By Daniel López
“By the way, what is communication?” it is probably one of those questions that cannot be answered by spitting a short and simple definition. Perhaps due to its wide range of views, perceptions, diverse definitions, or dimensions.
Nonetheless, skipping the “definition” issue, just assuming a general understanding of communication by pairing it with any of the definitions spread around literature or the world wide web, bring us to a newer field where communication is meant to be used. At this point a theoretical approach is not enough as long as communication is understood as the result of several combination that involves speakers, contexts and the codes. Additionally, the concept of communication, as a whole, flows along through different dimension, which are nothing by all those symbolisms used by individuals to transfer concepts, information, concrete objects or feelings. BUT, at the same time, individuals need linguistic competences so that language exchanges are effective, and then communication is achieved. Up to some point, it was understood that communication was the result of combining two pairs of reciprocal language skills (speaking and listening, reading and writing) this well explained around the theory involving the linguistic competence. However, years later a conception of understanding “communication” as the result of four main skills was “replaced” by a new model (the communicative competence) that offered a more opened view to put communication apart and encourage its exploration and comprehension. This, new model considered that communication was the result of intentional language exchanges, that varied from country to country, culture to culture, community to community and more importantly varied among individuals, the way they addressed each other, the register and formality used, jargon and slang and so many other features embedded in sub-competences related to where the language was used (sociolinguistic competence), how it was used (pragmatic competence), how it was structured and build (grammatical competence),how it was all put together so that language was coherent and cohesive (discourse competence) and how accommodation was one by the interlocutors regardless the audience’s knowledge, age or language proficiency, so that information was meaningfully delivered (strategic competence).
Consequently, we come to a point where the concept of communication seems to be stated and well explained. However, why is still so hard sometimes to communicate? well, have you heard students repeatedly asking their Maths teacher: “[…] why do we have to learn fractions? I´m never going to say, ‘today I ate 3/4 of cake’, am I?” as mathematics, chemistry or linguistics individuals express a necessity of understanding the real use of what they are learning, and question what they already know, because everything becomes meaningful, once it becomes “real”. In other words, when there is purposeness with “what I know” everything starts making sense. Thus, when a high school student uses a present perfect tense in a real context, that boring and tedious grammar lesson will become meaningful and important, or when they discover the conjugation of those irregular verbs that they have not been able to learn, in his favourite rap song there will be an intrinsic motivation to keep on learning them, or at least some attention has been caught.
On the other hand, it is obvious to recognize that some aspects of knowledge are abstract, theoretical and more imaginary than tangible, making it challenging to find the perfect situation or example to transfer data and decode it into contextual situations. “the girl came to me saying: ‘why do we have to learn about the seasons…when we do not have seasons?” well, in this typical case of young criticality towards what she was learning I would say “why do we learn about planets and galaxies? when we are not going there, or why do we have to learn that water is composed by one molecule of hydrogen and two oxygen, when we are not going to see them?” to this point the conversation drove towards letting the girl know that the more we know about the world, the more we reflect about it, the more we are going to understand who we are, how we came here, how we speak this way and not another, or how we used this specific sounds called phonemes to pronounce “sheep” and not “cheap”, and “sheet” and not “S…” (yes, that one).
Then, “communication” away from being a definition, a paradigm, a set of social conventions and symbolisms ruled by competences and sub competences, is channel to connect physically and emotionally with the world, people and roots. Communication is not pre-fabricated, instead is a co-constructed meaning by sharing experiences, backgrounds and heritage. Communication is what we mean when we say, it is what I scream with a gesture or a look but express with only a whisper. “/kəˌmjuːnɪˈkeɪʃən/” are not phonemes, but thoughts expressed through mellifluous sounds.
Would you like to think? 