Communication in the 21st Century: Is It What You Say, Not How You Say It?

-Vivian Ta

Presented by: Jairus G. Jaro

What is more important, verbals or non-verbals

Generally, people have always given more attention to gestures/body language (i.e. non-verbals)
because it supplies a lot of information of which we don’t observe in verbals.

How do we even develop a mutual understanding?

Previously, experts have suggested that the development of common ground understanding is
largely depended on interaction partners coming to use the same words and essentially the same way.

The problem is researchers weren’t able to test this and determine if it’s true or not because
there hadn’t been anything that could measure what they want to measure.

But in recent decades, Latent Sematic Similarity (LSS) was introduced and was proposed to
measure and determine how similar two text to each other base on the words that were used.

Latent Sematic Similarities

The speaker then gave an example of how LSS works. When you proceed on having a
conversation, the LSS then will proceed to collect the words that were used, then create a contextual
meaning and determine the similarities of the words that were used by her and her friend.

The importance of What we say?

The main reason of her argument is that the Internet has changed how we see and use
communication in our everyday lives. Now, we primarily communicate by sending messages and emails,
giving comments on Facebook statuses and we also tweet. What they have in common is that they are all
text-based.

Our Non-verbal behavior, our gestures don’t really matter in this type of communication but we
continue to focus on it. The speaker also clarified that body language is important, but we also live in a
society where our communication is primarily text-based. We should adapt accordingly and begin to
place more importance to the behavior that plays a huge role on communication.
The Impact of Globalization on Communication Skills Development

-David Ingram

Communication skills development has always been important, but the influence of globalization and
cross-cultural interaction has impacted the types of communication skills needed in dramatic ways.

Today, people need to understand:

-the dynamics of long-distance collaboration,

-the impact of culture on manners of speaking and body language, and

-how to use technology to communicate with people on the other side of the globe.

Virtual Interactions

Modern entrepreneurs need to understand the strengths and limitations of different

communications media, and how to use each medium to maximum effect.

Cultural Awareness in Speech

The need for cultural awareness is a major impact of globalization on the required skillset of
effective communicators, resulting in the evolution of communication skills development programs.
Modern entrepreneurs and employees need the ability to catch subtle nuances of people's manner of
speech when communicating across cultures.

Cultural Awareness in Body Language

Awareness of cultural differences in body language can be just as important as the nuances of
speech.

Time Differences

The advent of global collaboration introduces another new dynamic to communication skills --
the need to communicate and share information with people across several time zones. When people
collaborate with others on the other side of the globe, their counterparts are usually at home asleep
while they themselves are at work.