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Communication: Patterns and Incidents
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According to its title this book is about communication. The title
will appear appropriate or inappropriate, I suppose, to the extent that
the reader's visualization of "communication" coincides with the
author's. Perhaps it would be helpful to indicate what this book is not
about. It does not, for example, deal with much of the subject matter
usually developed in texts of public, conversational, conference, and
business and professional speaking. It does not serve the purposes of
texts of composition or of business writing, reports, and letters. Nor
is it a book on reading or listening. These vital aspects, phases, and
media of communication are treated skillfully and thoroughly in
many fine works. Some of them are listed in the bibliography at the
end of this book.
The book is concerned with equally vital phases of communication
which have not been treated so comprehensively and are, perhaps, not
so well understood and appreciated. It focuses on what it is that happens
inside a communicator before and as he talks, writes, etc., and as
and after he listens, reads, etc. Some might call these processes "thinking"
and dissociate them from the communication experience.
Others, including this writer, have felt no need to make such a distinction
and, indeed, question the wisdom of drawing an arbitrary
line between "thinking" and "communicating." It seems to this writer
that perceiving, evaluating, visualizing, and interpreting are as involved
in the communication process as are phonation, articulation,
spelling, grammar, etc.
Rationale
The book's rationale is that communication is a serial process involving
the phases of encoding, sending, medium, receiving, and decoding.
Each step, like a link in a chain, is crucial. Because they are
by far the least understood, this book focuses on the encoding and decoding
phases.
Each chapter deals with one or more "patterns of miscommunication"
which arise in the encoding and/or decoding phases. The miscommunications
stem largely from various fallacious assumptions
unconsciously held by the communicators—be they speakers or
writers, listeners or readers. The usual chapter format includes a definition of the miscommunication pattern, the range and types of
its consequences, some of its probable causes, and finally, the suggestion
of techniques for correcting the miscommunication and for preventing
its recurrence.
If the book's purpose were only to provide the reader with a body
of information and theory about communication it would seem sufficient
to restrict it to the textual material. The fond hope, however, is
that readers will be able to use the book to move beyond the level of
acquaintance with content to the improvement of their own communication
processes. And this is where the function of the "incidents"
begins.
William V. Haney - Personal Name
60-11751
NONE
Communication
English
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