Social conditions of effective communication

Włodzimierz Lapis (Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań)

I have decided to investigate, what - in people's opinion - is necessary in effective communication, and hence, what we understand under the term effective communication. I did my research using an innovative method of so-called "reverse analysis". I think that in the communication process humans usually express sth new, innovative, sth that isn't obvious. So, when we have to describe a robber, we don't say, he has 2 legs, 2 arms and 1 head, but we talk about his distinctive features. We talk only about distinctive features, because they are not obligatory, and therefore - they are specific.

I put in the Internet some queries:

1) "to understand* without" (in Polish: "rozum* się bez"),

2) "to understand* completely (or: to comprehend*, or: to realize*) without" (in Polish: "zrozum* się bez"),

3) "to reach an agreement without" and "to communicate* without" (porozum* się bez"),

where the asterisk stands for other inflectional forms.

These are my results

1) complementary phrases for the expression "to understand* without" (in polish: "rozum* się bez")

No

complementary phrases

occurrences

together

1

without word(s)

1177

1196

2

without unnecessary word(s)

15

3

without word(s) and other (e.g. without touch, gests)

4

4

without speaking

5

37

5

without any gests and feelings

4

6

without troubles and problems

23

7

without added explanations

1

8

some languages (e.g. without translators, language knowledge)

4

TOGETHER:

1233

1233

So, using the method of "reverse analysis", we can see that we normally need words here (in 97 %) and some other factors (only in 3 %).

2) complementary phrases for the expression "to understand* completely without" (in Polish: "zrozum* się bez")

No

complementary phrases

occurences

together

1

without words as a result of look

23

120

2

without words as a result of have a look

5

3

without word(s) in horoscopes (e.g. they understand Aquarians without words)

25

4

without unnecessary words

8

5

without words (different)

59

6

without troubles and problems

2

2

TOGETHER:

122

122

So, using the method of "reverse analysis", we can observe that normally we need words here (in 98 %) and some other factors (only in 2 %).

On the Internet there were 5 negation-sentences (not taken into account in above table):

2 related to words,

2 related to knowledge,

1 related to religious beliefs.

The results from this part are correlated with those given in previous tables, but now we have 10 times fewer results then previously (in perfect aspects).

3) complementary phrases for the expressions "to reach an argument without" and "to communicate without" (in Polish: "porozum* się bez")

No

complementary phrases

occurences

together

1

without conflicts, disputes

7

180

2

without violence, aggression

15

3

without troubles

7

4

wirhout problems

12

5

without difficulty

5

6

without obstacles

5

7

without any limitations

129

8

without words, language, speech

196

196

9

without mediation, mediations

16

92

10

without help

4

11

some languagest (e.g. without dictionary, translators etc)

37

12

without barrier and prejudices

10

13

with disabled (persons)

3

14

connected with manager with noise

3

15

without using additional devices and technologies

7

16

without mistakes

3

17

without facial expressions

2

18

without additional descriptions

4

19

without diplomatic losses

3

 

TOGETHER

468

468

So, using the method of "reverse analysis", we can see that we normally need:

conflicts, disputes, violances, troubles, problems, difficulty, obstacle and limitations (in 39 %),

words, language, speech (in 42 %),

some other factors (in 19 %)

The results are quite different from those two given in previous tables.

From this part, now we have another classification of (only) some sentences (only containing some adjectives, adverbs), which increase their expression:

No

"without" + word (fraze)

occurences

1

without using

28

2

without problems

20

3

without trouble

15

4

without necessity

14

5

without help

7

6

without obstacles

7

7

without the unnecessary ... (sth, e.g. words)

6

8

without major ... (sth, e.g. difficulty)

5

9

without ours

4

10

without any

4

11

without necessity

3

12

regardless of / irrespective of (in Polish: bez względu na)

3

TOGETHER:

156

Conclusions:

1) By the analysis, we have shown that 1. and 2. results are correlated.

2) The results show that the most necessary thing in communication are words.

3) In communication process, we pay attention to the material, not to the structure.

4) In my opinion, it's very interesting to analyze all the results and to compare them with some dictionary definitions.

5) My method of "reverse analysis" is accurate in language analysis,

6) I revised this method with my students and I see that it works (is really accurate!).

References

[1] The resources of the Polish Internet.