Demonstrative Communication
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Demonstrative communication can be categorized into three groups: physiology, body, nonverbal. Physiology involves body language such as posture, facial expression, and gestures. People can also use their bodies to communicate through facial expressions, eye contact, space, and appearance. Nonverbal communication includes emotion, eye contact, touch and tone of voice. All these are forms of communication that do not involve spoken or written words. Demonstrative communication involves and organized way of conveying a message or expressing feelings. It provides a good way of understanding other people’s point of view, as well as their thoughts and emotions (Lacey, 2009).
Demonstrative communication can be positive or negative, effective or ineffective. Positive and effective ways of communicating in a demonstrative way involve sending the correct message, ensuring the message received is correct and ensuring the message is understood and comprehended by the recipient. Demonstrative communication can also be used positively or effectively by using contradiction repetition, accenting, complementing and substitution. In order to show the sender that one is interested in the message, they can have steady eye contact, tilt their head to one side, leaning the body forward, or scratching the chin to show deep thoughts. There should be harmonization of body language with words through contradiction. In case there are mixed signals in communication, then a recipient would not be convinced by the message. There could also be the substitution of demonstrative communication with words in order to communicate effectively by clapping and smiling to show approval, showing surprise or eagerness by raising eyebrows, squeezing eyebrows to show disapproval or anger. There could also be complementing of body language with their message by adding a gesture, waving or saying hello.
Demonstrative communication can end up being ineffective or negative due to the existence of several barriers. One barrier to effective communication is wrong interpretations of the message. If a sender is not able to convey the message properly the receivers end up interpreting the message in the wrong way. Demonstrative communication can be taken wrongly by both the sender and recipient hence leading to ineffective communication. Different cultures use different body language to convey messages, and hence there can be the wrong interpretation of a message. Demonstrative communication can also be ineffective due to ignoring of the content. The sender has to remain focused on the content they intend to communicate. If they ignore the content, they will fail to convey their thoughts effectively to the recipients. The use of high pitch and tone would make the sender of a message fail to convey the right message to the recipients. If the tone used is not clear then the sender might fail to convey the correct message. Noise leads to ineffective or negative demonstrative communication. Noise can hinder the delivery of effective communication as it can lead to misinterpretation of information being conveyed.
Demonstrative communication can be negative when there is no eye contact between a sender and the recipient of the message. The recipient might fail to grasp or get a hold of the message because they are not paying attention to the sender by maintaining eye contact. Negative facial expressions such as frowning and yawning can result in negative demonstrative communication.
Demonstrative communication involves listening and responding in various ways. If a recipient is not listening when a message is being conveyed they, might end up giving a false or incorrect response according to the discussion. Listening attentively to a speaker who is positive and engages his audience leads to effective communication between the sender and recipient. In demonstrative communication, the recipient is required to listen and give the sender undivided attention, recognizing and acknowledging the information (Collins, & Rourke, 2006). Paying attention involves ensuring eye contact to speaker, listening to the body language, putting aside distracting thoughts and avoiding other side conversations that are distracting. Listening also involves showing that one is listening by ensuring they are attentive through the use of body language and gestures. Responding and giving feedback shows that one has understood the message being conveyed. It requires one to reflect on the message being said and ask questions in order to seek clarification on anything that is unclear. In demonstrative communication, responding involves giving feedback through reflecting on the message. One can also respond by summarizing comments made by a speaker regularly (Collins, & Rourke, 2009).
References
Collins, S., & Rourke, J. (2006). Listening and responding. Mason, Ohio: Thomson South-Western. Top of Form
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Collins, S., & Rourke, J. (2009). Interpersonal communication: Listening and responding (2nd Ed.). Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning.
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Lacey, B. (2009). Cognitive content and communication.
