Barriers to Effective Communication

 

A barrier to communication is when people try to communicate a message. They have to do it in a certain way to make sure the audience receive the message in the correct way. If the message is not understood it means the presenter has not clearly researched their audience in order to give an effective presentation.

 

General Communication

Cultural Differences

A potential barrier to effective communication is cultural differences because cultures differ in many ways and this can mean the presentation given to different cultures could all have different outcomes, because signs, gestures, and language are taken into meaning a different way for each culture. This can be a real barrier when communicating to a very diverse audience that includes people from a lot of different cultures.

An example of a potential barrier would be personality and non-verbal body language, the scenario would be a person from Spain who is in a room with an English person. In this scenario the Spanish person has very open gestures and likes to be interactive with touching others to show friendship, however the problem is that the English woman is refined and closed off to being touched by another when they do not fully trust them as English refine their emotions. This is a potential barrier because the person being offended will get the wrong impression from the other person and therefore they will not want to socialise with them, meaning a goal for effective communication is not met.

Another example of a potential barrier is gestures and a thing that can come into effect is another person touching an Arabians head as they see this as a sign of disrespect because their souls are known in their culture to be in their heads. However in another country this gesture could count as a well done job. In the same culture they have a rule that no one should shake their left hand, because they reserve this hand for toilet reasons. Therefore if you go to shake this hand you are showing great disrespect to them, causing them offence so they would be unwilling to communicate with you making this a barrier to effective communication.

Technology can be a potential barrier because the wrong grammar, punctuation and structure can be misinterpreted when given over an email or text. Without the rise and fall of the speaker’s voice the listener cannot tell if they mean something in a certain ways such as sarcasm, jokes etc cannot be understood without the correct pronunciation.

A mechanism that could reduce the impact of communication barriers could be to research into the audience’s culture, beliefs and attitudes. The presenter will have an extremely broad understanding of the acceptable and not acceptable gestures, language and body language.

There are mechanisms that can reduce the impact of the technology barrier because you could make sure someone else proofreads your work because they will be able to tell you the issues with the message portrayed. Another way to overcome the barrier would be to use technology in a formal way until you have a personal presentation/meeting with the audience.

Overcoming the potential gesture barrier would mean researching into who will be in the audience and what culture they believe in so that when making body gestures they do not offend  any of the audience.

Reducing the potential language barrier could be done by listening extra carefully to people with accents because of their difference in language, and nicely ask them to repeat what they said so that you get the correct meaning of what they said.

Interpersonal Communication

Techniques and Cues

Negative body language can be a potential barrier to effective communication because having a weak posture, offensive gestures and crossing your arms can all play a vital barrier in not communicating effectively. Having weak posture can suggest you are not professional or are shy because you are closed off. This can be a barrier because it means the audience will not want to listen to someone who is not confident in themselves or the topic they are trying to present because they will not believe the topic is worth listening to.

Offensive gestures can be a barrier to effective communication because it shows you don't know your audience so they will not appreciate or respect you because you have not taken the time to research what could offend them. Offending them with inappropriate gestures can cause them to stop paying attention to what you are telling them meaning they will not understand the meaning you are trying to portray to them. This is a potential barrier.

Crossing your arms can also be a barrier to effective communication because it suggests you are closed off to your audience and new concepts. This means the audience will not ask questions if they are not sure about something you have said so they will not get the correct meaning of the thing you were trying to say to them.

Another potential barrier to effective communication is intonation because if you sound mundane throughout the presentation the audience will lose concentration and therefore will not get the full understanding of what you are trying to portray to them.

There are mechanisms that can reduce the impact of communication barriers such as improving your posture. This could give the audience a different attitude to understanding the meaning, to improve your posture you must think about standing up tall to show confidence in yourself and the subject you are talking about.

Another mechanism that can reduce the impact of the communication barrier is researching the audience you have present in the room to find out about their culture and religion and what may offend them or even just finding out what different gestures means. Such as an 'OK' sign with your hand in England means okay however in Japan it means they want to talk about money.

The mechanism you could use to reduce the impact of the barrier negative body language is by making sure you research how to be open to your audience so that you seem professional and well presented. This means if you don't cross your arms you will be open to new concepts from your audience and then the audience will listen and ask questions about the subject you are talking about.

Raising your voice up and down can be a mechanism to reduce the communication barrier because the audience will remain interested in what you are saying and therefore will get the full understanding you require them to have.

Written Communication

Spelling and Grammar

There are many potential barriers when trying to communicate effectively with written communication such as when you write a letter etc you could use the wrong spelling. This counts for using spellcheck which is on Microsoft because it has an American spellings such as 'Organization' instead of 'Organisation'. Using an American spelling to an English person could make them think the text does not apply to them because it is for Americans. This is a barrier because they would not read further into the text so they would not receive the message you are trying to communicate.

Another barrier to effective communication is again spelling but this time the wrong spelling that makes it harder or impossible for the reader to understand the message you are trying to portray to them. This could also result in the reader misinterpreting what you are saying through a written message and because it is written it means you cannot correct your meaning and their interpretation because you will not be present at that time.

Grammar can be a barrier to effective communication because if the text has too many grammatical errors the reader will not be able to read the text in the right way and they will not interpret the meaning in the correct way. Also if there are too many grammatical errors they could give up reading the text and they won’t have a chance to even get half the message you are trying to get them to understand. An example of a grammar mistake is when someone uses spell check and they chose the first one so they end up with 'Defiantly' instead of 'Definitely' which they did intend to write, this can give a complete new meaning to the point they were trying to make.

There is a mechanism that can reduce the impact of communication barriers and this is when using a computer add the correct English spelling into the dictionary so that the 'Z's' in certain words are not used, unless you have an American audience then leave the 'Z's' in the text because they can relate to this more than English people can.

Another mechanism that can reduce the impact of communication barriers is using spellcheck on any words that are underlined red, but be extra careful when choosing the correct spelling because sometimes the top correction given is not the word you intended to write.

Proofreading your work can be a mechanism to reduce the communication barrier because doing this will ensure you find any grammatical errors that have occurred and that you can find words that have been missed out. Correcting these simple errors can make the text flow more fluently in order for your audience to understand the correct meaning and they will also be able to read the text easily.