Communications Analaysis 1

1. The definition of communication is hard to pinpoint so Alban goes to the root of the word, which is the Latin term "communis", meaning common, general or universal. The meaning of this word "communis" is a key element of communication-a common or universal understanding so to speak. One of the main goals of "good communication" is using a common factor for a general understanding and production of unity.

a. Strengths of communication include the sense of unity it produces . it can provide shared feelings of pride, sadness, anger and excitement. While no one experiences things in life exactly identical to another, it brings people that much closer through the unity of their communication and understanding.

b. Weaknesses of communication are that it fails at times due to things such as physical barriers, linguistic barriers, and belief and/or cultural barriers.

c. If I could improve communication I would take away the linguistic barrier so there would be less struggle with misunderstandings of feelings/situations/etc in this "world of nearly 7,000 documented languages" therefore less failed communication attempts would occur.

2. When I was in high school, we had a foreign exchange student, Jero from Argentina. The concept of American football was so hard for him to understand. "Futbol" is pretty much the only popular/televised sport according to him in his country, but while it sounds the same, "futbol" and football are two completely different sports. Jero had heard of American football, but just could not seem to understand no matter how hard we tried to communicate and explain the excitement we had over different football games, and why there was "college football" and a "National Football League" and how they were all just so exciting to us. Granted, my family has always been a big college football fan, but Jero just seemed so confused by it despite our communication attempts, I suppose this could be considered a beliefs/cultural type of barrier.