very concept, role, functions of communication, we briefly described. The material presented above reveals the main aspects of this topic.