What Is Communication?

Communication is the process by which people would share ideas or create understanding by verbally conversing, using gestures or writing content to one another. We would consider the semantics of communication before actually talking about what conversations are. The backbone of communication is the language. Language is the accumulation of shared meaning. It promotes cohesion and understanding. When we can communicate, we create meaningful conversations. From so doing, people can think together and plan together. The overall result of such joint activity is co-creation.

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Basics of Communication

The language of communication is a system of governed symbols that would allow people generate the meaning in the process and thus be able to define reality from the meanings produced. The languages we use are stored in the brain. We recognize the ability to use these words through making speeches. These addresses are external and mostly, the physical aspects of communication. The development of language is very linear. When one is born, he may not be able to recognize the knowledge of conversing. As growth takes place, one listens to the people around them. He comes to terms with understanding the rules of language that he gets people using around him. As a result, he can speak and communicate with others. At the point when one learns how to speak or to just create and understand special kinds of sentences, he teaches the basics of the language and not any particular set of word combinations. However, he will be able to learn the rules that would enable him to generate meanings. This process is termed as scientific productivity.

According to Edward Sapir, in his theory, language is the key factor that influences both thoughts and behavior. If in case we can think and remember things linguistically, then the manner in which communicate affects our thinking and how we reason (Sapir, 1921). From that, we are able to understand our environment better. The world itself is divided into different language groups. As a result, people from various groups communicate in a way that they perceive the world entirely different from one another. Quinn Patton also once said, the language suggests impossible things that happen and also talk through boundaries. Language is, therefore, a double-edged sword. We can't reason without talking, and when we communicate, our ideas are constrained. Edward Sapir, while defining the status of linguistics as a science, proposed that human beings as ordinarily misunderstood, do not live objectively nor singly in the world of sociality, but at the mercy of his ability to communicate within the society that he lives in. It will be tough to imagine that one is living in an environment that he can adjust to the reality within, without using language (Sapir, 1921). Communication cannot also be any coincidental factor that is used to solve problems that arise from reflection. The very simple truth is that the extent of the real world is vast and is virtually built on the language habits of different groups that exhibit it. On the contrary, two languages can't be similar whatsoever since there are no such two words that can represent the same society of social reality. Societies are based on different yet distinct language groups. What we see or hear, and even that which we experience will always vary depending on the language habits of the community that we live in.

Both Lakoff and Johnson, in metaphors we live by, suggest that for most people, metaphors are devices of poetic rhetorics that are used as a matter of complex communication rather than pure language. They are as well viewed as components of language and are a group of words that portray no forms of action (Lakoff & Johnson, 2017). Due to such kind of reasons, most people think that communication without metaphors is straightforward and easy. However, research activities show that the use of metaphors in everyday communication activities is pervasive. It is part of our daily thoughts, part of our actions and also part of the language that we use. Metaphors are also the masterminds of our functions from the simplex structures of our operation to the most sophisticated detail of what we do. We would realize that the conceptual system we possess plays a great role in defining the activities we perform each and every day. We must, therefore, presume that this system is largely a metaphorical one. It is because it determines how we relate to other people and the society as a whole (Lakoff & Johnson, 2017).

Nature of Perception

Perception is a three tier structure. The first level involves selection. In selective perception, we attend only to data that is found in our immediate surroundings. The other tier is organization. Here, we share the things that we have selected via schemata. The last level is the interpretative perception. Under this level, we give meaning to what we have already selected and organized. We can improve our level of understanding via two important methods. One is via recognizing the cognitive compound while another is via improving mindful processing. The cognitive complex is all about willing to use your creativity in combine ways to achieve perception capabilities. It enables you to see the true identity of something and not just as plane as it is. It is also about ignoring all forms of contradictory information. On the contrary, mindful processing is all about staying alerted and possessing deep awareness. It is also about creating a proper understanding of the universe.

Theoretical Concepts of Communication

Socrates designed one such theoretical concept. His main message was that humans are purposed to seek truth by visiting their inner selves and rather by not being persuaded to into the truth by another person or by him. On the contrary, he is convicted of helping humans understand the truth by only formulating dialogues. Socrates had a preference for a more interactive manner of communicating or even to pose questions that are provoking deeper activity of the interlocutors. Communication according to him is a local yet intimate relationship between two people. He objected the issue of people scribbling because the writer can never control the audience of whatever content he scribbles. Another concept by Plato happens to be responsible for what is known as the modern view of the sophist. This concept portrays Plato as an instructor using rhetorics and majors on the ambiguity of what language perceives to support fallacious reasoning. What the sophist never advocated for is truth and justice but on the contrary, sorted for power. According to him, words could be used to disregard and omit facts in a way that manipulated emotions. Plato blamed the sophists for the arrest and death of Socrates. His animosity towards the sophists was therefore as a result of their inflated rhetorics. Since the rhetoric, in agreement with Plato's view, is based on the art and skills of doxa, he recognized the speech as quite dangerous. However, it is true that the rhetoric could be a source of civic life improvement. It could also be used to deceive and manipulate. As a result, the masses would easily be swayed by the speech that would be most persuasive. Plato's view is that the rhetoric is only a form of mere flattery and had the same functionality as any cookery. This was similar to trying to coat some unhealthy and undesirable food with some attractive layer of delicacy so that it seems totally tasty. The entire view of Plato significantly influenced western philosophers who altered their opinion towards rhetoric. Even though Plato influenced these philosophers, Aristotle did not coincide with Plato's view about absolute truth in his opinion under The Forms of Reality. Both Socrates and Plato agreed to the fact that truth lives in a person. They also agree with the idea that this truth could only be drawn out by the individual himself. Aristotle, on the contrary, believed that truth is all around in the environment. The same truth is just to be taken in by an individual through sense.

Aristotle, however, agreed with Protagoras on the issue that where certainty could hardly be available, advocacy or debate could be the best means of finding out what truth could mean. Aristotle views humans as beings with a language. His view is that teachers and orators should learn about the general conformations of hypothesis and also the questions from which the hypothesis was derived. One would therefore realize that language is the true measure of reality as it makes present what existed before. It is as a result of communication that reality is made present in a distinct manner. Immanuel Kant once said that language makes issues real and the world becomes habitable (Kant, 2001). The mind is the center station influencing the manner in which the world is perceived. Through time, we experience different phenomena and create categories of understanding. The truth is that reality and language are inseparable. The reality is intertwined to language. Martin Heidegger also said that language is the house in which humans reside. Within such, both genders dwell and coexist.

Reference

Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. (2017). Metaphors We Live By. University of Chicago Press. Retrieved 10 March 2017, from http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo3637992.htmlSapir, E. (1921). Language. Introduction to the Study of Speech. Bartleby.com. Retrieved 10 March 2017, from http://www.bartleby.com/186/Kant, I. (2001). Kant, Immanuel | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Iep.utm.edu. Retrieved 10 March 2017, from http://www.iep.utm.edu/kantview/