Business English
At each stage in the process of communication – encoding, transference and decoding there is a possibility of interference. This may hinder the communication process. Such interference is known as noise. Often a comparison is made between communication and a leaky bucket. If you carry water in a leaky bucket, you will lose water at various points in the course of your journey, from the source of water to your destination. You cannot stop losing water because the bucket contains holes. The amount of water you lose depends upon the number of holes in the bucket, the size of the holes, the route you take to your destination and the time you take to reach your destination. Their may be other events as well that occur during your journey, which increase the amount of water lost. Similarly, when a piece of information is transferred from the sender to the receiver, the information may not be received by the receiver fully, due to the presence of holes called ‘noise’. E ach noise may affect the amount of information transferred. Just as in a leaky bucket, more holes decrease the amount of water, more noise decreases the amount of correct information received.
We may also misinterpret a message because of barriers. Hence, to ensure clarity in communication, barriers must be eliminated or minimized. In other words, we must identify barriers to communication and remove or minimize them to make messages clear to others.
To give an example, we know that sometimes people misunderstand our words and react in a way that we do not expect. Consider this situation. You affectionately keep telling your younger brother that he is too young to understand certain facts. He may not react to...
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