Since the dawn of time, communication has been an integral part of our lives. From creatures of the earth down to our cavemen ancestors, we have made attempts to communicate our feelings, thoughts or actions to other beings. A bark from a dog can be its attempt to communicate its affection for the owner, or an expression of its aggression towards unwelcome strangers.
In my opinion, the best gauge of how our world has modernized would be how our communication skills have improved. As we know more about our world and our universe, it is necessary to develop better communication skills with each other. This can be proven with English, either the American or British version, being more and more accepted as the universal language. In recent years, we are also aided by the emergence of effective communication tools like Short Message Service or SMS and electronic mails otherwise known as e-mails. These help to cut down on time spent trying to meet up all around the world. However, the bare truth remains that we need effective communication skills no matter via which medium, so that we can cut down on unnecessary misunderstandings that can have an adverse effect on relationships or events.
There are countless examples I can think of which illustrates the importance of effective communication skills. Ancient Chinese wars (I’m thinking Romance of the Three Kingdoms) even make use of forged letters as a battle strategy, misleading generals into a trap thereby affecting the outcome of a battle. In my case, good communication skill is needed to bring my ideas or thoughts across to my audience. Choosing a wrong word when I do not actually mean it can make my listener develop the wrong idea. Besides this, language and culture plays an important role as well, and is especially important in a multi-lingual country like Singapore. One particular example I recall was when I went to Chinatown and I was ordering food. The stall owner thought I was telling her that I wanted the food when I told her in my dialect, “Mai”, which means “to buy” in Chinese. As a result of the misunderstanding, I ended up with a plate of chicken rice as well as a bowl of noodles for dinner. I hope this illustrates how important effective communication is.
On a lighter note, I would like to share some funny video demonstrating the importance of effective communication. Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKgRP5IgvCY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGSa9vQ2F6E&feature=related
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7 comments:
Hi Derek,
The dog example is excellent in illustrating how an action can be interpreted differently by different people. This also shows us that the message between a sender and receiver must be made as clear as possible to avoid any misunderstandings. This can include the right usage of words coupled with the right expression (pitch, tone, accent) and right body language. It seems difficult to incorporate all 3 elements in our conversations. But I believe that all of us can do it with extra communication knowledge that will be taught in this course.
I also had similar experience to that of your Chinatown account. I think we seriously have much more to learn on how to communicate effectively with one another especially since multiracial issues are very sensitive in our country. I can even foresee the upcoming problems posed by globalization because it includes a wider range of language, cultural and religious difference for us to overcome. To that, let us strive together to work towards a common goal that is to communicate effectively.
hi Derek!
I like the your examples about the dog and the 3 kingdoms, very original i think.
I would like to offer a counterargument about technology improves effective communication between us. With the improvement of technology, more options are available to us like sms, msn, email, webcam, in your face etc. However, choosing the right form of communication can sometimes be not so obvious, and poor selection can lead to misunderstandings about the person's sincerity. An example of this is most obvious in love relationships, where the right form of communication is not used.
Another point is that with so many ways to communicate available to us, the necessity of a phone call or even meeting up in person has decreased. This may not be a goood thing and might actually be considered a barrier or boundaries.
Hi Derek,
I really like your dog example. I personally have a dog at home and I must say that it is really interesting that sometimes, just the expression of my dog's face tells me exactly what my dog is thinking, whether she's thirsty, hungry, or if she's looking for someone to play with. There were times when I would be sleeping at home and when my dog starts barking, I would be able to tell straight away from the tone and aggression in her bark whether a family member has returned home or the postman's at my door.
I guess another example i got from reading your post is if anyone has actually experienced reading an sms and able to picture the state of mind of the sender, whether he/she is emotionally upset, angry or happy even though he/she did not explicitly state in the sms whether they were feeling as such?
On the whole i have enjoyed reading your post and you have provided really good examples that I can relate to my everyday life.
Thanks for the youtube video clip, it's relevant to this course and at the same time entertaining.
Hi Derek,
I can fully relate the 'mai' miscommunication. This is perhaps a common situation experience by many in a multi-cultural country like Singapore. But i believe we can use some body language or some nonverbal cues to tell them what we really want since this is a face to face ordering kind of stuff. I think a simple nod or shake of head with the 'mai' would help express which 'mai' you actually mean to the hawker.
I think your analogy of the dog is good as i could fully appreciate what you meant. I had a friend who kept a monkey in his place and the look of the monkey's face shows whether he is afraid or fond of you.
Hi Derek, technology has indeed increased our choices of mediums for communication. In Joanna's blog, she also mentioned how important it is to choose the right mode of communication for different situations. I think that it would be interesting if you could share your ideas with how each different medium which you mentioned can have different effects on our daily communication. I personally feel that our medium choice will be influenced by our sincerity towards the person as well as our relationship with the person whom we are communicating with.
By the way, was the chicken rice and the noodles good?
Regards,
Timothy Huang
u****911
Hello Derek,
I feel that you do communicate like a professional! You have added appropriate and entertaining examples into your post. Frankly, sometimes to communicate like a professional doesn't mean keeping to those strict, courteous, monotonous ways of communicating. Somehow, able to inject some sense of humor at the right time of the conversation does provide a relax mood for others. Most of the time, your audiences may even liven up and the bonds may even be more strongly bridged.
The Chinatown example you have given is truly realistic. I do encounter such problems too. I think it is really important for us to filter our choice of words at appropriate places, to prevent misunderstanding from arising.
Hi Derek,
I personally feel that what you mentioned on how communication skill improves when the world modernises is very true. The infusion of technology will bring forth various new channels of communication. But as Jiawei had commented, these new options have now opened a Pandora’s Box; more problems have emerged such as the poor choice of communication channels.
You also mentioned about English being more and more widely used and accepted as a universal language. While I think that is true to a large extent, due to the fact that for communication to be largely effective, a similar language have to be utilised by the participants of the communication. However, the fact that English have been gaining popularity cannot be solely attributed to the factor mentioned above. The most feasible reason for that would be due to the historical incidence of British colonisation in most part of the globe, that making the English language the “economic” language of the globe. However, we can most probably see this situation emerging in China right now.
On a final note, the two videos that you have linked were highly entertaining while highlighting succinctly, the problems of cross-cultural and cross-generation communication.
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