business;General Kinds of Communication

business;General Kinds of Communication

We have referred to communication carried out without the use of words. All these forms of communication carried out without the use of words are called non-articulate or non-verbal communication. On the
other hand, communication made by the use of words is called articulate communication. Human beings do make use of non-articulate communication, but, of all creation, they exclusively use articulate communication (i.e., communication conducted by the use of words). Indeed, as already stated, articulate communication is a preserve of the human species of creation, and it is believed that it is on account of man’s possession of articulate communication that man acquires culture – that complex of man’s social (i.e., group, gregarious and interactional) life which dictates man’s mode of manifesting every aspect of his life and differentiates one society from another. Articulate communication is, of course, vastly more powerful and effective than non-articulate communication. We also use the expression, mode of articulate communication, to refer to the two modes of oral and written use of words in communication

Common Forms of Practical Communication
The functions and activities demanding employment of practical communication in workplaces and other places (leave alone the other spheres and arenas of daily life) are literally innumerable, but the few confronting the business employee with the greatest challenges can be identified as follows:

The Oral Mode
In the oral mode, these are:
(i) routine workplace communication among workers;
(ii) communication at meetings, including briefing sessions, joint consultations between management and the workforce, the grapevine (or popular rumour) and so on;
(iii) telephone conversations and radio and TV broadcasts; (
iv) instructional communication at lectures, demonstrations and group discussions of various kinds; (v) interactions at interviews of various kinds, and (
vi) presentation of proposals for supply of commodities and offer of services

The Written Mode
In the written mode, there are:-
(i) reports of both the executive and minutes-writing types;
(ii) letters, cables, telegrams, the fax, the telex, e-mail, etc.;
(iii) memoranda and communiqués;
(iv) research and investigation (enquiry) reports, and
 (v) books and articles in newspapers, magazines and journals. The definition of communication given above applies to all these forms of communication. Special treatment of those among these forms of communication considered to be most relevant to the workplace constitutes the subject of this course

Purposes or Functions of Communication
1. Communication makes co-operative and collective action among people possible. The Biblical story of the Tower of Babel confirms the indispensability of words for knitting people together in co-operative action. 2.
Communication provides the vehicle and means for motivating and directing people in an enterprise or undertaking.
3. Communication helps to mould attitudes and to impart beliefs for the purpose of convincing and persuading people and influencing their behaviour.
4. Communication is the means by which people can be introduced and orientated to their environment. It is hardly possible to isolate all the ways in which communication is useful to human beings. It is obvious that, without it, human group life (such as in business) cannot go on and that all the concerns, interests and enterprises of man’s existence cannot be carried out. Therefore, no effort at perfecting human communication (for our purpose in this course, at the business place) can be seen as a waste of time, energy or resources.