It is difficult to imagine human being without communication, which performs a huge number of functions in society. The key is communication and control. Communicative value allows you to make information transfer among groups of individuals. That’s what we’ll talk 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 interconnections, we are able to independently change our vision and influence our partner. The second function is called perceptual. She explains that the relationship between people depends on whether they perceive each other. If yes, then communication is effective.
Before exploring in detail communicative acts, it is worth understanding the difference in terms of communication and communication. Communication is a certain connection with the resulting indicator - data exchange. The communicative act includes the obligatory transfer of information. Also, this term refers to the ability to use symbols, letters and numbers to receive and decode information. It may seem to an unprepared person that the two concepts discussed are synonymous, but this is not so. The word communication has become very widespread recently in connection with a rapid leap in the field of information technology and communication. But since communication is precisely the exchange of data, it creates a kind of restrictive framework that is too narrow for communication. In the scientific context, in this case, we record only the factual aspects of the case, while in-kind communication does not aim at data transfer itself. It is modified and formed in the process of itself.
Communication
Communication is a deeper and more difficult to recognize 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, due 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 look. This means that a person must have his own personal point of view, arguments, thoughts and preferences.
The concept of a communicative act
It is already clear that communication is a movement of information. But communication itself is multifaceted and has several levels. The first is the intersection of the points of view of people who start contact. At the second stage, there is a direct movement of the data and the adoption of their data. The third and final stage allows partners to understand each other's friend and check whether their message is correctly reported. That is, the ultimate goal is to get feedback.
It is very important to understand at any stage the study of this issue, because it depends on how correctly you interpret the goal of the activity in which direction the movement will be set. The main goal of any relationship between people is not so much to receive or send information, but to make sure that there is an answer, reaction. All kinship, friendships and marital relations are built on this principle. It is of little use in areas of strictly limited and highly specialized, but it is widely applicable in all other areas of human life.
Items
Elements of a communicative act are:
- The addressee is the one who sends the request.
- Addressee - the person 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 sent. 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 the means by which an exchange occurs between an addressee and an addressee. They can be text, phone, recording, computer screen.
- The result is an indication of whether the request has been delivered and understood.
All these components are very dough correlate and affect each other. Thus, a misunderstanding of the purpose of communication by at least one of the two interlocutors entails a break in this connection, as mutual understanding will be violated. At the same time, if we do not understand the code or interpret it incorrectly, then what kind of efficient 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 us try to look from another, more complex side. The movement and understanding of information between the addressee and the addressee is asymmetric. This is because for the one who sends the request, the essence of the message itself precedes the statement. Whereas initially a person who sends a message lays a certain meaning on him, and only then encodes it into a certain system of signs. For the addressee, too, the meaning opens simultaneously with encoding. It is from this example that one can clearly see how important the joint activity of communicating people is, because the addressee can put his thoughts into the wrong words.
Understanding accuracy
But even if he expressed his thoughts 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 a mutual desire for understanding, it will not be possible to achieve a result. The accuracy of understanding a communicative speech act becomes understandable when a role change occurs. In other words, the addressee 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 provides 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 interrogate, clarify, retell, quote, etc., of 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 all costs, clarifying and asking our interlocutor hundreds of times. But when we are not interested, we can abandon the whole undertaking 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 addressee needs to clearly understand what exactly and in what form he wants to broadcast, and what response 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 specific communication channel occurs. It can be computer networks, e-mail, etc. At the fourth stage, decoding and reception takes place. The addressee receives signals and decrypts them, in other words, it interprets the received information. Note that the more complete the understanding, the more effective the relationship. At the fifth stage, a response is obtained.
It must be understood that at all of these stages various interference may occur, distorting the original meaning. Feedback provides the ability to respond in order to understand whether a signal has been received and recognized. If the model of the communicative act functions correctly, the relationship reaches its destination.
goal
As we know, the communicative act is phased. 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 message received depends on the extent to which the original message was understood.
Conditions
There are several important conditions. The first says that the addressee should have attention. In other words, if the request was received, but the recipient did not hear it, that is, did not pay any attention, then the importance of the relationship falls. The second condition is the ability to understand. If the addressee received the request and carefully studied it, but did not understand, then it will be more difficult to get to 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 with these three conditions — to heed, understand, and accept — will the final result of communication be realized to the maximum.
Varieties
Consider the types of communicative acts.
In fact:
- Mundane.
- Personal
- Scientific.
- Workers
By type of contact:
By communication:
According to the level of mutual work:
- High.
- Sufficient.
- Minor.
- Low.
By the ultimate goal:
- Negative when the information was completely distorted.
- Useless when individuals could not find a common language.
- Positive when mutual understanding was found.
Theoretical basis
Newcom's Theory of Communicative Acts is a theory developed by Theodore Newcom, a sociologist and psychologist from America. The main idea is that if two individuals positively update each other and form some kind of connection in relation to the third person, then they have a desire to develop similar connections. This idea explains well the principle of the appearance of antipathy and charisma, and shows how cohesion and a sense of the whole in the collective are born. At the moment, Newcom’s idea is actively used in the study of mass media. She did not receive both full acceptance by all researchers, and complete denial. However, in most cases, it is really effective. But there always remains an element of uncertainty, because it is very difficult to assess how people have found a common language, and how they will relate to a third party.
Features of a social communicative act
The main difficulty and specificity is that people do not always want to show their true attitude to the received message. For the fullest possible transmission 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 data transfer is the most convenient, simple and universal means of communication, because when it is used, it is possible to maintain the maximum meaning of the message. But also using speech, you can encode and decode information. Naturally, the interchange is carried out not only at the data level, but also at the level of emotional experiences. Such information is transmitted in exactly the same way, that is, by language 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 pace of speech. As for non-verbal techniques, they perfectly demonstrate the mood and experiences of the individual. This is the position of the body, movements, facial expressions and touches. Thus, among non-verbal means, we can distinguish the following basic systems: optical-kinetic, paralinguistic extra-linguistic, proxemic, visual.
The first of the list is that the body is used to transmit any kind of data. The second and third systems are simply additional tools. Paralinguistic consists of the sound of the vocal cords, tone and range. Extralinguistic ones are tears, laughter, pauses. The proxemic system refers to the spatial factors that E. Hall studied. This is a rather specific industry, which 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 way of intimate communication. Like other non-verbal means, eye contact is another tool for verbal communication.