Communication Skills-Key Terms

1. Channel: Medium through which a message passes from sender to receiver.
2. Communication: Refers to the process of human beings responding to the symbolic behavior of other persons.
3. Communication Competence: Ability to maintain a relationship on terms acceptable to all parties.
4. Coordination: Describe situations in which participants interact smoothly, with a high degree of satisfaction but without necessarily understanding one another self.
5. Decoding: The process in which a receiver attaches meaning to a message.
6. Dyad: A two-person unit.
7. Encoding: The process of putting thoughts into symbols, most common words.
8. Environment: Refers to the personal experiences and cultural backgrounds that participants bring to a conversation.
9. Feedback: The discernible response of a receiver to a sender’s message.
10. Interpersonal Communication: Communication in which the parties consider one another as unique individuals rather than as objects.
11. Intrapersonal Communication: Communication that occurs within a single person.
12. Linear Communication Model: A characterization of communication as a one-way event in which a message flows from sender to receiver.
13. Mass Communication: Consists of messages that are transmitted to large, widespread audiences via electronic and print media.
14. Message: A sender’s planned and unplanned words and nonverbal behaviors.
15. Noise: Describe any forces that interfere with effective communication.
16. Public Communication: Occurs when a group becomes too large for all members to contribute.
17. Receiver: Decodes the message.
18. Sender: Encodes ideas and feelings.
19. Small Group Communication: Every person participates with other members.
20. Symbol: Are used to represent things, processes, ideas, or events in ways that make communication possible.
21. Transactional Communication Model: A characterization of communication as the simultaneous sending and receiving of messages in an outgoing, irreversible process.