Verbal communication: what it is, examples, types, meaning

There are two main channels of communication between people: verbal and non-verbal. The first involves transmitting information through speech, the second - by all other available means. We have already discussed nonverbal communication, today we will talk about verbal communication. We will find out what it is, what it is like and what significance it has for us.

Verbal communication in psychology

The deaf and dumb also speak, but through gestures. You can speak out by changing your body position, facial expressions, and gaze. All these are methods of non-verbal contact.

Verbal communication is the transmission and reception of information through speech (it does not matter whether it is oral or written). Not all people understand sign language, but the sign system using words is accessible to most.

As a child, a person learns to communicate using speech as the most accessible and understandable way to express his desires and convey important information to his interlocutor. Phrases spoken out loud are more obvious than attempts to explain something with gestures. The power of words helps interlocutors hear and understand each other.

Formation of communication skills

Without verbal communication, a person feels locked in a “shell of loneliness.” The lack of communication skills will not give you the opportunity to explore the world, improve and reach certain heights.

Speech has a number of features that allow people to interact with each other. These characteristics highlight the importance of communication.

Components of verbal communication

The people around them have common preferences or different views on life - this does not prevent them from contacting each other. Speech helps build relationships (family, neighborhood, work) and is a tool for achieving one’s own goals.

How verbal communication is used

Verbal speech is called a sign system of communication, in which the meaning of the transmitted or received message is not lost. It is based on two principles:

1. a set of words of a particular language (this is vocabulary);
2. rules for creating speech units (syntax).

Nonverbal communication - what is it in psychology

In psychology, speech and thinking are inseparable, because the first is the form of existence of the second. When people communicate with each other, it happens according to this pattern:

• the speaker mentally selects certain words;
• using the rules of vocabulary and syntax, forms phrases from them;
• only then says them out loud;
• the interlocutor, having heard what was said, decodes the information for mental perception and creates his own images in his head.

Note! Even with clear transmission of information, distortions and semantic losses are possible, which amount to about 60%.

If the sentence was composed according to the rules of grammar, there will be no difficulties in communication. But only when people speak a language that each other understands.

How to reach your interlocutor

The same applies to written speech. To receive information from printed publications (or at least read SMS), a person must speak this language. To put your thoughts on paper (type text on a keyboard), you need not only to be able to speak, but also to write.

Spoken or written words help to analyze objects, events and phenomena, to find main and secondary signs in them. Naked, concrete facts are inherent in business speech. For emotional contact, verbal additional means are needed:

• voice modulation, intonation, pauses, rhythm in oral speech;
• the sweep of the handwriting and the angle of inclination, the force of pressure and the direction of the lines in the letter.

These expressive characteristics make it possible to understand how the correspondent himself feels about the message and the person with whom he is communicating.

Types of Verbal Communication

Why does a person need communication - what does it give and why is it important to people?

Verbal means of communication are speech, which in action is divided into 2 types: “speaking-listening”, “writing-reading”. In other words, speech is divided into oral and written. Each of them, in turn, is divided into components.

Types of speech

Written form of communication

There is another type of speech - dactyl, which is used by blind and deaf-mute people. The signs used in it are a manual alphabet that replaces the usual letters.

Oral and written speech are classified as external, the existence of which is unrealistic without internal speech. It is formed in a person’s head before the individual voices it or writes it.

Examples

Verbal communication is a broad concept that covers all types of verbal expression of thoughts. Vivid examples of verbal communication:

• Reading books, magazines, any text documents. A person may not see the author in person, but by reading his work, he receives the information contained in the text.
• Mental reproduction of phrases. This action is usually performed for a specific purpose. Often the goal comes down to the subsequent voicing of the phrase to the addressee, which implies the existence of communication.
• Writing a text message on any medium. The communicator may not see the recipient in person, but when the recipient reads the message, a communication channel will be established between them.
• Listening to text. An example of verbal communication is the processes: listening to a lecture, attending a lesson, participating in an excursion.

Dialogue in a personal meeting, conversation on the phone, via teleconference or other means of communication, messaging in the messenger are examples of communication using speech.

Language and its functions

Types of communication in psychology - what they include, its functions

Language does more than just express people's thoughts and feelings. It is impossible to imagine any aspect of life where speech is not used.

Language functions

To successfully use the functions of language in one’s own life, a person must learn to communicate and build relationships. The ability to speak is influenced by knowledge of one’s own and foreign languages, rules of speech production, as well as the mental aspect. Some people are prevented from communicating by fear of contact with other individuals. Inaction only makes the situation worse.

Definition and differences from non-verbal form

Verbal communication is a method of communication that is used everywhere and every day, which determines its important role in the life of any person. During a conversation, people exchange opinions, express thoughts, share knowledge and information. Nonverbal communication is characterized by the absence of verbal forms. The communication process is carried out through body language, body posture, intonation and facial expressions.

Sometimes the nonverbal form more fully reveals the depth of the information being conveyed by attracting intellectual resources such as associations. A person interprets an idea directed to him using non-verbal techniques subjectively, in accordance with the breadth of his horizons, worldview, degree of intellectual development, and the amount of accumulated life experience.

Australian writer Allan Pease, who gained worldwide fame after publishing his book Body Language, argued that a person receives 7% of information from words. The share of non-verbal signals in the total flow of received data is 93%. Nonverbal means of communication include gestures, postures, and facial expressions.

The nonverbal form of communication appeared before the linguistic one. Since ancient times, people have resorted to gestures and facial expressions to express anger, joy, fear, sympathy and other feelings to each other. These signs can be so eloquent and picturesque that they surpass verbal constructions in strength, expression and accuracy of reproduction of the underlying content. Benefits of non-verbal techniques:

1. Perceived directly, directly.
2. They influence the addressee with maximum force, almost always causing the effect of awareness and comprehension of the idea of ​​the message.
3. Convey subtle shades of emotions and feelings.
4. They help convey information that for some reason is difficult to express in words.

On the other hand, information transmitted by non-verbal means can be interpreted in many ways, which depends on the individual characteristics of the recipient’s perception. The possibilities of the verbal method of communication are often limited to the perception of the exclusively informative component of the message. Verbal means of communication predominate in the relationships between boss and subordinate, teacher and student, medical worker and patient, guide and museum visitor.

A person receives clearly formulated, detailed information that cannot be interpreted in two ways. The lack of space for creativity and imagination in decoding data is a condition for a clear understanding of the meaning, which is necessary and a priority in some areas of activity. In personal relationships, nonverbal methods take on greater significance than in professional, scientific, political or business communication styles.

The advantage of verbal means of communication over non-verbal forms is detachment from the moment. Nonverbal messages are limited in time, situational, often involuntary and spontaneous - nonverbal behavior is rarely controllable. Using nonverbal means, you can understand the current state of the participants in the dialogue. However, they do not provide insight into events and conditions that occurred in the past or at a distance from the interlocutors.

Rules of Verbal Communication

To achieve the desired result in the development of relationships, you should take into account some points and put them into practice:

• it is necessary to show goodwill and respect for the interlocutor;
• do not impose your point of view on the issues under discussion and tactfully avoid “sharp corners”;
• maintain logic in statements and consistency in conversation;
• build a conversation on short remarks and the optimal amount of information;
• present truthful information relevant to the subject of conversation;
• take into account in communication the nationality, social status and attitude of the interlocutor to the subculture.

Learn to communicate

In dialogue, it is important to maintain the order of statements. A person who interrupts the speaker for no reason emphasizes with such behavior the low level of his own speech culture.

How to Make Verbal Communication Effective

Thanks to communication, people coexist in this world, achieving certain heights in life. In order for communications to give positive results, and for others to want to communicate with a specific person, it is necessary to adhere to a number of principles:

• With your attention and interest, evoke a strong desire in your opponent to communicate.
• Evaluate people and events sincerely and honestly.
• Don't complain, judge or criticize.
• Show interest in your interlocutor, talk about things that are important to him.
• Learn not only to clearly express your thoughts, but also to listen carefully to your opponent’s speech.

Important! A thought poorly expressed can be misinterpreted. But inattentive listening also distorts the meaning of the information received. The ability to speak and listen are two components of communicative communication.

Interest in the interlocutor

• It is important not only what is said, but also how the words are pronounced. For the interlocutor, emotions and paraverbal signals (articulation, speed, tonality and accompanying sounds) present in speech can mean more than the spoken phrases.

There are people who can think clearly, but are not able to formulate phrases in oral speech. Others speak well, but have difficulty putting words into written form. Or vice versa - they present it beautifully on paper, but are tongue-tied in oral communication.

To achieve harmony in all types of verbal speech, you need to improve your abilities, overcoming psychological barriers.

Secrets of success in business verbal communication

Negotiations are an integral part of running any business. It is there that partners negotiate deals, sign contracts, etc. Your success and profitability of your business will largely depend on how well you know how to communicate, convey your point of view, and convince. Essentially, if you have good verbal business communication skills, then the business will flourish and generate income.

Equally important is the ability to inspire everyone around you with your ideas and enthusiasm, family members, team members, even your bosses. It's good if you can consider short-sighted decisions and dissuade people from implementing them. In essence, this is the foundation of verbal business communication.

Even ancient people at some point realized that reaching agreement on controversial issues was possible not only through military action. Yes, with spears and arrows you can easily get rid of dissenting opponents, subjugate the weak and force them to work for you, but in the heat of the struggle, your loved ones will also die. It is possible that at one time a simple survival instinct worked, but the person realized that negotiations, especially those conducted competently, are much more effective in helping to solve problems.

You can give a lot of examples of what methods people resorted to in negotiations at one time or another. Someone was waving a pistol left and right, and there were entire groups that sought influence by force. Somewhere in the far East, a joker walked around an old bazaar who, thanks to his sharp mind and sense of humor, was able to resolve any unexpected conflict. And the wise decisions of King Solomon will forever remain in history as the most competent and far-sighted.

• Masterfully conducted negotiations are half the success of any business

We can talk about competent technology for building verbal communication forever; this is an important and often discussed topic. And the issue of improving negotiation skills always remains relevant.

Where to gain this skill? It will appear with experience, here you should constantly practice, analyze mistakes (both your own and others), and learn lessons. Of course, the desire to learn and improve is important here. First, you study the issue theoretically, then train in the practical use of the acquired knowledge, evaluate the results, correct weak points, and then do it all over again. Work, work and more work. This is the only way you will gain serious skills, hone your skills in verbal communication and be able to negotiate competently and effectively.

In fact, you can work on improving your negotiation skills throughout your life; there are no limits or restrictions. With new acquired experience, you only hone your own skills even better.

No matter how much experience a person has in negotiating, there is no limit to perfection. Anyone who believes that they have reached the pinnacle of mastery in this matter simply does not want to continue to develop. You can and definitely need to constantly hone your skills.

• What makes a successful negotiation

To achieve high skill in negotiations, you should not only learn the basics of verbal communication, but also constantly improve your own skills.

What are the components of successful negotiations? Everything is important here, the smallest details, including sounds, smells, taste, color perception and the form of contact with the interlocutor. In the process of communication, this is reflected in the words spoken, the gestures a person uses, facial expressions, voice intonation, etc.

There are certain foundations for the formation of verbal communication, on which any negotiations are built. Сommunico translated from Latin means “I make it common, I connect, I communicate.” That is, the essence of communications is to establish a connection between people, to establish a stable, understandable and accessible exchange of messages for both parties.

In the process of communication, information is transformed from verbal to non-verbal form or in the reverse order.

In simple terms, information that exists in the head of one of the interlocutors is transmitted to another (one or more) using some verbal or non-verbal signals. And here it is important that these signals are as clear as possible. Then we can assume that communication was built correctly and the negotiations were successful. If we use the terminology of professional psychologists, then receiving and assimilation of information is called internalization, and giving information to others is called exteriorization.

It is not always possible to establish communication in such a way that the channels of output and input of information perfectly correspond to each other. Here you should pay attention to how the interlocutor reacts non-verbally to messages, what his internal state is at the time of receiving them. A person can be surprised, show joy, anger, agree or disagree, etc. And these reactions are expressed in the form of verbal signals, that is, some exclamations, phrases.

The functions of verbal communication are not to simply give or receive information, but to build a common process that is meaningful for both parties. That is, it is important that one participant in the communication expresses his thought, and the other hears it, realizes and accepts it.

Effective communication is precisely built on the fact that the parties first exchange information, digest it, and then together comprehend the essence of the issue being discussed.

• Techniques for conducting effective negotiations

Every conversation begins with a greeting. To do this, you can use different phrases, for example, “Good morning!”, That is, you wish your interlocutor a good start to the day. Or a simple word “Hello!”, which implies a wish for health. The greeting question “How are you?” you show interest and seem to invite them to talk. Or you greet a person with the phrase “It’s so good that you came”, “I’m very glad to see you!”, which undoubtedly demonstrates your respectful attitude.

At the beginning of negotiations, these so-called emotional strokes are extremely important; they set the partner up for positive communication, as if they give confidence in advance that everything will go well and the interaction will be useful and fruitful for both parties.

Of great importance is such a moment as addressing the interlocutor by name. Always remember that one’s own name is something that a person is pleased to hear always and under any circumstances (after all, that’s what parents, family members and other close people call him). Use this fact in verbal communication. Be sure to address your interlocutor by name, and in no case make mistakes in his pronunciation (this is unpleasant and even offensive to hear), however, you should also not repeat the first name and patronymic too often, so as not to get an obvious overkill.

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Depending on how the negotiations are structured, you can add social strokes, expressed approximately in the following phrases: “You are immediately visible as a professional”, “Your subordinates praised you very much, and I see that it was not in vain”, “I have heard a lot about you” , “Your long-time partners highly recommended you to me,” “I heard that you always keep your promises.” This is very reminiscent of moments when a mother praises her child: “How good you are!”, “You are the best child in the world,” “I’m proud of you,” and so on.

• The "Mirror" principle

The way you behave and communicate will certainly affect the people around you. Thus, by looking at the reactions of others, you can draw conclusions about what is wrong in your behavior, what people perceive as normal, and where changes would be helpful.

That is, in the process of verbal communication you receive feedback from others. They, like a mirror, reflect the results of all your words and actions, and you, in turn, give a verbal reaction to the behavior of your interlocutor and can thus control the course of negotiations.

It is important to convey to your partner information about how his behavior causes you to react. On the one hand, you can perceive his words and actions in a positive way, and therefore support the chosen line of negotiations. But you may not like what is happening, then you will have a negative attitude towards everything your partner says and make efforts to correct the situation and correct the behavior of your interlocutor.

All these are options for feedback when building verbal communication. You can show another, seemingly neutral, reaction, namely, tell your partner that he, of course, can have his own point of view, which, without a doubt, is professional and valuable, but your vision of the issue is still different.

What do languages ​​have in common?

A person uses two types of communication in life. Nonverbal language is not the prerogative of the deaf and dumb. It can be called an external manifestation of brain activity. Before even starting to pronounce phrases out loud, an individual can involuntarily hint about the course of his thoughts through facial expressions, body posture, and gaze.

But the interlocutor may misinterpret such signals, or the individual may deliberately distort the information conveyed by body language. To understand a partner and obtain more complete information, verbal contact is also required for analysis.

Nonverbal and verbal means of communication carry certain information transmitted to the interlocutor and are a way of organizing feedback. At the same time, body language can complement the verbal message, strengthening it, or, conversely, contradict what was said.

Intonation, timbre and rhythm of the voice are elements of non-verbal language. At the same time, these characteristics are a component of verbal communication. With their help, it is easy to change the meaning of a spoken phrase. But other signs of the body, if not controlled, will unconsciously “debunk” the falsity of the statement.

Verbal speech and body language in harmony

To prevent communication from boring your partner, both languages ​​must be balanced. Monotony, unemotional speech, and excessive gestures interfere with the perception of information and can alienate the interlocutor.

Misunderstandings not only lead to disappointment in relationships, but also to serious conflicts. This manifests itself at any level: in family, business, business communication, thereby complicating life. Having learned to master body and verbal language, bringing both types of communication into harmony, a person will achieve great success in any field.

Peculiarities

The main feature is exclusive human use. Speech skills are laid down at the physiological level (the speech apparatus, associative areas of the cerebral cortex that process speech), develop in the process of growing up, and improve throughout life. When a communicator needs to inform the recipient about events, ideas, ideas, ways of thinking, he encodes the message using words, reflecting his own judgments and conclusions.

The peculiarity of verbal communication is to create conditions for adequate perception and understanding of the information contained in the message by the addressee. We are talking about the unity of thesauri (vocabulary, vocabulary) of the communicator and the recipient. According to research, about 60% of information is distorted or completely lost on the way from the communicator to the addressee. Other features:

• A variety of ways to present information and styles. Speech text can be presented in the form of a regular letter, email, video, or reproduced phrase. There are business, artistic, scientific, and conversational styles.
• No restrictions. Using words you can describe any event, state, feeling, process.
• High information content. During verbal communication, its participants receive verbal information and, at the same time, information about the character, level of intelligence, worldview, life principles, and moral qualities of their interlocutor.

Without the use of verbal communication, it is impossible to achieve advancement in professional activities or personal growth. Speech promotes close interaction between individuals who can influence, guide, and orient each other.