Verbal means of communication: concept, types, characteristics, examples and effective use

2024 Author: Miguel Ramacey | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 06:11

A person is a unit of society, and not only personal well-being, but life in general depends on his interaction with his own kind. Information can be exchanged both verbally and non-verbally. Which of these communication methods is more effective? What is the role of non-verbal and verbal means of human communication? We will talk about this below.

Which way of communicating is more important?

It is impossible to answer this question unequivocally, since in business communication the unconditionally verbal method prevails, and in interpersonal communication, rather, non-verbal.

Let's imagine a situation where a person who reads a report, instead of the expected and necessary dry facts, begins to gesticulate, click his lips, wink, jump and so on. This, of course, will amuse the dormant audience, but it can be perceived ambiguously. The business style of communication implies the maximum pronunciation of the information that needs to be conveyed to the interlocutor. But even in a dry report, there are many non-verbal components.

When talking to people with whom you have developed a close emotional connection, saying some things can look more ridiculous than replacing them with more understandable gestures. For example, when we call a person to come with us, it is enough to nod our head towards the exit; a sharp nod up and down with wide eyes will mean a questioning look, which can be answered with a nod (which will mean "yes"), shake your head left and right (which will mean "no") or a shrug, which means "I don't know".

Verbal

Speaking, listening, writing and reading are all verbal means of communication. In oral or written communication, the exchange of knowledge occurs only through coded information (in the form of sounds or symbols).

Verbal communication has certainly brought great benefits to mankind due to its unique function of high-speed doubling of the world. Saying the phrase "cup on the table" is much easier than trying to mime it with gestures.

By duplication, a language encodes information into a very compact format. This unit of information is so conveniently transmitted from mouth to mouth and from generation to generation that it is thanks to verbal communication that we can see pictures of the world that was long before us.

Nonverbalism

We get most of the information about a person in the course of non-verbal communication, which can be synchronized with verbal or be independentway of communication.

The interaction of non-verbal and verbal means of communication often occurs on a subconscious level. To the latter we include facial expressions, gestures, pantomime, change of location in the course of communication. But also of great importance in non-verbal communication is the appearance, style of clothing, hairstyle or headdress, accessories and fragrance of a person.

A well-groomed, neat personality with collected facial expressions and gestures can already tell a lot about himself to the interlocutor. At a minimum, you can read that the person respects himself, likes a certain style of clothing, prefers a certain brand of phone, works on his speech or is talented by nature, strives to make good money, has a positive attitude towards life, had a manicure this week, etc. Appearance - this is the first portion of non-verbal information. That's why they say they meet by clothes.

Without facial expressions, gestures and pantomime, verbal communication would look boring and incomplete. In addition, it makes it possible to understand the true essence of words, because even the word "thank you", pronounced with different intonation, can have an absolutely opposite meaning.

Intonation, voice pitch, length of spoken sounds, facial expressions, gestures, posture, body dynamics, angle between interlocutors, gaze… All this can say more than the words themselves. If a person is well brought up, then the discrepancy between verbal and non-verbal information appears more often.

For example, someone educated is late for the train, and his interlocutor still does not finish his story. Although this intelligent comrade will claim that he carefullylistens to his friend, but his feet are likely to be directed towards the exit, with his eyes he will subconsciously look for alternative ways to leave the room, scratch or pull at his fingertips. Gestures and facial expressions can be both conscious and project our subconscious.

Effective use of verbal means of communication with non-verbal ones makes it possible to perceive information in the most voluminous way. That's why many messengers offer a whole arsenal of emojis, cartoons and-g.webp

Verbal communication

The characteristic of this communication method comes from the main functions, one of which is the transmission of encoded information. A code is a set of words in a particular language. For full communication, it is necessary that the interlocutors speak at least one common language, otherwise the words may be misinterpreted or not understood at all.

Many have been in a situation where you had to show or ask for directions from a foreigner in a language you do not speak, or to parse his broken Russian. Meeting a blank look and assessing the complexity of what is happening, the whole arsenal of non-verbal means begins to be used.

Therefore, an important characteristic of verbal means of communication is the clarity of the material presented. Unfortunately, misunderstandings in a conversation are much more common than you might think. This also applies to those cases when people speak the same language, but formulate their thoughts differently.

However, the one who speaks linearly, clearly,in an optimal rhythm, does not branch off during a conversation, will always be understood. The problem of many people is that they do not know how to clearly express their thoughts. Sometimes they miss important nuances and describe completely unnecessary information, do not know how to prioritize, jump from one topic to another, mix many languages, saturate their speech with dialects, abuse parasitic words.

It turns out that the information seems to be voiced, but it is in the air, since the interlocutor is unable to accept it and sort it out, or the accents are so incorrectly placed in it that it is not possible to understand it correctly. The sounds are made, but there is little sense in them.

Types of speech activity

Speech communication can be both oral and written. Oral verbal means of communication include speaking and listening, and written means of writing and reading.

During the day, we use all four types of speech activity without knowing it. Even on the most passive day off, we greet someone, answer someone, listen to someone, read an ad in the entrance, a new newspaper or news on the Internet, send a message in a messenger…

Although scientists consider verbal means of communication to be a bad way of communication, none of our days can do without them.

Speaking

As you can listen but not hear, just like you can speak but not say anything. Let's remember a boring lesson at school or a lecture at an institute that was not seasoned with emotions or hard facts,there was no information that could leave an imprint in our memory. Or, for example, an ordinary conversation with a distant acquaintance about nature and weather, when silence looks ridiculous, but you don’t want to tell the secret.

Speaking, viewed through the prism of verbalism, is a competent linear and, most importantly, understandable presentation of information. But here's the trouble: if the speech is monotonous, devoid of the necessary intonation, pauses and precise gestures, then it is impossible to perceive it for a long time. Even the most interested listener will not be able to delve into the essence of the text after 45 minutes. All the efforts of the teacher or speaker are no longer perceived by the audience.

In order for the information to reach the listener and, if possible, not immediately fly out of his head, this verbal method must be supplemented with non-verbal tricks. That is, to make accents, which works as a psychological binding. For example, after voicing very important key information, it is worth pausing and then repeating the last sentence again. Even better, if this pause is complemented by a raised index finger.

Listening

Listening is the most active type of speech activity, nothing more than decoding the information spoken. Although this process is more passive, it still requires considerable intellectual costs. It is especially difficult for those listeners who have poor command of the speaker's language or certain professional terminology, or the speaker does not express his thoughts linearly, jumping from topic to topic,forgetting what he said at the beginning. Then the listener's brain works in an enhanced mode in order to put together a more or less clear picture from this.

It is worth separating the process of listening from hearing. Let there be no such word, but there are many popular expressions: it flew past the ears, flew into one ear, flew out into the other, etc. What does this mean? The listener accepts information only when it is intended to receive it. If internal problems or interests dominate information from outside, then most likely it will not be perceived.

We only hear important or interesting information and just listen to everything else. For this, we must say thank you to our brain, because it knows how to divide all the surrounding noise into fractions and weed out unnecessary ones, otherwise we would just go crazy.

Letter

Writing is a type of verbal communication that appeared later than the previous two, but in our time its popularity has grown markedly: school notebooks, personal diaries, business documents … A striking example of a verbal means of communication in written form are dialogues in a social network.

However, the letter has one very important function - accumulative. This is the accumulation of information in large volumes, which would be impossible without its fixation.

Reading

Reading, as a kind of communicative activity, is an analytic-synthetic process. The reader must decode the symbols written on paper, define the words so that they sound in his head, and, of course, understand the meaning of what he read.

In the first grade, when reading by syllables, it is very difficult for childrenconcentrate on the content of the text, as most of their attention is occupied by decoding what is written in the book.

Studying foreign languages, people again go through all the same stages of adaptation to the written text. This is especially true for languages that use symbols that are unusual for us: Arabic, Georgian, Chinese, Berber and others.

When we read, we analyze and synthesize information, but if we are unable to generalize, draw conclusions and predict, reading is not of great benefit. Do you remember when at school the teacher asked: "Did you read or did you remember the letters?"

Types of verbal means of communication

Depending on the number of persons participating in the communication process, dialogic and monologue communication is distinguished.

Everyone knows that a dialogue is a conversation between two or more people. It can be business, interpersonal or conflict in nature. Interview, conversation, discussion, interview and debate are referred to as dialogical communication.

A monologue is a story of one person. It can be directed both outside, to the public (lecture, theatrical monologue, report, etc.), or take place inside a person (internal monologue).

Zones of verbal communication

Have you noticed how uncomfortable you feel when someone gets too close to you in interpersonal communication? And how surprising is it when the other person, on the contrary, moves away, keeping a distance of two meters?Although this can be attributed specifically to non-verbal manifestations, however, when speaking verbally, it is worth knowing these rules for maintaining distance so as not to be considered strange or not to drive a person into an awkward position.

So, the intimate zone is a distance of up to 25 centimeters. It is often violated in public transport, but there are good reasons for this. If you get too close to a stranger, don't be surprised if they pull away. We let only the most trusted people into this zone, and the intrusion of outsiders causes at least discomfort.

Difficulties

Verbal means of communication (oral and written), according to the assumptions of some scientists, transmit only 20 to 40 percent of information. This means that the non-verbal component prevails significantly.

Indeed, if a person's facial expressions, gestures and pantomime disgust us, then it does not matter at all what he will say.

So, face-to-face verbal communication is the most complete exchange of information, as the interlocutors have the opportunity to observe each other's facial expressions and gestures, catch intonations, smell the aroma, which is also a very important component of non-verbalism.

However, there are people (and their number has increased markedly in our time) who, when talking face to face, cannot convey very important or reverent information, it is much easier for them to do this using remote means of communication.

Besides this, verbal communication has many grammatical, stylistic and punctuationtricks. If in oral speech you can stumble over a misunderstanding of the meanings of some words, incorrect stresses or parasitic words, then in written speech there are much more min.

Total illiteracy of the population began to progress about 15 years ago, when mobile communications and the Internet became available to almost everyone. The era of SMS has given rise to painful brevity, frequent correspondence in various instant messengers and social networks has blurred the line between business and friendly communication.