INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION The study of communication processes After World War II the development of new communication technologies increased

the volume of information transmitted, thus turning the planet into a global village. The economic, political and social implications of this situation highlighted the necessity to dedicate more means to the understanding of communication interactions. An indication of this evolution is the creation of university departments focusing on the analysis of communication, the introduction of the domain as a subject in the curriculum, and the inclusion of communication skills among the requirements to be met by future employees. Levels of communication Generally speaking, four levels of communication exist. Interpersonal communication is that between individuals. Communication here can be considered a mode of decoding each other's private worlds. Group communication deals with small groups and the modes in which a group can communicate like an individual, or how communication dynamics differ in a group setting rather than a one-on-one setting. Third, organizational communication deals with bureaucratic organization and extended networks. Communication here must be tailored to many people with different responsibilities where efficiency and simplicity is stressed. Lastly, mass communication is public, media communication that is designed to speak to a huge number of diverse peoples. General description of interpersonal communication Any form of communication between two or more people is interpersonal communication. It can be a face-to-face discussion with a colleague at work, an email to your friend, a text message to your brother or a telephone call to a tech support representative trying to fix your PC. All people eventually must engage in interpersonal communication of some kind, as it is the most common form of communication in our daily lives. The ability to be good communicators is continually stressed at management conferences, teacher conventions, business forums and on the psychologist's couch. If you are a "people" person with good interpersonal communicative skills, you get along better with others, can get your point across in a diplomatic way, earn the trust of others, get others to follow your lead, stand up for yourself without losing your temper and are often more likely to get a promotion at work because your manager knows you communicate well. Normally, interpersonal communication involves the presence of a relatively small group of participants who are in close physical proximity to each other; the process requires the use of many sensory channels and feedback is immediate. Basic components of interpersonal communication: participants (sender and receiver), situation, task, format, processes and message.

Stages of interpersonal communication: producing the message (encoding), sending it through a channel, receiving the message, processing the message (decoding), storing the information, and retrieving it. Description of the components Participants: they bring in this exchange their identity (biological, psychological, social, and cultural), a background knowledge of the situation and of the topic, and their training, that are condensed in their assumptions as well as in their competence (social and linguistic). The process that unfolds is determined by the perceptions and the feedback of the participants, their contextual knowledge, and by the relations that are established between them, which are characterized by the following factors: common ground and differences, participation, control, emotion, levels of interaction, role taking and turntaking. Situation: motive, time, format, place and position. Task: the purpose of the interaction, its complexity, and the time limit. Format: interview, oral presentation, meeting, etc. Processes: speaking and listening; writing and reading; generating and interpreting nonverbal messages. Message: 1. channel (direct and indirect [message recognized subconsciously: body language]) and interference; 2. code; 3. components (text, visual aids, sound); 4. type :verbal, nonverbal; static (description), dynamic (process), abstract; 5. topic and information (quantity, amount of new items, structure); 6. questions (types and examples) : open (Tell me about yourself ?), closed (How old are you ?), primary (What is your favorite hobby ?), secondary (How much time do you spend watching TV ?), neutral (Are you going with us?), leading (You are going with us, arent you ?), sequences of questions (begin with an open-ended q. and continue with ever more restricted qs.); 7. answers (reliable, unreliable); 8. turntaking; 9. wording (precision, relevance, complexity, register); 10. meaning (overt, underlying, intended, communicated).