Definition:
The process of sending and receiving messages through verbal or nonverbal means--speech (oral communication), writing (written communication), signs, signals, or behavior. Adjectives: communicative and communicational.
See also:
- The Communication Process
- Conduit Metaphor
- Feedback
- Language
- Language Arts
- Listening
- Literacy
- Medium
- New Rhetoric
- Noise
- Orality
- Phatic Communication
- Principle of Least Effort
- Public Speaking
- Rhetoric
- Sender and Receiver
- Symbolic Action
- "Truth of Intercourse," by Robert Louis Stevenson
- Writing
Etymology:
From the Latin, "common"Observations:
- "The importance of rhetorical communication has been recognized for thousands of years. The oldest essay ever discovered, written about 3000 B.C., consists of advice on how to speak effectively. This essay was inscribed on a fragment of parchment addressed to Kagemni, the eldest son of the Pharaoh Huni. Similarly, the oldest extant book is a treatise on effective communication. This book, known as the Precepts, was composed in Egpt about 2675 B.C. by Ptah-Hotep. It was written for the guidance of the Pharaoh's son. . . . [T]hese works are significant because they establish the historical fact that interest in rhetorical communication is nearly 5000 years old."
(James C. McCroskey, An Introduction to Rhetorical Communication. Prentice Hall, 1986) - "It is the ability to communicate by using words that separates human beings from the rest of the animal kingdom. Our verbal ability also enables us to learn from the past--to benefit from the experience of others."
(Scott Ober, Contemporary Business Communication. Houghton, 2001) - "The newest computer can merely compound, at speed, the oldest problem in the relations between human beings, and in the end the communicator will be confronted with the old problem, of what to say and how to say it."
(Edward R. Murrow) - "Human communication occurs on the intrapersonal, interpersonal, and public levels. Intrapersonal communication is communicating with yourself. It encompasses such activities as thought processing, personal decision making, listening, and determining self-concept. Interpersonal communication refers to communication that takes place between two or more persons who establish a communicative relationship. Forms of interpersonal communication include face-to-face or mediated conversations, interviews, and small-group discussions. Public communication is characterized by a speaker's sending a message to an audience. It may be direct, such as a face-to-face message delivered by a speaker to an audience, or indirect, such as a message relayed over radio or television."
(R. Berko, et al., Communicating: A Social and Career Focus. Houghton, 2007) - "[The] various communication situations share some basic components: a context; a source or sender; a receiver; messages; noise; and channels, or modes."
(M. Redmond, Communication: Theories and Applications. Houghton, 2000)
Pronunciation: ke-MYONN-eh-KAY-shun
