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The nature of human
communication
Dave Hewett
This chapter looks at:
- How we communicate
- How communication issues affect all of us.
Is it not wonderful to be a communicator? Do you not think that human commu- nication is a brilliant thing to take part in, or to watch other people doing? Do you like ‘people watching’? Most of us find watching other people’s communications to be fascinating don’t we?
Think about all the things you do in life that you enjoy. Yes, there are many. But is it not true that the best thing for nearly all of us is just being with other people and chit-chatting? Most of us do plenty of it, every day.
This is a brief introductory chapter about communication in general. Before think- ing specifically about communication issues for some people with special commu- nication needs, let us spend a little time thinking about communication issues that affect all of us.
We human beings communicate in a rich and sophisticated way that sets us apart from all other species on our planet. No other animals can communicate like we can. Human beings communicate with incredible detail using language, but we are also probably more detailed visual communicators than other animals.
You will often see the phrase ‘communication channels’, being used. We will use it from time to time in this book; it is useful. Humankind communicates through these channels:
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Sound. Speech and language, vocalisations such as grunts, then a range of other noises can be communicative – lip-smacking, clapping hands, foot-tapping, and so on_._
Vision. Reading each others’ signals – facial expressions, eye contacts, gesture, body language, uncontrolled non-conscious visual information coming out of a person.
eye contacts, facial expressions, body language and gesture are as important as speech
communication is first and foremost enjoyable
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You will notice that in the list above, the phrase ‘non-conscious’ is used. In studies on human communication, there is increasing awareness of how wonderful our abilities are within face-to-face communication. Try to think for a moment about the process you are experiencing when having a conversation.
During conversation, there is turn-taking with speech of course. But in order to synchronise that turn-taking and be ‘in harmony’ with each other, it is necessary to ‘cue’ each other with visual signals and ‘tune-in’ and read those signals successfully. Otherwise, the conversation is a mess.
More than that, people communicating achieve a sort of psychological and emotional ‘tuned-inness’ with each other. Each person scans the other person’s face minutely second by second in order to pick up tiny bits of visual information that lets you know some general understandings about what the other person is thinking and feeling. You are listening to them with your ears, but also ‘listening’ with your eyes.
The quality of the eye contact is crucial (we usually find it uncomfortable not to receive any). However, it is also crucial not to make eye contact for too long (extended, rigid eye contact is usually interpreted as a signal of likely aggression by mammals). In British culture, eye contact during conversation is usually in bursts of a few seconds, with eyes moving away and coming back. However, if one person is making a prolonged speech, it can be acceptable to look at them in a sustained way.
This ability to visually ‘read’ each other takes place at high speed. Some of it, but only a little, is a conscious operation. Most of it is dealt with by cognitions at a non- conscious level – the brain’s processing power for this large quantity of informa- tion seems to operate better non-consciously. Conclusions from the information are then rapidly fed back into one’s consciousness as what feels like intuitive insights into the other person’s state of being. This has been called ‘automatic cognitive processes’. If you’ve never thought about this before, human communication turns out to be even more complicated than you thought, does it not?
However, all this probably provides one explanation for why we all like people watching so much. Since we are so visually expert, we can effortlessly pick up inter- esting titbits of information from people, just by looking at them.
The extent to which people use physical contact communication varies according to a range of factors. An important factor is the nature of the relationship and how well the people know each other. Another factor is culture. There are many studies that observe the differences in physical contact communication between people of different cultures. We must all have personal experiences of this. It is generally observed that traditional, white British society is one where touch communication is not used so frequently or intensively as in many other cultures and countries. These issues are described and analysed in the books by Argyle, Montagu and Field (see Further reading).
However, we all know that plenty of beautiful, warm, physical contact is absolutely critical to the development and well-being of babies. In fact, that seems to be the case for people at early levels of development of whatever age – communication and relationship with touch is extremely important to them. Use of physical contact
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within interaction is a theme of this book. Intensive Interaction activities can positively employ this channel. The sense in which physical contact issues may be seen as a ‘difficulty’ in our work is discussed in Chapter 10.
But, back to spoken language. Speech communication is, of course, incredibly important. It has enabled humankind to be different, to do things in complex ways. With speech and language we can talk, write books, have a society, culture, history, government, education, the European Union (EU), the United Nations (UN), the World Bank, cities, cars, space rockets and so on.
But, there is some thinking that the ability for doing these things is not really the purpose nor the main function of human communication. Communication is seen as satisfying all these needs (from Adler and Rodman, 2006):
Physical needs ‘Communication is so important that it is necessary for physical health. In fact, evidence suggests that an absence of satisfying communications can even jeopardize life itself … personal communication is essential for our well-being.’ Identity needs ‘Communication does more than enable us to survive. It is the way, indeed the only way – we learn who we are … our sense of identity comes from the way we interact with other people.’ Social needs These include ‘pleasure’, ‘affection’, ‘inclusion’, ‘escape’, ‘relaxation’ and ‘control’. Furthermore, ‘imagine how empty your life would be if these needs weren’t satisfied’. Practical needs ‘everyday important functions … the tool that lets us tell the hair stylist to take just a little off the sides, direct the doctor to where it hurts … ’ etc.
In an interesting book, Robin Dunbar (see Further reading section) proposes that the first function of human communication is social gossip. The human equivalent of chimpanzees and gorillas socialising by grooming each others’ fur. His researches indicated that 65 per cent or more of speaking time is taken up with social topics of one sort or another.
In fact, please think about your own communications every day. How many of them are important in the sense that they have a concrete product or outcome? Many do of course, and some of those outcomes are very important to achieve. Even successfully communicating ‘two sugars please’, is pretty important.
However, most of our communications with each other do not have a concrete product or outcome. Most of them are apparently purposeless, the ‘hot air’ of companionship:
- ‘Brightened up again hasn’t it?’
- ‘Did you see it last night?’
